CHOOSING ORGANIC FOR WHAT IT IS NOT E. Ann Clark Warkworth, ON - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

CHOOSING ORGANIC FOR WHAT IT IS NOT

• E. Ann Clark

Warkworth, ON eaclark@uoguelph.ca

CBC, Jan 2014

“PESTICIDE RESIDUE FOUND ON NEARLY HALF OF ORGANIC PRODUCE”

“... consumers who often pay extra to buy

• rganic food might not always be getting

their money's worth?” "if the money is being spent to avoid pesticide residues and have access to food which is healthy, then I think the money is not well-spent ... [pesticides] will not be absent"

Do the CBC, and the experts they quote, really believe:

The CBC is correct in stating that

pesticides will not be absent. But the inferred premise – that pesticides (and GMOs) should have been absent – is flawed.

Syn pesticides and GMOs are prohibited...

• But does it follow that organic is being

misrepresented, or should be devalued, if trace levels of contamination are found?

• Does the CBC know what the organic

label means?

• Do you?

Objectives 1. To correct misinformation 2. To use the CBC’s trace contaminants story to explore the dependence of the mainstream agriculture on contaminants which are: * arguably unnecessary * intrusive and largely uncontainable * of unknown safety to human and environmental health

What does the organic label mean?

• Organic is a process guarantee –

NOT a product guarantee The organic label certifies how it was grown; that it complied with the rules as verified through a rigorous, annual, independent audit

What rules?

• Government of Canada. 2015. Organic

Production Systems. General Principles And Management Standards. CAN/CGSB-32.310-2015

• Government of Canada. 2015. Permitted

Substances Lists. CAN/CGSB-32.311-2015

• Organic standards started 2002 in US and

2009 in Canada

Why does organic NOT guarantee purity – freedom from contamination?

Canadian organic farms are islands in a sea of pesticides and GMOs

The threats of GM uncontainability

• Not limited to organic
• Not limited to liability (e.g. Schmeisers)
• Not limited to agronomic complications
• Enogen (GM corn for ethanol) has now

contaminated corn intended for milling * 1 in 10,000 kernels is enough to destroy utility for milling/processing * may have sickened people * StarLink revisited?

• Should Canadian regulators -

* just throw up their hands and say sorry, it is inevitable (and by inference, that it doesn’t matter anyway)? If containment of contaminants is literally impossible ....

If containment of contaminants is literally impossible ....

• Should Canadian regulators -

* just throw up their hands and say sorry, it is inevitable (and by inference, that it doesn’t matter anyway)? OR * rethink the premise that contaminant-based agriculture is, and should be, normalized?

What is a GM crop?

• a GM crop is just a conventionally bred

crop into which one or a few transgenes have been fitted

• Almost all GM crops contain just two

types of traits: herbicide resistance + Bt

• Almost all GM crops are for industrial use

– livestock feed, ethanol, plastics – corn, soy, cotton, and canola

What is a pesticide?

• Killing agent, includes

* biological (as neem) * mineral (as sulphur) * synthetic (as glyphosate)

• Pesticide = biocide = life killing

* herbicides * insecticides * fungicides etc.

Organic farmers don’t use pesticides??

• WRONG!

Prohibited from synthetic pesticides

• See Permitted

Substances List Examples from Permitted Substances List (GOC, 2015)

So is that the difference? Just the type of pesticide?

• No. It’s the context of use.
• Organic is designed for problem

avoidance, rather than problem solving

• Pest control is achieved by system design
• Pest outbreak means system dysfunction
• So – fix the system; not enough to just kill

the pest, as it will come back next year.

Pests are not born

They are created

NATURE BATS LAST Forcibly inserting ecologically dysfunctional practices into Nature ensures resistance: pest creation

Weed resistance to glyphosate

• Globally: 37 species; 269 biotypes
• Canada: 4 species, 8 biotypes

* tall waterhemp * burningbush * giant ragweed * horseweed

Pesticide use as viewed by the Canadian Organic Standard:

• Botanical pesticides shall be used in

conjunction with a biorational pest management program but shall not be the primary method of pest control in the farm plan. ....

Contrast this with conventional farming...

• ...where pesticide use has become

normalized; can’t imagine how organic farmers manage without them

• "before we go back to organic

agriculture, somebody is going to have to decide which 50 million Americans we are going to let starve or go hungry” (Earl Butz, US Secretary of Agriculture, 70s)

Pests are just assumed ....

• Reflected in up-front, prophylactic

use, even before planting, e.g. * insecticides synthesized in GM Bt crops assume insect pests * the herbicides enabled by GM herbicide resistant crops assume weeds * the neonic insecticide coatings on seed assume insect pests

Heavy pesticide use in California fruits/nuts/veggies

Alfalfa Rice Cotton Walnut Pistachio Almond Wine Grape Table and Raisin Grape Orange Processing Tomato Carrot Strawberry

5 10 15 Millions of kg per year (CDPR, 2016) 75% of 79 million kg used annually in California agriculture

Pesticide application rate in California

Alfalfa Rice Cotton Walnut Pistachio Almond Wine Grape Table and Raisin Grape Orange Processing Tomato Carrot Strawberry

50 100 150 200 250 300 350 kg a.i./ha (CDPR, 2016)

With organic, the goal is not to replace a synthetic magic bullet with an organic magic bullet, but to erase the premise of magic bullet solutions Instead of first, pesticides are last

• n organic farms

Commercial scale organic??

By no means unique to organic Virtually nothing done on an organic farm is not done or could not be done

• n conventional farms

So why are we still using pesticides?

Who benefits?

TO INCREASE YIELD? TO REDUCE PESTICIDE USE?

Are GMOs beneficial to Canadians?

GM corn, soy (and canola) widely and rapidly adopted in Canada

20 40 60 80 100

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Corn Soy Percent of harvested crop (Stats Canada, 2016)

Why? Now, few options due to the near absence of non-GM corn hybrid seed

GM traits (stacked HR and Bt) Non-GM (CSTA, 2015)

Did release of GM crops reduce pesticide use in Canada?

20 40 60 80

Fungicides Herbicides Insecticides

First GM crop released 1996 Millions of kg 2 kg a.i. per Canadian (FAO, 2016)

y = 0.1137x + 5.0473 R² = 0.8434

2 4 6 8 10

1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014

Did release of GM hybrids increase corn yield in Canada? 1978-2014

Yield (t/ha) First GM crop released 1996 (Stats Canada, 2016)

Did release of GM varieties increase soy yield in Canada? 1978-2014

y = 0.0149x + 2.2144 R² = 0.2507

0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5

1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014

Yield (t/ha) First GM crop released 1996 (Stats Canada, 2016)

(USGS, 2016)

CORN SOY Wheat COTTON

Other Pasture/Hay Alfalfa Orchards/Gra pes Rice Fruit/Veg

Did GM reduce glyphosate use in US?

First GM crops released 1996

Did GM reduce imidacloprid use in US?

CORN SOY Wheat COTTON Veg/Fruit Orch/Grapes

(USGS, 2016) First GM crops released 1996

(USGS, 2016)

Estimated agricultural use for glyphosate, 1996

(USGS, 2016)

Estimated agricultural use for glyphosate, 2014

Estimated agricultural use for imidacloprid, 1996

(USGS, 2016)

Figure 14. Estimated agricultural use for imidacloprid, 2014 (USGS, 2016)

Estimated agricultural use for imidacloprid, 2014

(USGS, 2016)

Based on 20 years in commerce .... GM has failed to live up to its promise to increase yield and reduce pesticide use

So why are we still growing GM crops?

Who benefits?

What would you call agriculture that has to be propped up by millions of kg

• f pesticides and

GM crops? And contaminates everyone else?

So, why are organic crops contaminated?

• 1 million ha of Canadian agricultural land

is now organic, but still <2% of the total

• Both pesticides and GMOs are pervasive

across the agri-food landscape

Jeff Carter, well known agricultural journalist, asks: is Canada’s

pesticide regulatory system broken?

• Are we asking the

right questions?

• Are the answers

meaningful?

What can be done?

• So what options does an organic farmer

have to safeguard crops from contamination?

• Just how contaminated are organic crops?

How do organic farmers protect their crops from contamination?

• 100% organic farmer responsibility
• Failure of containment = decertification;

starting a 3 year process anew

• For pesticides: 8 m border with

neighbours; permanent hedgerows

• For GM: borders of 10 m (soy), 300 m

(corn), and 3 km (canola, alfalfa (seed), and apples).

(GOC, 2015)

Is GM (pollen) even remotely containable?

• kilometers for creeping bentgrass, sugar beet,

and canola,

• hundreds of meters for corn,
• tens of meters for wheat and cotton, and
• meters-to-tens of meters for rice, tobacco,

soybean, and barley Pollen (and seed) has always moved in field crop agriculture; but with GM, it is deleterious

(Clark, 2007)

How contaminated is organic produce?

Meta-analysis (11 studies) comparing pesticide residues on fresh fruits and vegetables # of Samples % positive pesticide residues Organic 66 10 Conventional 66 46

(Baranski et al. 2014)

Concentration of pesticide residues and DRI in lettuce (USDA PDP pilot study on lettuce)

No. Domestic Samples No. Different Residues Residues Detected per Sample DRI Organic 318 55* 0.17 0.075 Conven- tional 735 52 3.9 2.5 * 51 were permitted under organic rules

(Benbrook, 2011)

Conventional 120X higher

Do detected residues mean fraud?

(USDA Pesticide Data Program, 2002-2011, domestic-origin

• rganic produce; n=1168 residues)
• Legacy
• Post-harvest
• Permitted
• Other
• Persistent, e.g. DDT, dieldrin,

lindane, mirex

• Separate dedicated facilities

not required

• Azadirachtin (neem),

Spinosad, and metabolites

• spray drift; carryover

following transition; mislabelling; or actual fraud

(Benbrook and Baker, 2014)

Origin of those pesticide residues:

• Legacy
• Post-harvest
• Permitted
• Other
• 18%
• 31%
• 22%
• 29%

(Benbrook and Baker, 2014)

Excellent, searchable database from the USDA PDP, by Pesticide Action Network

http://www.whatsonmyfood.org/

Pesticide residues: It is not just number

• f, but how much and how harmful

What does trace contamination of organic produce mean to you ... ?

• A reason to question the value of organic

food? OR

• An unnecessary – but unavoidable -

infringement on your right to healthy, uncontaminated food?

Take home messages 1.

• rganic is a process guarantee, not a

product guarantee 2. fundamental design differences mean that the context of pesticide use differs between conventional and

• rganic farming

Take home messages, con’t 3. commercial performance of organic farming today disputes the premise that exposure to pesticides and GMOs is a necessary risk 4. the issue is not the unavoidable, trace contamination of organic foods, but the wisdom of continuing dependence

• n contaminant-based agriculture

They can’t lead if we won’t follow

Trigger for action on non-compliant

• rganic pesticide residue levels
• Responsibility for detection and action is

vested in the Certifying Body (CB)

• If 5% or less than the MRL, CB informs

producer and follows-up at next scheduled visit

• If >5%, CB investigates immediately, provides

methods of corrective action to be completed within 90 days, and reports outcome

Golden rice... not so golden Forcible insertion of the transgene disrupted another gene, causing abnormal growth and low yield – not detected in earlier studies

Bollinedi et al. 2017