Local Food Sustainability

Happy Monday!

To start your week, with spring in the air, here's what has to be a very inspiring story:

it's about a small village in England that is really taking the local food sustainability idea to the next level:

martin

climate change and farming in Ireland: part 2

photo by: Mariah gale, licienced under creative commons

In November, Minister for the Environment John Gormley said that �all sectors will have to cut emissions�. According to Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Brendan Smith TD, �making significant cuts from agriculture will be very difficult�.

He warned against �significant downward pressure on animal numbers, something that would �in a global context make no sense�.

The Minister said that if Ireland was to reduce cattle numbers, the global climate change situation would actually be worsened because "Irish beef would simply be replaced on world markets by beef produced in a much less sustainable way".

This point of carbon leakage has been raised in many quarters. Essentially the suggestion is that if we stop producing, other less sustainable regions in the world will instead. This will increase rather than decrease overall GHG emissions.
Department of Environment representative, when queried, claimed that �there is no confusion between this Department and the Department of Agriculture on greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture sector.�

Simple and straightforward. And yet, there since the EU targets were agreed, there has been a rumbling on going discussion on footing the GHG bill. Enough to remind one of Queen Gertrude's most famous line: 'The lady doth protest too much, methinks'.

What has been dubbed the 'cow tax memo' suggested, according to reports, that �imposing a levy on all livestock is the best way to avoid having to cut the size of the national herd�.

This memo proposes a levy set at �5 per tonne of CO2 emitted, to generate just over �100 million. This has been reported as an equivalence of a levy of �13 for each dairy cow, �7 for non diary cow, �1 for sheep.

Minister Brendan Smith and even the EU commission have all come out railing against the possibility of this cow tax.

According to former Green Party leader, Minister of State Trevor Sargent, who's brief also includes cattle breeding, �A myth has been peddled however claiming Minister for the Environment and Local Government John Gormley T.D. is in favour of a cattle cull to reduce methane emissions. This is completely untrue and is a gross disservice to the work Minister Gormley has been doing to help the long term viability of all sectors, including agriculture�.

He points to two crucial areas his colleague has achieved for Ireland and agriculture with regard to climate change: In the European climate change deal agreed before Christmas, �Minister Gormley ... achieved flexibility in the deal to ensure that Ireland did not face higher costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and that we would not be forced to reduce our national herd�.

Gormley �also met with the European Presidency�s chief climate change negotiator, and was successful in having carbon leakage placed onto the agenda for future climate change negotiations�.

Just how much agriculture should pay is an altogether more interesting question in a contracting economy.

While demand for higher end food products may reduce abroad, it is likely that agriculture, which already provides 32% of net foreign earnings, will become more prominent in the future. Ireland have various practical advantages in producing food (e.g. climate, access to markets) which do not pertain in most other economic sectors.

According to Dr Mary Kelly of the EPA �The profile of greenhouse gas emissions in Ireland is unusual in the European context, with agriculture currently accounting for 27 per cent of all emissions and 40 per cent of emissions in the non-trading sector. This makes it very difficult to effect actual reductions on the scale required in the non-trading sector�.

The Koyoto targets, it seems, might be reachable due to recession. However the EU targets will prove far more difficult. Climate change experts have predicted that Ireland's' emissions will be down by between 5 and 9% in 2009, because of the recession.

Frank Convery, professor of environmental policy at University College Dublin, was reported recently as saying that Ireland's emissions may well be as close to the 63 million tonnes permitted under Koyoto. This would save the government E300 million in the purchase of carbon credits.

A recent EPA report, issued in March of this year, considers different scenarios, including that of economic shock until 2010 � decline by 7% each year until 2010, and then growth until 2020.

According to the EPA report, irrespective of economic performance, there is only one scenario for agricultural emission projections:

�Emissions are projected to decrease by 4% over the period 2007 � 2020 to 17.8 Mtonnes of CO2e.� This estimate was actually 18.95 Mtonnes in 2008, so agriculture is performing even better than just last year's predictions from the EPA itself. Agriculture in 1990 accounted for 35% of emissions.

Individual sectors performance within agriculture underscore this fact: According to Dr Gerry Boyle of Teagasc �Technological advances in dairy production, for example, have led to a drop of 12.4% in the amount of methane produced per kg of milk between 1990 and 2006�.

Most GHG emissions from Irish agriculture are methane from livestock and nitrous oxide from soils.

Specific measures under the Rural Environment Protection Scheme (REPS) �are expected to raise awareness amongst farmers of the need to address climate change and also to promote greater acceptance and uptake of technologies that contribute to greenhouse gas abatement, such as use of minimum tillage and the adoption of low emission trailing shoe technology for slurry spreading� a DAFF spokesperson said, when queried.

Other abatement strategies include: dietary modifications, additives or probiotics to reduce methane production, breed selection, increasing the length of the grazing season and breeding more efficient animals.

The spokesperson also pointed out that the nitrates directive had resulted in �better use of nutrients with consequently less nitrogen application and therefore fewer nitrous oxide emissions�. This includes matching nitrogen use to soil type, increasing clover use on farms, use of nitrate inhibitors�.

It was also suggested that �in terms of reduced fertiliser use and consequent emissions, organic farming will also have a role to play and is supported through the Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Food's Organic Farming Scheme.�

Forestry and energy crops are also relevant. To encourage energy crop cultivation, the National Energy Crop Premium (E80 per hectare) was introduced in 2007 to supplement the EU Premium of E45 per hectare.

A new Bioenergy Scheme was also launched offering establishment grants worth E1,450 per hectare to plant willow and miscanthus. Land planted with energy crops can also benefit under the Single Payment Scheme as well as REPS and the Disadvantaged Areas Scheme, subject to some restrictions on the areas planted.

The main issue from a farming perspective is, according to Gerry Boyle, �Gaining credits for afforestation and biomass production for bioenergy is problematic�. However, �there is no basis in logic for the agricultural sector not benefiting in accessing these offsets given that it is farmers that will need to alter their land use practices�.

However, there are other laggard areas. Gary Lanigan is a Teagasc research officer based in Johnstown Castle. His area of speciality is emissions, including GHG emissions, and soil carbon content.

According to Lanigan, while fertilizer usage is down down 20-25% from 1998, and while sheep and cattle numbers are down too, he estimates that �Only about 1% of farmers are using clover�.

Considering the numerous cost and environmental benefits, this is an astounding figure.

There are many considerations in the debate on GHG emissions. A complete and comprehensive life cycle analysis might skew all the figures again: While the application of fertilizer produces GHGs, so to does the making of fertilizers.

A nagging worry of course is the possibility that the scale of the problem and the scope of the solutions simply do not match up.

In the meantime, matching efficiencies and emissions, and seeing opportunities in the constraints may help agriculture move forward sustainably.

farming's future sustainability

Here's an interview I did with Richard Douthwaite (right) of FEASTA. It appeared in last week's Farming Examiner as the front page and centre page spread.

Oliver Moore: Can you outline the overall situation with regard to the sustainability of farming, as you see it Richard?

Richard Douthwaite: Modern industrialised farming, particularly tillage, has been described as a way of converting fossil energy into food energy. There�s a lot of energy used in the application of fertilizer, in tractors, in sprays, then in packing and getting the food to the customer. The whole process is not sustainable. In traditional forms of farming, it took 4 units of energy to produce each unit of energy in food. Most of that energy was directly from the sun, and all from renewable sources. Now there are 40 units of energy going into the production of food in the Europe, and perhaps up to 90 in the US. Most of that is from fossil fuels. That can�t continue.

OM: Within this broad picture, what is the key problem?

RD: The problem is that we�re not recycling the nutrients. Quite a lot of the nitrogenous fertilizer breaks down in the soil and becomes nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas (GHG), and one of the main sources of GHGs in farming. A lot of energy is used in the production of those nitrogenous fertilizers and most of it is wasted because the nitrogen is not taken up by the plants. There's more waste when the crops leave the farm because the nutrients they contain aren�t recycled: There�s nitrogen in the proteins that go off, and there�s phospates going off too. They are consumed by whoever eats the food and go into the sewage system, and don�t get back onto the land. As a consequence of this, we need to apply more artificial fertilizers. There is a growing problem with phosphorous. There�s a finite supply: rock phosphate is getting scarcer and scarcer, and that then means that more and more energy is needed to make it available to us and to transport it from places like Morocco.

So we need to think of how fertilizer can be better retained in the soil, so that if you are putting nitrogen on, it stays there. We need to minimise the use of artificial nitrogen, and to start replacing it with organic sources, such as legumes which fix nitrogen. Then, we need to make sure that any that escapes is recycled.

OM: What are the future implications for farming?

RD: Agriculture is likely to become more labour intensive again. The trend towards the larger farms will be reversed as the cost of food and fuel rises in real terms and takes a higher proportion of non-farmers' incomes. Farmers won't just be growing food. They will be producing fuel, chemicals, fibres and building materials as well. A whole new category of multi-purpose crops will emerge.

OM: How do you envision these multi purpose crops being utilized most efficiently?

RD: It may emerge in a way similar to the co-op creamery structure of a century ago, where the co-op would take the milk and the farmer would take back the whey. I envisage a co-op bio-refinery in each community to which farmers would deliver crops like miscanthus, which would be refined to give protein powder, biogas, diesel fuel, plastics like nylon, pesticides and soil improvers. The farmers would take the improvers back to their farms to recycle the nutrients that were in the crop they delivered to the refinery. Because transport will become more expensive, the plants' bulk will be reduced in rural areas and there will be centralised refineries regionally that take the valuable bits and process them further. At the bioenergy show in Tullamore this year, miscanthus was being sold in compressed blocks for people's fires, just like the wood blocks made from compressed sawdust. But 20% of dried grass is plant protein � that�s too valuable to burn. Quite simply, we should be taking out the valuable bits before burning any biomass.

OM: So the biorefineries would produce biofuels like biodiesel?

RD: Yes, but I should emphasise that these would be second-generation biofuels, produced by breaking down the cellulose found in all plants. Feasta is very much against the production of most first-generation biofuels, such as ethanol from maize and wheat and biodiesel from oilseed rape. These make no sense from an energy or a climate point of view. Their production is entirely driven by tax-breaks and the net result has been to increase hunger around the world. The only first generation biofuel that is acceptable is ethanol from sugar cane in Brazil.

OM: If farmers go in this direction in the near future, what�s in it for them?

RD: If farmers can increase the carbon content of their soils, or the semi-permanent biomass that�s growing on them, they need to be rewarded in some way for doing this because they would be helping prevent climate change. Part of their reward would be that they made their soil much better. It is however, very difficult to measure the carbon content of soils to pay farmers a set amount per tonne for the carbon that they have taken in. Feasta is therefore setting up a working party to develop a new concept of best practice - to develop a better understanding of the types of farming that involve sequestering more and more carbon in the soil or in the plants growing on the soil. It needs to become financially beneficial to follow best practice. There could be payments through REPS, or the price of the crops could be subsidised in some sort of way. We�re going to need people in the working party with expertise in this area, and we�re getting very good co-operation from the universities and from Teagasc on this.

OM: Are there any new developments that might help with soil performance and quality?

RD: Feasta has become particularly interested in the inclusion of charcoal in the soil. It has recently been discovered that the pre Columbian Indians put charcoal into the soil because it held the nutrients there. Also, there was an increase in microbial and fungal activity which made the soil more fertile. These soils still exist in the Amazon basin where they are called terra preta, which means dark earth. What happens, it seems, is that the fungi feed on sugars sent down by the plants, and they in turn send up nutrients to the plants. So the plant sequesters carbon too. Terra Preta promises to do three things: 1 sequester more carbon in the soil; 2 hold nutrients there more efficiently; 3 give bigger crops.

OM: Where does Feasta stand on the cows vs cars debate?

RD: We don't think there should be a debate at all. Some civil servants seem to think that because cows' digestive systems give off methane, a GHG, Ireland should reduce its greenhouse emissions by cutting the number of either cars or cows. This is, we think, a total misconception. We've tried to get the IFA to make the case that cows are very different because the methane they release is not adding fossil carbon to the air but it just doesn�t seem to be bothered. It seems to hope that its political muscle will shield its members from any herd-reduction measures the government might introduce. The ICMSA has a very much better attitude.

OM: But isn�t methane a serious GHG?

RD: Methane is a very serious GHG. It�s probably 60 times worse than CO2. Official figures suggest that it is 23 times more, but that�s over a 100 year period. However, all its heating effect is concentrated in the first few years before it is broken down. But - and this is crucial - the carbon in the methane released by cows comes from natural sources. It is not adding continuously to the carbon in the air, because the plants that the cows grazed on picked up the carbon from the air. So the cows are part of the natural carbon cycle. They are not leading to a net increase in the warming effect. If you increase the size of the national herd, you get a once off increase in methane; you don�t get a continuous increase in CO2 levels, as you do if you are burning fossil fuels in a car. So there is no comparison at all between cars and cows.

OM: I presume you are talking about grass-fed animals, where the grass gets its nitrogen from legumes? And surely processing, distribution and so on need to be taken into account before you can presume diary and beef will be acceptable in sustainability terms?

RD: If meat and milk is to be produced anywhere in the world, Ireland should be one of the places producing them because the fossil fuel emissions from producing them here are lower than they would be almost anywhere else. You've also got to consider the carbon emissions if forest is cleared for beef production in places like Brazil. And, because Ireland is close to a lot of people who need meat and milk products, it should not take a lot of energy to get the food to them, although more of it will go by sea in future rather than by truck.

OM: So, in certain relatively easy to attain circumstances, we can keep our beef and dairy industries.

RD: Yes, I think so. But many more cattle will be kept indoors so that the slurry can be turned into biogas. This will be used for heating, for electricity and compressed to run vehicles. Farmers have been very slow to realise that the energy content of a bullock's dung is worth more than its meat.

OM: What's the biggest challenge facing Irish farmers?

RD: They, in common with farmers around the world, have got to find ways of turning their sector from being a source of greenhouse emissions into a sink which removes them. At present, about a quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture and changes in land use, such as forest clearance. Those emissions not only have to stop but, because the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is already above the safe limit, CO2 needs to be removed from the air quickly, before it has set off a disastrous uncontrollable global warming process. We might have thirty years to do this. There's no high-tech solution. Only the world's farmers can respond in time.

Training opportunities in the organic centre, rossinver

Here's an article on that eco-institution of the north west of ireland, the organic centre in Rossinver .It was established in the mid 1990s, and has put many thousands of people through their own unique take on the learning experience. A link to their site is at the botttom of the article, which focuses on their training 2008 programme.

Interested in training in an aspect of organic farming or growing? Or are you interested in learning more about how to make your life more sustainable and self-sufficient? Then have a look at the Organic Centre�s 2008 course and training programme.

While the centre is based in Leitrim, their courses are also delivered in Clare and Wicklow. The person behind the programme is Hans Wieland.

According to Hans, there is plenty for people interested in becoming a full time commercial grower: �we have a one year FETAC level five course for those interested in professional organic growing.�

This course involves 8 FETAC level five modules, five of which are horticultural: organic food crops, organic crop protection, organic soil management, principles of organic plant growth, and finally the farm environment. These are complemented by work experience, communications and business/IT skills modules.

�We�re also working with the new NATS organisation, the National Organic Training Skillsnet, formerly the Western Organic Network, and together we offer courses for commercial growers. These are for people who may be already in production, who want to diversify, upgrade their skills and son on. These include a seven day commercial horticultural course starting on Monday 18^th February, protected cropping on 26^th February, Orchards on 11^th of March, medical herb production in April and organic salad production with Jim Cronin in Clare in June�

As part of their training, Jim also runs a one year full time commercial training course in organic market gardening in county Clare.

Their programme also lists a course that can be done on individual days, or in one, five or 10 day blocks, called The Complete Organic Garden. This starts next Saturday, February 2^nd.

According to Hans, �We also offer one-to-one sessions, mentoring for growers in the centre. Sometimes people want one-to-one in polytunnels, or other commercial options�

It is also the case that many of the one day and weekend courses may be suitable for growers; trees and woodlands, advanced gardening, grafting, gourmet mushroom growing, seasonal fruit growing courses and more.

As well as these courses, there are courses on cooking - one that caught my eye was �cooking by your blood group� with Dr. Prannie Rhatigan, a public health doctor; others include cheese making, gourmet mushroom growing, bread making and the like. While some of these could lead onto commercial enterprises, the Centre retains a focus on what could be termed a self-sufficient well fed lifestyle.

Then there are the small scale renewables courses, the arts and crafts courses and more again that are difficult to categorise. Sustainability includes energy conservation, sustainable house design and construction, reed bed systems; the arts and crafts includes silk painting, willow sculpture and micro hydro power generation. The novel, quirky one that most stood out for me was, without doubt a course on The Planning Process - a Layperson�s Guide to Supporting or Objecting to Planning Developments.

A classic catch all course on offer is called How to Live the Good Life, which does exactly what it says on the tin: it offers life skills over five days in growing vegetables organically, growing and using herbs, growing fruit for the home, making yoghurt and soft cheeses, baking and cooking with wholemeal and storing and preserving, introductions to yoga and relaxation techniques, sustainable building, a seaweed walk on a local beach and a visit to a local organic farm.

According to Hans, the Good Life course is moving from being a hobby course into a slightly more business-focused, skills course. �People have started to learn how to be more efficient and conscious, so its now more a survival skills course. People have starting using this course to also make a better living on their enterprise, over the five years its been running.�

With all of this going on, I asked Hans if �Organic Centre� was a bit of a misnomer as a name: there are so many courses in what could be called the non-commercial growing area on offer. �I suppose it is. We have changed our subtitle, which used to say training and education in organic growing and farming. Now we�ve added sustainable living.�

Indeed they have.

For more phone 071 9854338 , or c hear

oil and Ireland's coping strategies: that $100 moment

Here's an article I wrote for the 'eye of the storm' op ed in the examiner. I haven't had an op ed before, so was v pleased to write it. It was all very frantic - I had a particular hour to get the article in by, which is unusual for me. And that hour was 2pm the day before the Saturday edition of the paper. It was also slightly outside of my normal remit, but I though I could perhaps start doing some news features for a change.

Don't worry foodies, there's plenty on food in it! I do regret not including the following things, however, so I'm glad to be able to include them now:

best place for info on peak oil is probably: this place! http://www.feasta.org/

John Gormley also obviously introduced the VRT changes and the lightbulb changes
and decoupling in Irish Agriculture has reduced the emissions from agriculture.

So here is the article:

It had to happen. With oil hitting and hovering around $100 dollars the whole world is now talking and thinking about oil. So how dependent are we on it, how much is there really left and what are we doing to adapting to a world with less oil?

It is thought that we are more efficient and less dependent on oil than we were in the bad old days of the 1970s. There are a number of problems with this thesis. Firstly, there is the fact that we are a far more globalised economy than we were back then. Since then, national economies have been deregulated and trade liberalised, so that now, many products are made up from a multitude of interconnected and intercontinental components. And plastic has, of course gone forth and multiplied.

Laptops, disposable containers, toys, toothbrushes, cameras, the list of personalised products goes on. But then, the functioning of many aspects of the economy is dependent too: medicines, food production and transport, are all either quite literally fuelled by or dependent upon oil.

Take food: Fertilizer production and transportation is heavily oil dependent. Prices are rising � Nitrogen (made by oil at present) is up 50%, Phospate (also a finite resource) is up 67% - and the consumer is starting to experience this.

With globalisation has come global sourcing of foods and agri-food inputs; we in Ireland have a very weak food producing infrastructure, once we start to consider foods other than meat and milk. Even these depend on winter feeds which are heavy oil users, both in production and transport.

According to the junior minister with responsibility in the area, Trevor Sargent, there are less than a dozen large scale vegetable producers left in Ireland at present.

Just-in-time deliveries by road mean that supermarkets have jettisoned their storage spaces and instead opted for storing food in refrigerated trucks on the roads. Food processing is ever-increasing too � both involve more oil.

So, seeing as we are so dependent on it, how much oil is left then? That depends upon how you measure it. For example, optimists suggest that there are bound to be reserves. According to the US based Cambridge Energy Research Associates:

�Those who believe a peak is imminent tend to consider only proven remaining reserves of conventional oil, which they currently estimate at about 1.2 trillion barrels�this is a pessimistic estimate because it excludes the enormous contribution likely from probable and possible resources, those yet to be found.�

Then go on: �the global inventory is some 4.8 trillion barrels, of which about 1.08 trillion barrels have been produced, leaving 3.72 trillion conventional and unconventional barrels, an order of magnitude that will allow productive capacity to continue to expand well into this century.�

Pessimists suggest that these reserves, should they be found, will be too difficult and costly to extract. They suggest that this may already be the case for reserves in deep water, the artic, extra heavy, oil shale and enhanced recovery oils. The crux of the matter is whether all the known reserves can be found, processed and delivered to market in time. Proponents of the Peak Oil theory, such as Feasta, suggest that we are already at the peak oil point, where accessible reserves will be smaller than what�s been extracted. They suggest that we need to make plans urgently to deal with energy decent, or powerdown.

So what is Ireland doing about it? Oil consumption per capita has risen 50% over the last 15 years, while our dependence on imported oil and gas stands at 85%. According to an Amarach consulting report from 2006, services and manufacturing will mostly be affected indirectly by peak oil in the short term, whereas residential and agricultural sectors are more vulnerable. They suggest that our mitigation strategies are vital.

The new Energy Minister, Eamon Ryan has begun to put some mitigating factors into place: these include funding for renewables research, the smart electricity metering programme for houses which will be rolled out in April, and improved north south energy co-operation. A National Energy Efficiency Action Plan is being finalised at present, which according to the Minister, �will allow us to save �1.7 billion or 3 million tonnes of oil every year.�

Minister Ryan states that �We are also committed to making energy efficiency savings of 20% by 2020. The public sector will have to make energy savings of 33% by this date.�

Building energy efficiency standards have also been introduced for all new houses by Environment Minister John Gormley.

Some parts of Ireland have taken matters into their own hands, most notably Kinsale and north Tipperary, in particular the town of Cloughjordan.

In Kinsale, students from the 2 year permaculture course in the local college along with their then teacher, Rob Hopkins, designed an energy decent plan, which has received some funding from the local council. The plan goes through all the key aspects of socio-economic and cultural life in Kinsale, and produces a road map for how to reduce energy use.

�We didn�t think it was going to be that big a deal, but the plan has been downloaded over 5000 times around the world� according to Klaus Harvey, who sits on the Steering Committee of Transition Towns Kinsale. This plan has become an intergal part of what has become the known as the transition towns movement. For Kinsale, food, education, housing, economy and livelihoods, health, tourism, transport, waste, energy and marine resources are all examined and mapped out in energy decent terms.

In north Tipperary, very ambitious plans are afoot. A 130 house ecovillage is being constructed at present, adjacent to the local village of Cloughjordan. According to Duncan Martin, of the ecovillage�s energy, waste and water subcommittee, �The houses will be well insulated and designed to make best use of the sun's heat�. There is an ecological charter which sets out the standard which the house must meet.

He goes on: �all our space heating and hot water will come from renewable sources. Additional heating will be provided by a district heating system. This will circulate hot water to every house from a central array of solar panels, backed up by two wood-chip boilers. The woodchip will come from local forestry wastes, so we will be independent of imported fossil fuels�.

And it�s not just the ecovillage itself. �The ecovillage is a partner in a European project called SERVE - Sustainable Energy for the Rural Village Environment. This is providing over �2 million in funding for the area around Cloughjordan to improve energy efficiency in existing houses and expand the use of renewable energy. This will cover such additions as more insulation, double glazing, solar panels, wood pellet boilers and better central heating controls�.

In total, along with the ecovillage itself, 900 houses in north Tipperary villages will benefit from the SERVE project.

Is it all enough? In the final analysis that depends upon whether we resist or embrace change.

Here's what I'd published in the Examiner a couple of weeks ago on the DEFRA/MBS report:

A recent DEFRA report, conducted by the Manchester Business School, has grabbed some headlines for claiming to prove that organic food isn�t always better for the environment.
A clear headed reading of the report reveals that most organic meats and wheat have lower energy uses, and all organic products have lower or no pesticide uses.
However, most media that have covered this story seem to have latched onto the fact that some of the time, some environmental impacts of some organic foods are considered higher than is the case for some conventional foods.
For example, much has been made of organic milk�s negative environmental contribution. However, if you read the report, it is clear that the energy used to produce 1lt of organic milk is less than half that used in conventional milk.
Where organic milk falls down relates (in an unspecified way) to the type of feed used by organic producers in the UK. In a context where certification means maintaining organic all the way from production to consumption, sometimes products and inputs have to have to be moved long distances. A more local conventional source may sometimes be available, but then the consumer doesn�t get a certified product.
This is always an issue for organics, and does obviously contribute to food miles. However, the question has to be asked � what�s the alternative? It is likely that with the increase in organic consumption, more products, inputs and services will be available in more and more places, thereby reducing the carbon footprint of these organic foods. The alternative to supporting organics and waiting for this to happen is to support conventional, with all its myriad environmental problems.
But in many cases, the research is, in my opinion, limited or flawed in a number of ways.
It is limited in not considering the farm as a place where the environment actually is. It�s as if there are farms, and there is the environment, and both are separate entities. In this flawed methodological construct, the lands used up by organics to produce food makes organic seem more damaging.
However, it is possible to view this construction in an entirely different way. Organic farms have been proven in numerous reports to be higher in biodiversity levels than conventional farms. So there is more nature in, or on, organic farms. There is more biodiversity in terms of farmed products and more in terms of plants in fields, life in hedgerows, birdlife and so on. Conventional farming has done enormous damage to biodiversity levels over the past 60 years.
Despite its stated focus on sustainability, this report does not consider biodiversity, animal welfare, soil condition or (in a comprehensive sense) water usage, so the report cannot be considered all-encompassing.
The UK�s Soil Association also claimed that the model used for the study amplified the amount of nitrous oxide emissions, while also increasing the land area used by organics by half.
Some good points are made, however. Car transport to and from supermarkets has a more negative effect on the environment than much food production. Interestingly, sometimes local production, even of organic, can be more energy intensive. Tomatoes produced in heated UK greenhouses have a greater negative impact than those produced in unheated ones in Spain.
So it all comes back to thinking about what you eat. If the product is out of season, and produced nearby, a lot of energy has probably been used to do this.
For all its flaws, it is clear from this report that the move towards agri-industrialisation in organics has had some inevitable negative impacts: the spirit of organic suggests more natural feeds and less concentrated feeds for animals, more crop rotations and less liquid feeds and so on. If you are lucky enough to know organic producers working in these more natural ways, make the most of them.
Overall, the three amigos � seasonal, local, organic � need to form a holy alliance. And in a choice between giving up because organic certification sometimes results in extra transport, and working toward a food system functioning with an awareness of the benefits of combining local, seasonal and organic, I know which one I�m choosing.
See the report:

organic food miles better...
This week in the Examiner, I'll be both highlighting and critiqing aspects of a report commissioned by DEFRA, conducted by the Manchester Business School. The report focuses on sustainability and food provisioning, with a particular focus on energy.
Some good points made, but plenty of errors picked up by various anti-organic truffle hounds....
The article will be more factual than theoretical, pointing to various misreadings out there and mistakes in the research itself. However, there will also be a focus on the salience of combining seasonal, local and organic, otherwise even local organic food can leave a heavy footprint (see also embedded food miles).
Theoretically, one of the main criticisms will be the conceptualisation of nature and the farm as two completely separate things...
The farming supplement of the Examiner is out on thursday....why not prepare for the article?
You can see the featured report here