Commentaries Get Food Issue Right
Posted: July 31, 2009
It’s refreshing to be greeted on a sunny Friday morning with two pieces of good news.
First off, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial pages, often so wrong on ethanol, have a great opinion piece today by Norman Borlaug on how better seeds and fertilizers — “not romantic myths” — can help feed the world. Borlaug is a professor at Texas A&M University who won the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his contributions to the world food supply. He writes:
“Of history, one thing is certain: Civilization as we know it could not have evolved, nor can it survive, without an adequate food supply. Likewise, the civilization that our children, grandchildren and future generations come to know will not evolve without accelerating the pace of investment and innovation in agriculture production.”
Secondly, we have an article in The American, the magazine of the American Enterprise Institute, that takes the Food Inc. crowd to task. It’s by someone who has also contributed to world food supply, Missouri farmer Blake Hurst.
“On the desk in front of me are a dozen books, all hugely critical of present-day farming. Farmers are often given a pass in these books, painted as either naïve tools of corporate greed, or economic nullities forced into their present circumstances by the unrelenting forces of the twin grindstones of corporate greed and unfeeling markets. To the farmer on the ground, though, a farmer blessed with free choice and hard won experience, the moral choices aren’t quite so easy. Biotech crops actually cut the use of chemicals, and increase food safety. Are people who refuse to use them my moral superiors? Herbicides cut the need for tillage, which decreases soil erosion by millions of tons. The biggest environmental harm I have done as a farmer is the topsoil (and nutrients) I used to send down the Missouri River to the Gulf of Mexico before we began to practice no-till farming, made possible only by the use of herbicides. The combination of herbicides and genetically modified seed has made my farm more sustainable, not less, and actually reduces the pollution I send down the river.”
