Anyone who reads this blog, now or in the future, will see that one of my enduring interests is the history of crops and food production, including agricultural technologies, and I am constantly reminded how little I know - but how much more than I used to know! The extent to which the developed world, in particular, has become ignorant of one of mankind's most basic activities and needs - food production - is staggering.
Does it matter? A resounding Yes! Two examples: organic production and genetically modified organisms. I don't profess to be an expert - I don't even know enough to know how little I know - and the reader is cautioned, but here goes:-
Organic Production
My view is that it is completely unsustainable on a large scale and I am yet to see any evidence to the contrary. Organic production is a luxury, suited only to small-scale speciality farming and products where (1) it is possible to control the environment - particularly with regard to pests - and (2) gain access to very substantial amounts of organic fertilisers (eg manure, composts, etc) that require considerable land resources for production. On a large scale, it is uneconomic and it will fail.Genetically Modified Organisms
Recently, I was listening to a Radio Programme where an apparently intelligent and well-educated gentleman was expressing his deep concerns about GMO adoption. "I don't really understand it" he said "but it just doesn't feel right. I think it's a bad idea and should be banned." Astonishing! With attitudes like this, it becomes easy to see why Galileo was forced to retract his scientific evidence that the earth revolved around the sun, or why it took a long time before trial by ordeal for witches was outlawed.... Regardless of whether or not it "feels right", I have trawled the internet and I am yet to find any hard evidence that GMOs are harmful to health. Let's face facts - the global population is set to increase by at least another 2 billion over the next 30 years - we have to find ways to increase crop yields and agricultural efficiency. Obviously we have to be sensitive to environmental impact, but the widespread adoption of GMOs appears to offer the best opportunity to increase production without giving over an ever-increasing percentage of land to intensive cultivation.
This leads me on to what must have been one of the single most important scientific advances of the 20th century: the Haber Bosch process. In brief, this process enables the conversion of atmospheric Nitrogen into Ammonia - which can then be converted into other nitrogen compounds, including fertilisers. Nitrogen fertilisers are essential to plant and animal growth, but before the invention of the Haber-Bosch process, usable nitrogen was only generated through planting leguminous plants (which fix a small proportion of nitrogen in soils), composting, and using naturally occurring nitrate mineral and guano deposits. It is therefore no exaggeration to say that, without the invention of this process, the population growth in the 20th century (of about 4 billion people) could not have been sustained.
The Luddites among us would probably argue that global population increases (which, alongside other 20th century technological advances in health, sanitation and mechanisation were supported by the Haber-Bosch process) are the principal cause of environmental degradation, and they are probably right. But at the same time, who would turn the clock back to 1900, when sickness, child mortality, poor sanitation and hunger were universal evils?
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