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	Hospital food doesn't have to be bad \| Peter Melchett <div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/29804?ns=guardian&pageName=Eat+yourself+fitter+%7C+Peter+Melchett%3AArticle%3A1239427&ch=Comment+is+free&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=NHS+%28Society%29%2CHealth+%28Society%29%2CFood+and+drink+%28Life+and+style%29%2CFood+and+drink+industry+%28Business+sector%29%2CNutrition+%28Life+and+Style%29%2CHealth+and+wellbeing+%28Life+and+style%29%2CLife+and+style%2CSociety&c6=Peter+Melchett&c7=09-Jun-30&c8=1239427&c9=Article&c10=Comment&c11=Comment+is+free&c13=&c25=Comment+is+free&c30=content&h2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">The Soil Association, in its drive to improve hospital catering, supports Michele Hanson's call for people to report 'crap food'</p><p>Hospital food is "stale, flabby, slimy, soggy, nutrient-free, ghastly and execrable". In the circumstances, it may seem a bit of a cheek to suggest that <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jun/26/michele-hanson-certain-age-institutions" title="Guardian: Michele Hanson: A certain age">Michele Hanson</a> understates the problem, but I think she does. Hanson's friend Serena has gone into hospital and discovered just how bad the food can be ? Hanson says "constipation rules".</p><p>According to the UK's Cabinet Office, we face a diet-related ill-health crisis that is likely to cost the NHS £6bn per year. Hanson understates the problem because it's not just that the food in many hospitals is still terrible ? many elderly patients enter hospital malnourished and leave more malnourished. What's worse is that hospitals generally are failing to set an example of a positive, healthy food culture. Food should be valued. Of course, it should be healthy, fresh and tasty. But it should also be enjoyable, a vital part of any hospital's service to its patients, and setting a standard for the rest of society to follow.</p><p>When the Soil Association looked at hospital food in a report we produced a couple of years ago ? <a href="http://www.soilassociation.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=HbhiwiYJrC0%3D&tabid=388" title="Soil Association: Not what the doctor ordered">Not What the Doctor Ordered (pdf)</a> ? we found some hospitals sending all the wrong messages. For example, back then in Guy's hospital in London, a huge Coca-Cola vending machine sat smugly under the sign to the dietetics and nutrition department. Addenbrooke's hospital had a Burger King inside. Nurses went there to get food for patients in the children's ward once a week. Nothing wrong with that, but this was being presented as a "treat" ? none of this sending very positive messages about healthy eating.</p><p>It needn't be like this. Indeed, in some ground-breaking hospitals, it certainly is not. Mike Duckett, the catering manager at the Royal Brompton Hospital, has led the way in <a href="http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications/downloads/Royal-Brompton-Hospital-Food-Project.pdf" title="Sustainable Development Commission: s Royal Brompton Hospital Food Project">sourcing fresh, local ingredients (pdf)</a> from farms near London, including some organic food. <a href="http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications/downloads/Cornwall-NHS-Food-Project.pdf" title="Sustainable Development Commission: Cornwall's NHS Food Project">The Royal Cornwall Hospital Trusts (pdf)</a> completely changed their food-sourcing practices with the help of an expert seconded from the Soil Association. They found that real Cornish dairy fruit ice cream was not only very popular with patients, but also contained more nutrients than those little powder sachets hospitals used at considerable expense to improve nutrient intake, especially for elderly patients.</p><p>In the past, a patient described hospital fishcakes as having much the same texture and taste as a used hockey ball. Now, a local Cornish fisherman provides fishcakes made from locally caught fish and Cornish potatoes, and patients are delighted. Indeed, patient satisfaction with the meals is extremely high and food miles were cut by 67%, and all of this was done within the existing budget. Nottingham University Hospital Trust's City Campus was the first hospital to be accredited to the Soil Association new <a href="http://www.soilassociation.org/Certification/Whatwedo/Whatwecertify/Catering/tabid/416/Default.aspx" title="Soil Association: Food for Life catering mark">Food for Life catering mark</a>, and it is also sourcing from local farmers and serves excellent meals.</p><p>So the Soil Association warmly welcomes Hanson's new campaign, encouraging "anyone who spots crap food in care homes and hospitals to phone in and spill the beans". We're keen to get many more hospitals to sign up to our Food for Life catering mark. This has bronze, silver and gold levels, to encourage caterers progressively to improve the quality of the food they source and serve to their patients. A key element of the standards is to insist that 75% of the food should be unprocessed, so that meals have to be freshly prepared and cooked. In addition, to achieve the gold mark, hospitals and other institutions must also source 50% of their food locally, and 30% should be organic or <a href="http://www.msc.org/" title="Marine Stewardship Council">Marine Stewardship Council</a> certified fish. The standards not only encourage freshly cooked meals but also high standards of animal welfare, lower environmental impact and lower carbon footprints.</p><p>Anyone wanting to join Hanson's campaign can email their findings to my colleague at <a href="mailto:ehockridge@soilassociation.org" title="Email ehockridge@soilassociation.org">ehockridge@soilassociation.org</a>. A wide range of organisations, from nurseries, through school and hospital caterers to football clubs, are already signed to the Food for Life catering mark. So, like Hanson, who likes to look on the bright side, I'm optimistic. We can change the quality of catered food, and the care taken in its preparation and serving, so that people like Hanson's friend Serena don't have to suffer the "execrable" food she has experienced.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/nhs">NHS</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/health">Health</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/food-and-drink">Food & drink</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/fooddrinks">Food & drink industry</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/nutrition">Nutrition</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/health-and-wellbeing">Health & wellbeing</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/petermelchett">Peter Melchett</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 \| Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> \| <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> Peter Melchett: Environmentalists should hold on to their idealism, there's always a backlash <div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/6623?ns=guardian&pageName=Peter+Melchett%3A+Environmentalists+should+hold+on+to+their+idealism%2C+ther%3AArticle%3A1169904&ch=Comment+is+free&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Environment%2CActivism+%28Environment%29%2CFood+%28Environment%29%2CFood+and+drink+industry+%28Business+sector%29%2CClimate+change+%28Environment%29%2CRecycling+%28Environment%29&c6=Peter+Melchett&c7=09-Feb-16&c8=1169904&c9=Article&c10=Comment&c11=Comment+is+free&c13=&c25=Comment+is+free%2CCif+green&c30=content&h2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Leo Hickman says environmentalists must now compromise because of a backlash ? not true, there's always a backlash</p><p>In an interesting article, Leo Hickman says that after being out in the cold for decades, environmentalists have been invited to join the party, because mainstream politics now largely "gets" the aims of environmentalism (<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/14/activism-green-politics">Welcome to Planet Earth</a>, 14 February). Hickman's article was prompted in part by the Daily Mail's campaign against the abolition of incandescent light bulbs, increased questioning over recycling and other opposition to the changes we need to make to combat climate change. Now environmentalism has gone mainstream, Hickman argues, we need to "embrace mature political debate". I agree with a lot of what he says, but not his conclusion that compromise and pragmatism are now the order of the day. This isn't the first time that environmentalists have won an argument. Nor is it the first time that there has been a significant backlash as a result.</p><p>One of the first environmental campaigns in the UK that led to a clear-cut victory was the campaign to get lead out of petrol in the 1970s. This appeared to be a no-brainer, and brilliant work got government agreement in a short time. But there was an immediate backlash on behalf of what had now become the downtrodden and oppressed drivers of vintage cars, whose lifestyle the ban apparently threatened. </p><p>Even the most popular campaigns, at least in the UK, have provoked a backlash. When Japan and Norway came under intense pressure to respect the international ban on commercial whaling, and it was clear that anti-whaling campaigns were succeeding, the British press started to carry powerful articles complaining about cultural imperialism, detailing the economic impact of any ban on small, isolated fishing communities in northern Norway and Iceland. </p><p>In the British countryside in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, nature conservationists battling against strong economic and political forces to ban dangerous pesticides and to stop straw burning, conifer afforestation, hedgerow removal and land drainage were first ignored, then as they started to succeed, vilified. That was nothing to the backlash against conservationists' success in curbing the shooting of migratory birds in countries like France, Italy and Malta. So a backlash is nothing new, although of course as we move into areas that affect almost everyone's personal behaviour, as combating climate change does, many more are involved in complaining about change.</p><p>I also think Leo's wrong to suggest that "most people accept that we live in a world of finite resources ... that particular debate is won and now surely over". You only have to read comments on articles in Comment is free to see that there are plenty of climate change deniers, alive, well and busy on their computers. Nor do I think many of our current politicians really do understand environmentalism, or are ready to support publicly many of the changes we will have to make. Food and farming, responsible for nearly 20% of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions, is a good example. Most politicians are unwilling to think about the sort of changes in our diet as well as in farming that we will need to make to cut those emissions by 80% by 2050 as well as eating a far healthier diet. We still have a real battle on our hands.</p><p>Most seriously, Leo is wrong to suggest that the consequence of environmentalism becoming mainstream is that we need to "move beyond the moody idealism" of our teenage years and embrace "pragmatism". In one sense, environmentalists have been doing this for years. The campaign to save the ozone layer was won because groups such as <a href="http://archive.greenpeace.org/ozone/index.html">Greenpeace</a> worked with the refrigeration industry worldwide to introduce ozone- and climate-friendly refrigeration technologies. With the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/09/japan-whale-hunting">whale campaign</a>, anti-whaling groups worked in countries such as Iceland and Japan with local businesses that were promoting whale-watching tourism. </p><p>We can be realistic without losing our idealism. The real danger is that environmentalists become so caught up in what politicians and companies think of as reality that they lose not only their idealism, but also their ability to communicate clearly and simply with the public, which is where their power lies. If we are not careful, we get drawn into technical discussions and technical language, about things like biodiversity and sustainable development, which we know from research mean little or nothing to most people.</p><p>Hickman sees a risk in the belligerence and arrogance of environmentalists "alienating the movement from its newfound audience". Apart from querying just how extensive this audience actually is, being sucked into debates framed by others and murky compromises seem to me greater dangers. In any event, I don't think there is what Hickman calls "a widespread intransigence about acting in a meaningful way" from environmental groups. </p><p>In the area where I work, the <a href="http://www.soilassociation.org/">Soil Association</a> is successfully promoting Food for Life standards for meals in hospitals, restaurants, football grounds and other places where we eat outside the home. The Food for Life standards, which go from bronze through silver to gold, aim to promote meals which, at gold, are freshly made, from at least 75% unprocessed food, 50% sourced locally and 30% organic. Working through the Big Lottery-funded <a href="http://www.foodforlife.org.uk/">Food for Life Partnership</a>, we are well on the way to achieving that in hundreds of schools around the country. These changes are a start in revolutionising our food culture, but they are only a small step on the way to the changes we will have to make to achieve a healthier diet, and to cut food and farming's emissions by 80%.</p><p>Making meaningful change happen is always going to be difficult, and everyone involved needs to be prepared for at least some backlash when they start to win, and real changes start to happen. In part this is simply a routine cycle the media in the UK go through. Environmentalists do not suffer as badly as many celebrities, seemingly built up by the media only to be cruelly cut down as soon as a new angle is needed. For example, Jamie Oliver saved school meals then, it was claimed, failed because they <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jul/13/eatingwithclass">weren't being eaten</a> ? in fact higher take-up of school dinners in Food for Life Partnership schools demonstrates that children will eat good, healthy food if it is part of more general education about farming, food production and learning to grow and cook food. </p><p>Some, at least, of any backlash is more of a media phenomenon than a reflection of reality. We should take heart from our record. We were right to campaign against the worst excesses of industrial agriculture, we succeeded in halting and reversing the destruction of the ozone layer, we were right to campaign to stop polluting discharges and waste-dumping in rivers and oceans. Few question those successes now. It won't be long before the same is true of low-energy lightbulbs, windfarms and other renewable technologies, and seasonal, locally sourced organic food.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/activism">Activism</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/food">Food</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/fooddrinks">Food & drink industry</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change">Climate change</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/recycling">Recycling</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/petermelchett">Peter Melchett</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 \| Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> \| <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> Peter Melchett: There is a better way to rear pigs ? organically <div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/70092?ns=guardian&pageName=Peter+Melchett%3A+There+is+a+better+way+to+rear+pigs+%E2%80%93+organically%3AArticle%3A1161289&ch=Comment+is+free&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Organics+%28Environment%29%2CAnimal+welfare+%28News%29%2CJamie+Oliver+%28chef%29%2CFood+%28Environment%29&c6=Peter+Melchett&c7=09-Jan-31&c8=1161289&c9=Article&c10=Comment&c11=Comment+is+free&c13=&c25=Comment+is+free&c30=content&h2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">I'm glad Jamie Oliver's Save our Bacon exposed the pig industry, but it failed to mention that there is an answer: organic farms</p><p>I am very fond of pigs. They are wonderful, lively, inquisitive, sensitive, social animals. This week Jamie Oliver's <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2009/jan/30/jamie-oliver-saves-our-bacon">Save our Bacon</a>, like Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's recent TV polemic on chicken production, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/ethicallivingblog/2009/jan/26/animalwelfare-food">Chickens, Hugh and Tesco too</a>, did a real public service by shining a light on how pig farming works. I think the TV chefs are doing a brilliant job of encouraging people to think about how their food got to their plate, and about the lives and deaths of the animals concerned.</p><p>Inevitably if you are closely involved ? I'm an organic pig farmer ? the little inaccuracies you spot on TV or in the papers are bloody annoying. For example, organic pigs are not castrated, as Jamie claimed in a throwaway remark. No one at the <a href="http://www.soilassociation.org/">Soil Association</a> can remember even being asked by an organic farmer if they could castrate a pig, let alone giving permission for it, and it is now entirely banned in our organic standards. If you were sickened (as I was) by seeing a piglet's balls being removed, it is all the more upsetting to hear Oliver say farmers like me do that, when in fact we're banned from doing so.</p><p>Oliver rightly highlighted how misleading meat labelling can be, especially for pigs. The problem is not just the inexcusable deception over what country the meat is produced in (pork from pigs reared abroad can be labelled "British" if the meat is processed in the UK). Equally misleading, meat that is labelled "outdoor bred/reared", "free range" or "Freedom Food" can come from British pigs that have spent less than 20% of their lives in the fresh air. Not surprisingly, research confirms that consumers are often confused by what these labels mean. </p><p>Pigs are inquisitive and always looking for something to do and for soil to root in. Penned in, without stimulation, the boredom can lead to aggression and pigs start biting the tails and ears of other pigs. So more than 80% of non-organic pigs have their tails cut off. All mutilations of pigs are banned on organic farms (including teeth clipping of piglets without anaesthetic which is widespread in non-organic systems). In the UK, about 60% of sows give birth in crates, in which they remain until the litter is weaned. These crates, which do not allow sows to carry out natural behaviour such as nest building or looking after piglets, or even to turn around, are banned in organic systems. The organic label is the only one that ensures that pigs have a truly "free-range" life, one that is as near as possible to their wild boar ancestors, and which enables them to exhibit their naturally social behaviour. An estimated 60% of breeding sows and 93% of pigs reared for meat spend most or all of their life indoors, the majority on solid or slatted concrete or perforated metal. Organic pigs must always have direct access to vegetation and soil.</p><p>Obviously, TV programmes like Oliver's need to carry simple messages and appeal to a wide audience, so it is difficult to start to get into the differences between, for example, the lives of free-range and organic pigs. I am also sure that TV programme makers will be wary of being seen to plug something that is still seen as radical, controversial and expensive, like organic, by spelling out what the differences are between organic and non-organic production. But even if TV producers are reluctant to point out these stark differences, many organic pig farmers like myself believe that the issue of the welfare of these amazing creatures is too important not to talk about. Luckily for consumers (and for pigs) there is already a label that guarantees excellent animal welfare ? organic.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/organics">Organics</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/animal-welfare">Animal welfare</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/oliver">Jamie Oliver</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/food">Food</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/petermelchett">Peter Melchett</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 \| Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> \| <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> Peter Melchett: Lunacy clouds climate change policy <div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/57115?ns=guardian&pageName=Peter+Melchett%3A+Lunacy+clouds+climate+change+policy%3AArticle%3A1138141&ch=Comment+is+free&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Environment%2CBiofuels+%28Environment%29%2CClimate+change+%28Environment%29%2CTransport+policy&c6=Peter+Melchett&c7=08-Dec-23&c8=1138141&c9=Article&c10=Comment&c11=Comment+is+free&c13=&c25=Comment+is+free%2CCif+green&c30=content&h2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">British politicians have failed to heed expert advice on greenhouse gases, but maybe Barack Obama will be different</p><p>At long last, it seems as if a US president will be getting honest scientific advice about climate change, with Barack Obama's appointment of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/21/obama-climate-change-john-holdren">John Holdren</a> as the director of the White House office of science and technology policy. </p><p>In the UK, as long ago as the late 1980s, we were lucky enough to have Sir John Houghton at the Met office and Sir Crispin Tickell, then the UK's ambassador to the UN, to convince Margaret Thatcher that climate change was a reality. So British politicians have had almost 20 years to plan the changes we will need to make as we remove carbon from our economy. All the more inexcusable then that many UK politicians, including Gordon Brown, are still running the country as if climate change did not exist. </p><p>As The Observer reported, Gordon Brown seems determined to <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/21/carbon-emissions-heathrow">give the go-ahead</a> to a third runway at Heathrow.</p><p>The arguments deployed in favour of this lunacy bear an uncanny resemblance to the arguments made for decades by the then Department of Transport and its ministers to justify building more roads. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, the car lobby said that traffic congestion led to slower journey times and cars sitting in traffic jams, which in turn meant more pollution and more CO2 emissions. It was already clear then (and is now accepted) that building more roads simply leads to more cars and an overall increase in emissions. The same will clearly be true for runways and aeroplanes, despite the ludicrous argument that a third runway will only mean less congestion before and after take-off, and therefore less pollution.</p><p>The other argument made by those in favour of airport expansion is that a variety of technological advances will lead to lower emissions from planes and that expansion of airport capacity and, therefore, increasing the number of planes does not matter. </p><p>On examination, of course, these technological innovations turn out to be untried or unworkable. Alternative fuels, such as <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/biofuels">biofuels</a>, burn at the wrong temperature for aircraft engines. Kerosene could be made from coal, but like many of the current biofuels, would cause more pollution not less. New aircraft designs turn out to be untested and probably unworkable. In any event, these technical fixes would go nowhere near achieving the 80% cuts in greenhouse gases that we are now committed to make by 2050. We need fewer planes and fewer runways, not more.</p><p>Exactly the same is true for farming. Almost 90% of the greenhouse gas emissions from farming come from nitrous oxide and methane, mainly from the use of artificial nitrogen fertiliser (N2O) needed to grow non-organic crops, and from the waste (particularly slurry) and burping from cows and sheep (methane). </p><p>As with transport, it is clear that we need to develop farming in new directions, obtaining the fertility to grow crops from the sun through nitrogen-fixing legume crops such as clover, peas and beans. And to reduce greenhouse emissions from cattle, we need to eat less meat and dairy products, particularly from grain-fed rather than grass-fed animals. </p><p>Yet many of the UK government's pronouncements on farming suggest they are wedded not only to business as usual, but to further growth in unsustainable systems, just as they are committed to airport expansion. The government, egged on by the National Farmers' Union, blithely ignore the need for 80% cuts in farming's greenhouse gas emissions and instead talk endlessly about the need to increase output.</p><p>As with aeroplanes, proponents of this doomed strategy claim that technical innovations, in the case of farming it is GM crops, will come to the rescue. The words of Professor Robert Nolan of Reuters University, about one of the proposed solution for aeroplanes, (the blended-wing jet), quoted in The Observer story, apply with equal force to GM crops: "an utterly new concept and has not been tested in any significant way....They are also associated with all sorts of problems, particularly concerned with safety". </p><p>Let's hope that Barack Obama not only gets good advice about climate change science when he becomes US president, but that he has the guts, so notably lacking in successive UK governments, to start to make the real changes we will need to combat climate change.</p><p>It's one thing for governments that don't know how serious the threat to our future security is, to do nothing. Our political establishment has understood the science of climate change for two decades. Gordon Brown and many of his ministers do understand the threat of climate change, and they have been willing to agree tough targets for cuts by 2050. In these circumstances, for our government to continue with policies which will inevitably increase greenhouse gas emissions from crucial sectors of the economy is nothing short of criminal.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/biofuels">Biofuels</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change">Climate change</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/transport">Transport policy</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/petermelchett">Peter Melchett</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 \| Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> \| <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> Peter Melchett: Who can we trust on GM food? <div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/20447?ns=guardian&pageName=Peter+Melchett%3A+Who+can+we+trust+on+GM+food%3F%3AArticle%3A1131185&ch=Comment+is+free&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=GM+%28Environment%29%2CEnvironment%2CWorld+news&c6=Peter+Melchett&c7=08-Dec-09&c8=1131185&c9=Article&c10=Comment&c11=Comment+is+free&c13=&c25=Comment+is+free%2CCif+green&c30=content&h2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Former chief scientist David King praises GM crops. But can we trust a government scientist any more than an industry insider?</p><p>Last week, on the Radio 4 programme <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/streetscience.shtml">Street Science</a>, a publicist for the GM industry made a number of claims about what <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gmcrops">GM crops</a> can do. He said: "Using GM technology, there are now varieties of major crops, rice, wheat and maize being produced that are drought resistant, flood resistant, saline resistant and disease resistant, which could transform Africa's ability to feed its people ... Some products have emerged, for example, from South Africa. They are now planting drought resistant crops that have increased the yield by 30% ... So you can actually save millions of people from starvation by these techniques ? nothing to do with the private sector ... Americans are perfectly happy to eat [unlabelled GM food] and I don't know of anyone who has ever suffered from eating a GM product." </p><p>There is nothing wrong with this ? similar claims are made all the time by people working for GM companies. Except that this was not <a href="http://www.monsanto.co.uk/">Monsanto</a>'s press officer, it was <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/27/gmcrops.food">Professor Sir David King</a>, recently retired as the UK government's chief scientist.</p><p>The first claim, if read carefully, is not inaccurate. GM companies are trying to produce crops that are drought, flood and saline resistant, and although none are available for commercial use, in theory such crops could increase food production in Africa and elsewhere ? if you make a number of assumptions.</p><p>These assumptions are not scientific, they are political, subjective and highly contested. This particular point of view assumes that the key cause of hunger and starvation is lack of food, rather than problems with distribution, access to land, wars, corruption and poverty. It also assumes that in future poor farmers will have no problems with buying expensive seeds, fertiliser and pesticides, all of which are required by GM crops. I know many people assume GM crops must somehow be needed to feed the world. But the <a href="http://www.agassessment.org/">IAASTD</a> (the food and farming equivalent to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report by 400 international scientists ? led by Professor Robert Watson, now chief scientist at the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs ? said GM crops were not essential to feed the world.</p><p>David King was wrong to say that drought-resistant GM products that increase yield by 30% are now being planted in South Africa. In fact, Monsanto is carrying out trials of GM drought-resistant maize in South Africa. The process of trialling the crops has only just begun (a permit was issued a year ago), and these crops are probably about eight years away from commercial use if they prove to be successful. No drought-resistant GM crops are currently grown commercially in South Africa. King has been wrong before about new crops in Africa, claiming that a successful project near Lake Victoria was benefiting from GM technology, before having to admit the crops involved were not GM at all.</p><p>In the BBC programme, David King referred to crops like rice that are "flood resistant". In fact the submergence tolerant (flood resistant) rice that is on the market is not GM, but instead marker assisted selection (MAS), normal breeding informed by knowledge of the genome and supported by environmentalists and organic organisations, was used to develop it. This is an example of the kind innovative non-GM plant breeding that is making a lot of progress in a number of areas that the GM companies are only just beginning to tackle ? with unknown results. Marker-assisted breeding (usually called marker assisted selection) uses the genetic diversity found in crops or their wild relatives, combined with genomic data (genomic markers) to speed up what are otherwise essentially conventional breeding methods.<br /> <br />Two years ago, the scientists at the University of California Davis responsible for developing submergence tolerant rice initially tried to develop the rice using both MAS and GM techniques. While the MAS worked well and quickly, GM failed initially, for unknown reasons. The scientists were moving a rice gene into another type of rice, so this failure simply underlines the inherent uncertainty and lack of precision in GM technology. Finally, a couple months ago, the scientists did get the GM process to work, but this version is not being bred for sale to farmers. To get the GM process to work, the scientists had to attach the gene they wanted to transfer to a very powerful promoter ? the part of the gene that determines in what parts of the plant, when, and how much, the gene functions (called "expression"). The promoter they used is from an ubiquitin gene and it is turned on at a high level in many tissues of the plant, most of the time. </p><p>This contrasts with the normal (native) promoter of the sub1A gene, which is turned on only when needed in the plants and at the correct levels. Therefore, while the sub1A gene, run by the ubi promoter may nominally function, it is much more likely to have negative side effects in the plant because of its incorrect expression (called ectopic expression). These effects could be harmful to health or the environment, or just have adverse effects on the agronomic properties of the crop (for example, it could cause the crop to grow poorly under some conditions, as has happened in practice with some other GM crops). Normal breeding using MAS worked better and faster, and is less likely to have negative side effects.</p><p>David King also mentioned GM crops that "have not been produced in the private sector, they've all been produced by government and international research laboratories" when he spoke about crops being developed for farming in South Africa. I assume that he was actually talking about the Water Efficient Maize for Africa project (WEMA), which involves several African countries ? Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and South Africa. The WEMA project was only announced in 2008, so no crops have yet been grown even experimentally. The projections for yield increases from this project are that "the maize products developed over the next 10 years could increase yields by 20-35% under moderate drought, compared to current varieties". But this applies to non-GM as well as possible GM varieties, and the first conventional varieties developed by WEMA could be available after six to seven years of research and development. The project <a href="http://www.monsanto.com/droughttolerantcorn/WEMA.asp">says</a> that GM drought-tolerant maize hybrids "will be available in about ten years". </p><p>David King was also wrong to say that Americans are happy consuming GM food: in fact, there is no labelling in the US and many Americans don't even know they are eating GM. When limited labelling was introduced on alternatives to Monsanto's GM-hormone milk, sales of the GM product collapsed and Monsanto sold the business. </p><p>Finally, of course, no one has carried out any scientific experiments to see whether eating GM crops in America has caused any "suffering". There is no evidence to say that they have caused suffering, just as there's no evidence to show that they have not. We simply do not know. There have only been a small handful of studies looking at the long-term safety of eating GM food, using properly conducted animal trials, some covering possible inter-generational effects. </p><p>All of these show some grounds for concern. Most recently, a study funded by the Austrian government and carried out by two of the leading research institutes in Austria, found that Monsanto's GM maize "severely impairs reproduction in mice" and the scientists involved said that there is an "urgent need for further studies". These safety doubts confirm earlier research findings, and they have in turn been confirmed by other recently published research. In the light of the published science, it is now impossible to say that GM is safe to eat.</p><p>David King's pro-GM views have been clear for many years, equally, he has been in the forefront of the battle to get the science about climate change accepted and acted on. On climate change, he supports international scientific opinion (the <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/">IPCC</a>), and the honourable role he and other scientists play is to disseminate the science that explains what climate change is, why it is happening, and what cuts in greenhouse gases are needed to avoid the worst impacts. Scientists should talk to the public about their work, and scientists working for the government should be open about the scientific advice they give, and the basis for it. </p><p>But King has entered into the political realm, making assumptions about how societies will be organised in future, which current trends will continue and which will change, and which type of development (for example, largely controlled by multi-national companies and international institutions) we will pursue. He is just as entitled as anyone else to have personal views on these issues. So why do his pronouncements anger many people, including me? The answer was provided by a member of the public who King talked to on the BBC programme. After listening to the ex-chief scientist's views, they said, "Naturally a personal chat with somebody is very reassuring ? somebody who knows the facts, which of course I don't. I'm relying on you."</p><p>It seems to me that King is expressing personal and political views under the assumption that they are science. In trying to expand the sales of GM crops, he reminds me of the men in white coats who sold toothpaste in TV ads when I was a child. I think this is why people do not trust scientists working for governments much more than they trust scientists working for corporations. It is not, as these scientists always claim, because people do not trust or understand science ? surveys show that people trust scientists working for non-governmental organisations far more than government or industry scientists. People are sceptical about scientists who pronounce not on science but on politics and products such as GM crops ? and particularly about those who fail to make clear the personal or organisational views that colour the assumptions they make. Sadly, King shows that we are right to be sceptical.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gm">GM</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/petermelchett">Peter Melchett</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 \| Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> \| <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> Peter Melchett: Unelected, yes. But Prince Charles has always been right on environmental issues <div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/86970?ns=guardian&pageName=Peter+Melchett%3A+Unelected%2C+yes.+But+Prince+Charles+has+always+been+right%3AArticle%3A1117758&ch=Comment+is+free&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Monarchy%2CPrince+Charles%2COrganics+%28Environment%29%2CGM+%28Environment%29%2CEnvironment%2CConservation+%28Environment%29&c6=Peter+Melchett&c7=08-Nov-14&c8=1117758&c9=Article&c10=Comment&c11=Comment+is+free&c13=&c25=Comment+is+free%2CCif+green&c30=content&h2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Whatever your views on Prince Charles's constitutional position, he has always been right on environmental issues</p><p>Prince Charles comes in for criticism for all sorts of reasons, in particular from those who want to abolish the monarchy and replace it with an elected head of state. Those campaigning on that issue sometimes find it necessary also to attack the opinions Prince Charles holds, as if that will somehow strengthen their case. In the area where I work, campaigning to protect the environment and to move farming and food away from environmentally destructive, cruel and unhealthy systems that destroy small farms and agricultural jobs, Prince Charles has got it right. His interventions have made a real difference.</p><p>Back in the 1970s and 1980s, anyone suggesting it was wrong for us to use the seas around our coast as a dumping ground for human shit, chemical discharges, and as an out-of-sight, out-of-mind dump site for toxic and nuclear waste, was seen as at worst mad, and at best irrelevant. In those days, Prince Charles was one of the only public figures to say what I think most British people actually feel, namely that you shouldn't dump your rubbish in the sea. This is true whether you're a family picnicking on the beach, a water company getting rid of sewage, or British Nuclear Fuels dumping radioactive waste. When the generally conservative British media, and our broadly anti-environmental political and business establishment, were ignoring or dismissing the environmental case, an intervention by Prince Charles really made a real difference. </p><p>His critics, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/12/british-monarchy">like Graham Smith of Republic</a>, describe the prince as "some kind of intellectual dissident" musing on a range of things including the environment. Graham says the prince "never encounters opposition, never gets challenged on his views". This is wildly inaccurate. In his <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2003/jun/08/foodanddrink.features5">support for organic farming</a> and his <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/13/prince.charles.gm.farming">opposition to GM</a>, the prince has been attacked by Monsanto's supporters all over the world. Pro-GM campaigners like Lord Krebs and Lord Taverne never hesitate to rubbish his views. Now he has <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/7713841.stm">reached 60</a>, there is clear evidence available about whether the prince has generally got it right or wrong in these hotly contested areas of environmental policy. </p><p>On dumping waste in the oceans, he was right. It is now against international law to dump sewage, toxic or radioactive waste and redundant oil rigs anywhere in the north-east Atlantic. Organic farming and food is now far from being a flash-in-the-pan or a rich person's irrelevant indulgence. A series of international reports from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, the UN Commission on Trade and Development, the UN Environment Programme and even from advisers to the World Trade Organisation, have spelt out the significant role that organic systems of food production will play in a future where we rely on the sun's energy and plants to produce fertility, rather than nitrogen fertiliser made from fossil fuels. A report by 400 international scientists, the <a href="http://www.agassessment.org/">IAASTD report</a>, produced in the same way as the IPCC's international scientific assessments of climate change, champions non-GM, more ecologically based approaches to feeding the world. The system of farming that the prince has argued for over many years is coming into its own, as people face up to the prospect of cutting greenhouse gas emissions from farming by 80%, and to the need to change our diet to halt the £7.7bn annual cost to the NHS, and the £20bn per year cost to society at large, of diet-related ill-health.</p><p>In the area where he has come under huge criticism from vested interests, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/13/gmcrops.food">GM food</a>, scientific evidence is increasingly showing that the prince got it right. Earlier this year, scientists discovered that GM crops engineered to contain insecticide leak the chemical from their roots and damage beneficial organisms in the soil, with unknown consequences. This week, the latest of just a tiny number of studies that have looked at the health consequences of eating GM has shown that GM maize "<a href="http://www.nwrage.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2389">severely impairs reproduction in mice</a>". The scientists, funded by the Austrian government, say that there is an "urgent need for further studies". In the meantime, the only major country where GM is widely eaten, the US, is facing a consumer backlash. The introduction of labels showing milk not produced with a GM hormone led to a collapse in sales of Monsanto's GM hormone injected into cows to boost milk output. Major dairies and firms like Starbucks and Wal-Mart stopped using GM hormone milk, and Monsanto sold off the business. Barack Obama favours labelling all American food that is GM, and hundreds of US food companies have got together to launch a GM-free label next year. Whatever your views on the rights and wrongs of Prince Charles' constitutional position, on the evidence, it is impossible to sustain the argument that he has been wrong on the environment.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/monarchy">Monarchy</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/prince-charles">Prince Charles</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/organics">Organics</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gm">GM</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/conservation/">Conservation</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/petermelchett">Peter Melchett</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 \| Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> \| <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> Peter Melchett: As the oil price increases, organic food is the answer <div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/14755?ns=guardian&pageName=Peter+Melchett%3A+As+the+oil+price+increases%2C+organic+food+is+the+answer%3AArticle%3A1078511&ch=Comment+is+free&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Environment%2COrganics+%28Environment%29%2CFood+%28Environment%29%2CClimate+change+%28Environment%29%2CUK+news%2COil+%28business%29%2CClimate+change+%28Science%29%2CFood+and+drink+%28Life+and+style%29%2CLife+and+style%2CEthical+and+green+living+%28Environment%29&c6=Peter+Melchett&c7=08-Sep-05&c8=1078511&c9=Article&c10=Comment&c11=Comment+is+free&c13=&c25=Comment+is+free&c30=content&h2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Far from being niche, our research shows that as the price of oil increases, organically farmed food is the most profitable option</p><p>Are sales of <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/29/organic.food">organic food dropping</a> as a result of the economic recession? Retail sales of organic food rose by 25-30% in 2006 and 2007 ? worldwide, sales have grown by an average of 30% a year for 30 years. Some <a href=" http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/29/organics.food1">slowing down</a> of growth is certain this year, as with all food sales. But the picture varies ? Asda has seen their fastest-ever growth in organic sales in the first six months of this year, mainly because they have made <a href=" http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/14/ethicalliving.organics">more organic products</a> available in their stores, and because they are attracting <a href=" http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=62024&d=254&h=260&f=3">more customers</a>. Waitrose say their organic sales are holding up. Half of our expenditure on food is now spent on eating out rather than in the supermarkets, and here organic sales are growing strongly. In the meantime, people buying organic fruit, veg, meat and other food through organic vegetable box schemes are enjoying the best-quality food at prices that are often the same or even lower than non-organic equivalents in the supermarkets. But farming and food is now the UK's largest industry actually producing goods rather than services, and all farmers and food manufacturers will suffer until the economy starts to recover. </p><p>While this short-term slow down in the growth of organic food is inevitable, a more fundamental question is whether this is the start of a longer-term trend. Have organic sales reached some <a href=" http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/aug/29/organics.food">natural limit</a>? Is organic simply a fad, an expensive indulgence for well-off Guardian readers? As my colleague and fellow organic farmer Helen Browning said in a Guardian <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/29/organics.food">article</a> last week:</p><blockquote><p>Ethical shoppers are not just middle class faddists. The assumptions that those on less than middle incomes just don't care, can't be bothered, aren't interested in better food anymore, or the health of farm animals, or our environment, are hideously patronising and fundamentally flawed.</p></blockquote><p>So is the idea that organic farming a food is simply a "niche".</p><p><a href="http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/848d689047cb466780256a6b00298980/f3a8098756cdfd73802574b9002d526c!OpenDocument">Independent research</a> commissioned by the Soil Association and published this week shows that the production of organic combinable crops, such as wheat, barley and oil seed rape, could become more profitable compared to non-organic as the price of oil increases to $200 per barrel ? predicted by a <a href=http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL7232798">recent Chatham House report</a> to happen in five to 10 years. The study by <a href="http://www.andersons.co.uk/research.htm">Andersons</a>, the farm business consultants, shows that with oil at $200 per barrel, the gross margins of non-organic combinable crop systems range from £296 to £348, while the organic margins range from £371 to £411 (the net margins quoted do not include property and administrative costs, typically around £100-£175 per hectare, nor rent and finance costs, as these will vary significantly between farms). With oil at $135 per barrel (which it was when the analysis was done), the margins for organic and non-organic production of a combinable crops system show similar rates of return. The margins of non-organic combinable crop systems range from £397 to £449 and the organic margins range from £405 to £445. For rotations that include potatoes, non-organic systems are more profitable than organic with oil at $135 per barrel, and remain so with oil at $200, but the gap between the two systems narrows appreciably. The research is based on the arable rotations of actual farms Andersons' work with (we did not look at meat or diary in this study), and the costs and returns are based on current figures. </p><p>The different impact of higher oil prices on organic and non-organic profits is mainly due to the high cost of artificial fertilisers ? a fossil-fuel heavy industry ? used in non-organic systems. As oil prices rise, the claimed economic efficiency of fossil fuel- and fertiliser-dependent industrial farming begins to decrease sharply. Organic farming does not use artificial chemical fertilisers, instead building soil fertility through crop rotations and particularly the use of clover that fixes nitrogen naturally from the atmosphere using the sun's energy. Clover can fix 200kg of nitrogen per hectare over a year. Due to rising input costs National Farmers' Union President Peter Kendell <a href="http://www.nfuonline.com/x28088.xml">recently said</a>: "Conventional farmers will have to think harder about rotations as ways of reducing fertiliser and pesticide input." Projections of the impact of future price changes are difficult. As prices change, so will the behaviour of people running farm businesses. In addition, as the costs of production change, at least in theory farmers should be able to command a higher price for their produce, but if that happens, higher prices are likely to affect consumer demand and maybe the level of imports, which will then feed back into changes in demand for primary products from farmers. As the price of oil and therefore nitrogen fertiliser rises, all farmers are likely to try and reduce their machinery use to save on fuel bills, and non-organic farmers are likely to try and apply nitrogen fertiliser and pesticides with greater care and precision than they might have done in the past. For the sake of this analysis, we have not assumed that other changes in farming practice would occur, or that prices for the crops studied would increase. </p><p>Some other crucial factors have not been considered, such as the increasing scarcity of oil and in particular natural gas, currently used to manufacture artificial Nitrogen fertiliser. Not only are supplies likely to decline, much of our natural gas comes from Russia, and what supplies there are could hardly be described as secure. The study did not consider the impact of changes in demand, led by both increased food prices, and the public health drive to change diets to reduce the <a href="http://jech.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/59/12/1054">£6bn per annum</a> cost to the NHS and the UK economy caused by diet-related ill health. Both organic and conventional farmers will respond to rising costs of oil and (for non-organic) nitrogen fertiliser, and to changes in demand, to try and defend the profitability of their business. However, with all these qualifications in mind, the study does show that higher oil prices will have a more significant impact on non-organic farmers, and will move some organic systems into higher profitability than similar non-organic rotations. As oil inevitably becomes scarcer and costs more, economic forces will increasingly favour organic farming. Organic systems are not perfect, but they do use less energy, generally omit fewer greenhouse gases, can sequester carbon in the soil, provide more jobs and support more wildlife. This report suggests they could also offer a more secure long-term financial future for the UK's farmers.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/organics">Organics</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/food">Food</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change">Climate change</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/oil">Oil</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/scienceofclimatechange">Climate change</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/food-and-drink">Food & drink</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/ethical-living">Ethical and green living</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/petermelchett">Peter Melchett</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 \| Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> \| <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> The salvation of high prices <div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/42931?ns=guardian&pageName=The+salvation+of+high+prices%3AArticle%3A778401&ch=Comment+is+free&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Oil+%28business%29%2CFishing+%28Environment%29%2CClimate+change+%28Environment%29%2CEnergy+%28Environment%29%2CLife+and+style%2CFood+and+drink+%28Life+and+style%29%2CEthical+and+green+living+%28Environment%29%2CEnvironment&c6=Peter+Melchett&c7=08-Jun-04&c8=778401&c9=Article&c10=Comment&c11=Comment+is+free&c13=&c25=Comment+is+free&c30=content&h2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Capitulating to demands for cheaper fuel and food will only ensure that both run out sooner and inflict untold damage on the poor</p><p>"Diesel price hike pay save endangered fish stocks" was not a headline you were likely to see as fishermen from all over the EU converged on <a href="http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gdu5XFJV38JNYtKmVirkXA6ZmI8A">Spain last week</a> to protest the impact of high diesel prices. We all know that those global fish stocks that have not already collapsed to nothing are almost all at a crisis point. Fishing technology - the ever-growing size and power of fishing vessels, and the sophistication of their radar and computerised tracking systems - allows ever more deadly operations. Many species of fish shoal together as their numbers fall, allowing relatively "good" catches to continue until there are none left. Yet, in defiance of scientific advice, in most countries, including throughout the EU, politicians have been unable to restrict fishing to allow stocks to recover. So if high diesel prices make some <a href="http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gRMtR6iHsZvbqt5kA-8ZYFdio2hw">fishing uneconomic</a>, might that not be a cause for rejoicing rather than protest? Cheaper diesel, or more subsidies to the fishing industry, will simply make fishermen's jobs disappear faster.</p><p>Nor, at the time, was the <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/28/transport.oil1">lorry drivers' protest</a> in the UK welcomed with cheers, as petrol price rises proved to be the first effective action to curb oil-dependent road transport. Politicians agree we need to cut <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7385615.stm">greenhouse gases</a> by 80% by 2050. Now, at the first sign that reduced consumption of petrol and diesel might actually be happening, the government's Alice-in-Wonderland response is to open up new (albeit tiny) oil fields in the North Sea, and to urge oil companies to pump more oil. All this will do is ensure our oil runs out sooner, and make the eventual change harder.</p><p>The third headline that has not made an appearance in recent weeks is "High food prices help world's poorest farmers". High <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/31/food.internationalaidanddevelopment">global food prices</a> have been attacked as hurting the poor most, signalling a crisis in food supplies. Rising demand in China and India are mentioned as causes, but as many have pointed out, this is no recent, or sudden, phenomenon. Some bad harvests and the idiotic US subsidies for biofuels have played a part, but recent price hikes may have as much to do with speculators moving into commodities from property. As farmers bring in what looks almost certain to be the world's record largest wheat harvest this summer, the food commodity bubble may burst as spectacularly as the house price bubble already has.</p><p>Sudden increases in price do hit the poorest most. However, in the medium term, we do need to pay more for food. Global food prices have been artificially depressed for decades, by staggeringly large taxpayers' subsidies paid to US and EU farmers. In the US, public subsidies to farmers have cost $1.7 trillion over the last 20 years, according to the OECD. The latest farm bill, just approved by Congress, will provide subsidies of nearly £30bn a year, adding an extra £2bn a year to existing subsidies. These figures only tell part of the story, as regular "disaster relief" for US farmers provides a further £10bn a year. In the EU, subsidies currently cost European taxpayers £43bn a year. A few other developed countries, Japan for example, also subsidise their farmers. Not all the £80bn a year plus payments in the US and EU affect food prices, but over decades their overall impact has been to depress global food prices, and to make it harder for farmers in countries with no subsidies, especially the poorest farmers in developing countries, to grow food.</p><p>So farmers in developing countries are forced to grow commodity crops not readily available in the EU or US for export, or are forced to stop farming altogether. Reliance on cheap imports of food dumped by western countries, and on uncertain commodity export markets, crucially diminishes a country's self-sufficiency and resilience in the face of real or perceived global food shortages and global price rises. Yet this is the agricultural policy enthusiastically peddled by our own government for developing countries, and indeed for the UK itself. The UK government's current idea of self-sufficiency and food security is an ability to buy food as cheaply as possible on the world market. This Thatcherite vision of global free trade at any cost has remained undimmed by 10 years of New Labour. The Conservative's <a href="http://www.epolitix.com/briefings/article-detail/newsarticle/conservative-quality-of-life-report/">quality of life commission</a> took a different view, and it seems that another positive consequence of the oil price rises may be, at last, a change in government thinking too. As the Guardian reported last week, the Cabinet Office <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/31/food.gordonbrown">Strategy Unit</a> may be winning an internal battle within Whitehall to force a change in policy. The strategy unit have already noted, "That existing patterns of food production are not fit for a low-carbon, more resource-constrained future". We need more seasonal, local, low-carbon food production; with all countries growing what food they can for their own citizens, and only then turning to exports or imports.</p><p>The speed with which environmental realities disappear from the political and media debate in response to rising oil prices displays a staggering lack of understanding of environmental science, or a degree of short-sightedness extraordinary even for politicians. But I think it also misreads the public mood - as the Cabinet Office report also noted "Supporting citizens' aspirations for better food could help deliver much-needed, long-term changes". What we need are politicians and commentators who have the courage to say what changes we need to make to live well in a "resource-constrained" and "low-carbon" future, and who have the courage to lead that process. The alternative is to leave us flailing around as the environmental realities deliver one blow after another, forcing change on us, and inevitably damaging the poor most in the process.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/oil">Oil</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/fishing">Fishing</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-change">Climate change</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/energy">Energy</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/food-and-drink">Food & drink</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/ethical-living">Ethical and green living</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/petermelchett">Peter Melchett</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 \| Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> \| <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> Full profile <div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/79625?ns=guardian&pageName=Full+profile%3AArticle%3A777874&ch=Life+and+style&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Life+and+style&c6=Peter+Melchett&c7=08-Jun-02&c8=777874&c9=Article&c10=Resource%2CProfile&c11=Life+and+style&c13=&c25=&c30=content&h2=GU%2FLife+and+style%2F" width="1" height="1" /></div><p>Peter Melchett is policy director of the Soil Association, a UK organic food and farming organisation. He runs an 890-acre organic farm in Norfolk, with pigs, beef cattle, sheep and arable crops. He is a member of the BBC's Rural Affairs Committee and the Government's Organic Action Plan Group, and was a member of the Department of Education's School Lunches Review Panel.</p><p>He was a special lecturer in biological sciences at Nottingham University from 1984 until 2002, is on the board of the EU £12m research project 'Quality Low Input Food', and works as an environmental consultant. He was a Labour government minister from 1974-79, at the Departments of Environment, Industry, and Northern Ireland (covering education and health). He was president or chair of several conservation NGOs, was director of Greenpeace UK (1985-2000), and chaired Greenpeace Japan (1995-2001).</p><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/petermelchett">Peter Melchett</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 \| Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> \| <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> Response: The GM debate is not about scientists versus anti-capitalists, says Peter Melchett <div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/70811?ns=guardian&pageName=Response%3A+The+GM+debate+is+not+about+scientists+versus+anti-capitalists%2C%3AArticle%3A603994&ch=Comment+is+free&c3=Guardian&c4=GM+%28Environment%29%2CFood+%28Environment%29%2CEnvironment%2CScience%2CActivism+%28Environment%29&c6=Peter+Melchett&c7=09-Jul-22&c8=603994&c9=Article&c10=Comment&c11=Comment+is+free&c13=Response+%28Cif+series%29&c25=Comment+is+free%2CCif+green&c30=content&h2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Campaigners who oppose GM food aren't vandals - they are acting in the public interest, says Peter Melchett</p><p>Your article about the GM industry's lobbying to make its crop trial locations secret, said that there are "fears that anti-GM campaigners are winning the battle over the controversial technology (<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/feb/16/gmcrops.greenpolitics">GM crop trial locations may be hidden from public</a>, February 16). </p><p>But your story characterises two sides of the battle exactly as pro-GM campaigners would wish. Those who oppose GM food are described as "protesters" engaged in "vandalism". In contrast, commercial interests promoting GM are described neutrally as the "GM industry".</p><p>This, and your special inside report (<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/feb/16/gmcrops.food">Biotech firm mans barricades as campaigners vow to stop trials</a>, February 16), implies these pro-GM campaigners are motivated by a heady mix of scientific integrity and altruism. You report that the old industry claims of GM feeding the world are now extended to GM being "at least part of the solution to food inflation, food security and even global warming". The fact that these multinational chemical companies have been making these claims - that the next GM crop trial will help cure disease or feed the world by increasing yields - for at least 20 years, without this once actually happening, should induce a degree of scepticism.</p><p>The main thrust of your account of the GM industry's views - that those opposed to GM crops in Europe are part of a general anti-capitalist conspiracy - is also an old chestnut. In the 1990s Monsanto dismissed opposition to GM in Europe because they thought it came from a small minority of anti-science and anti-big business activists. In fact those early environmental concerns turned out to be shared by the vast majority of Europe's citizens. Why? Because concerns about growing and eating GM food are justified by both experience and scientific research. </p><p>Another golden oldie is the threat from pro-GM campaigners that Britain must embrace GM or lose jobs. The article says that "fears of vandalism have forced many companies to shift their crop trials abroad", without asking whether the rejection of GM food by our citizens might have had something to do with it. In fact, opposition to GM is growing throughout the EU, especially in France and Germany, as the article itself notes.</p><p>GM trials pose a risk to the environment and to farmers growing similar non-GM and organic crops. In 1999, 28 Greenpeace volunteers, of whom I was one, removed a GM maize crop in Norfolk. You describe this as a "protest", and that is exactly what the prosecution in our subsequent criminal trial tried, and failed, to prove. The jury found that what we did was legally remove a crop that threatened the integrity of other nearby crops, acting in the public interest. The fear of many farmers is that, once released into the environment, GM crops will spread their traits to related native plants. Once released, they can never be recalled. </p><p>The reckless abandon with which GM companies want to spread this poorly understood, inherently uncertain and potentially very dangerous technology terrifies me, and the public are right to continue to reject it.</p><p><strong>·</strong> Peter Melchett is an organic farmer and policy director of the Soil Association.<br /><a href="mailto:pmelchett@soilassociation.org">pmelchett@soilassociation.org</a></p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gm">GM</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/food">Food</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/activism">Activism</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/petermelchett">Peter Melchett</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 \| Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> \| <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> Agribusiness as usual <div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/92?ns=guardian&pageName=Agribusiness+as+usual%3AArticle%3A768383&ch=Comment+is+free&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Organics+%28Environment%29%2CHealth+%28Society%29%2CGM+%28Environment%29%2CAgriculture+%28Science%29%2CLife+and+style%2CFood+and+drink+%28Life+and+style%29%2CEthical+and+green+living+%28Environment%29%2CEnvironment&c6=Peter+Melchett&c7=08-Jan-16&c8=768383&c9=Article&c10=Comment&c11=Comment+is+free&c13=&c25=Comment+is+free&c30=content&h2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">Apart from the under-researched 'safety' of cloning, and its inherent cruelty to animals, this technology serves only corporate, not consumer interests</p><p>To no one's great surprise, the US Food and Drug Administration <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jan/16/agriculture.genetics">has decided</a> that cloned animals, and products from them, such as milk, are safe for consumers.</p><p>As a result, European regulators are now under pressure <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,322569,00.html">to adopt</a> the same pro-cloning policy in order to allow imports of foods from cloned animals, and indeed that is the view of the EU's scientific advisory committee on this. Already, thousands of doses of cattle semen from clones have been used in the US. In September last year, the European Commission held a meeting to help it decide on its policy. Experts <a href="http://www.ciwf.org.uk/publications/media_briefs/Media_Briefing_Genetic_Engineering.pdf">explained</a> how cloning depends on several horribly cruel processes. Using hormones and invasive techniques, the eggs are extracted from female animals, and surrogate mothers are then used to rear the implanted embryos. There are frequent abnormalities and many foetuses are naturally aborted or have to be terminated. Many others die soon after birth.</p><p>Partly because of these huge losses, the clones themselves are extremely expensive, and would not be used for food, but they would be used, for example, for producing semen for artificial insemination. US regulators have decided that the progeny of cloned animals can be used for food, despite the fact that there is almost no scientific research to show if this is safe.</p><p>The Soil Association, along with almost all of those involved with organic food, and many others, <a href="http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/70423e6225bf43988025718c0048b5c0/e307b1eb1538e441802573d2003d9026!OpenDocument">is concerned</a> about these further attempts to manipulate nature in ways that will benefit a few of the largest farmers and enrich some of the largest agribusiness companies in the world.</p><p>My concerns fall into two main areas - risk and animal welfare. Food safety cannot and should not be judged until there is a body of scientific understanding of the biological impacts of cloning. With so little research into the health impacts, it is unscientific and totally irresponsible to simply "assume" or "hope" that these animals are safe for eating. This approach has been <a href="http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/9f788a2d1160a9e580256a71002a3d2b/9ce8a24d75d3f65980256c370031a2d0!OpenDocument">proven</a> to be wrong with GM; many animal trials show negative effects from "EU approved" GM crops.</p><p>There are major animal welfare problems, which mean this technique should not be allowed even if it is "safe" for people. The commercial use of cloning, such as through artificial insemination, will further reduce the genetic diversity of livestock and so increase the risk of disease epidemics. More generally, this technique will promote industrialisation of livestock rearing with negative nutritional, animal health and environmental consequences, including increased emissions of greenhouse gases.</p><p>Whatever your view on the lack of scientific evidence for food safety, the animal welfare arguments against cloning on animal welfare grounds seem to me to be irresistible. The scientists involved in cloning claim that the "loss rates" are coming down as the technology improves. Joyce D'Silva, of <a href="http://www.ciwf.org.uk/">Compassion in World Farming</a>, is clear that this technology is unacceptable on animal welfare grounds. She notes that cloned animals "are the high-producing animals that have the most endemic welfare problems anyway".</p><p>Those supporting cloning respond to the animal welfare criticisms in exactly the same way as the GM industry has responded to the realities of higher pesticide use, similar or lower yields, and rejection in the marketplace - by promising jam tomorrow. In the case of cloning, scientists claim that cloning could be used to enhance animal welfare - for example, by spreading useful genetic mutations that make animals resistant to diseases such as scrapie. The same scientists claim that cloning could make animals able to adapt to a changing climate or to resist new diseases. There is no evidence that any of this can actually be achieved, any more than GM crops have eradicated hunger and starvation nearly a quarter of a century after GM scientists started claiming that these miracles would soon be delivered by GM technology.</p><p>In an interesting quote, the UK's <a href="http://www.nfuonline.com/">National Farmers Union</a> (NFU), which represents agribusiness, and currently takes a pro-GM and pro-cloning line, reveals what is wrong about the reaction of some farmers to these new technologies. Helen Ferrier, the NFU's food science adviser, said: "Generally, our views on the safety or the acceptability etc are really based on the opinions of independent scientific experts." It's one thing to rely on scientists to pronounce on safety, but why on earth aren't the NFU listening to their customers when it comes to deciding whether a particular way of raising farm animals is "acceptable" or not?</p><p>Whether something is acceptable is a moral question, on something which people producing a product should leave to society as a whole and individual customers to decide. It is a gross abuse of science to suggest that pronouncing unacceptability is a scientific matter.</p><p>To add insult to injury, the NFU go on to say that they don't want there to be any requirement to label meat or dairy products from cloned animals or their offspring because it might "mislead" consumers. So the animals suffer and the people who buy the food from these new and cruel systems are going to be kept in the dark about where their food comes from.</p><p>I suppose, as an organic farmer, working in a system that bans GM and cloning, I should be pleased; but, in fact, the whole business leaves me feeling sickened and sad.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/organics">Organics</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/health">Health</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gm">GM</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/agriculture">Agriculture</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/food-and-drink">Food & drink</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/ethical-living">Ethical and green living</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/petermelchett">Peter Melchett</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 \| Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> \| <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> Organic's better. Admit it <div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/93034?ns=guardian&pageName=Organic%27s+better.+Admit+it%3AArticle%3A766721&ch=Comment+is+free&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Organics+%28Environment%29%2CHealth+%28Society%29%2CLife+and+style%2CFood+and+drink+%28Life+and+style%29%2CEthical+and+green+living+%28Environment%29%2CEnvironment&c6=Peter+Melchett&c7=07-Oct-30&c8=766721&c9=Article&c10=Comment&c11=Comment+is+free&c13=&c25=Comment+is+free&c30=content&h2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">In general, it provides more beneficial nutrients than the equivalent non-organic food - and the Food Standards Agency should acknowledge this.</p><p>It will have been a surprise to many people to read the headlines <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article2753446.ece">Official: organic really is better</a> and <a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article2753546.ece">Eat your words, all who scoff at organic food</a> in the Sunday Times this weekend. But it's not that surprising if you know that in the period since the second world war there has been a massive decline in the nutrients in the food we eat.</p><p>The decline has been so serious that you would have to have eaten 10 tomatoes in 1991 to get the same level of copper as you would have got from one tomato in 1940. Between 1940 and 1991, apples lost 66% of their iron, broccoli lost 75% of its calcium, and in news that would dismay Popeye, even spinach lost 60% of its iron. Over the same period, we have seen even more dramatic declines in the wildlife that live on our farms, and similar declines in the number of farmers, the number of people working on farms, and so on. In the case of wildlife, we know from a number of major scientific reviews that organic farms in general have about 50% more wildlife and 30% more species. Government research shows that organic farms employ about 30% more people than non-organic farms.</p><p>It is a reasonable hypothesis that organic food might contain more nutrients than non-organic, and there is a clear scientific basis for this. If you breed crops for yield, as non-organic agriculture has done over the past 60 years, you lose other attributes - including beneficial minerals and nutrients, and often the characteristic taste of the fruit or vegetable. In addition, we now know that many chemicals that a plant produces to help it fight off insects and diseases are the same chemicals that nutritionists reckon are essential for good human health. Spraying a non-organic crop with chemicals to protect it from insects and disease means the plant doesn't need to activate its own self-defence mechanisms, and the chemicals which would naturally be present in the plant, and from which human health actually benefits, are not there.</p><p>The Soil Association first <a href="http://www.soilassociation.org/Web/SA/saweb.nsf/9f788a2d1160a9e580256a71002a3d2b/de88ae6e5aa94aed80256abd00378489/$FILE/foodqualityreport.pdf ">published a review (pdf)</a> of evidence for real nutritional differences between organic and non-organic food back in 2001. We have also published a more up-to-date <a href="http://www.soilassociation.org/web/sa/saweb.nsf/4042794258a20f4280256a680046b77e/7a54a18f894fee45802571bc00443124!OpenDocument">information sheet</a> covering the latest peer-reviewed research. This scientific evidence provokes a pretty strong reaction from the non-organic food industry and their supporters in the government (including, sadly, a few within the Food Standards Agency). Why? After all, industrial agriculture was happy to claim credit for "shedding" labour from farms, for the "increased efficiency" of consolidating farms into ever larger units, and even manages consistently to claim that the loss of wildlife is not as serious as the statistics show. The latest government report, published last week, shows that in fact farmland wildlife is <a href="http://www.rspb.org.uk/news/details.asp?id=tcm:9-173156">still in decline</a>. It is not surprising that food grown more slowly, with less stress to produce the maximum yield, in more natural conditions, is likely to have higher levels of beneficial minerals and nutrients.</p><p>It really should be a simple matter for the non-organic food producers to acknowledge that their cheaper food inevitably delivers fewer benefits, both to the environment and to human beings. That wouldn't be unusual for cheaper products. Instead, for the past decade or more the growing evidence in peer-reviewed papers has been constantly questioned. With more research being published, particularly as a result of the £20m <a href="http://www.qlif.org/">Quality Low Input Food</a> project funded by the European Union, this is becoming an increasingly untenable position. Professor Leifert of Newcastle University, who leads that project says: "There is enough evidence now that the level of good things is higher in organics."</p><p>Those determined to ignore the science resort to two debating tricks. First, they pretend that the research shows not beneficial nutritional differences between organic and non-organic (which it does), but rather claimed differences in health outcomes (which it does not). The latter is far more difficult to show, for a number of reasons, including the huge number of variables that affect our health, and the difficulty of controlling something as complex as our diet over a long enough period to show differences between a group of people eating organic food and a group of people who don't.</p><p>Second, critics suggest that those in favour of organic food, or the scientists who find nutritional differences, are suggesting that all anyone has to do is switch to organic to be guaranteed a healthy diet. I'm afraid this is a particular trick of the Food Standards Agency's (FSA) chief scientist, who should know better. In reality, people eating organic food need to eat a balanced diet, with plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, and not too much meat, just like anyone else.</p><p>The FSA chief scientist says: "The most important issue is not whether people are eating organic or not, but whether they are eating a healthy balanced diet." But the FSA don't knock people who, for example, eat plenty of spinach or fruit, or eat food containing less salt or sugar, because all that matters is whether they are eating a "healthy balanced diet". However, the FSA also say that they "maintain a close watch on scientific papers that evaluate organic food and will continue to assess new research as it is published", and they have just agreed to commission an independent review.</p><p>The truth is that organic food, produced by a farming system that prioritises positively healthy crops and animals, does, in general, provide people with more beneficial nutrients than the equivalent non-organic food. Recent research from America found a near doubling of antioxidant levels in organic tomatoes - if some people are only going to eat one vegetable portion a day, whatever the official nutritional advice, then it would (for tomatoes anyway) be really valuable if they ate organic, as they would double their intake.</p><p>As Professor Leifert says, the differences between organic and non-organic fruit and vegetables are so marked that organic produce would help increase the nutrient intake of people not eating the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. That's something you'd think the FSA's chief scientist would welcome. At present, scientists can't tell either way whether this means people eating organic food are likely to be healthier or no healthier than those that eat non-organic food. The organic movement is quite happy to leave that to ordinary people's common sense.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/organics">Organics</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/health">Health</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/food-and-drink">Food & drink</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/ethical-living">Ethical and green living</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/petermelchett">Peter Melchett</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 \| Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> \| <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> A genetically modified story? <div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/16935?ns=guardian&pageName=A+genetically+modified+story%3F%3AArticle%3A765789&ch=Comment+is+free&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=GM+%28Environment%29%2CThe+Guardian+%28Media%29%2CBusiness%2CLife+and+style%2CFood+and+drink+%28Life+and+style%29%2CEthical+and+green+living+%28Environment%29%2CEnvironment&c6=Peter+Melchett&c7=07-Sep-18&c8=765789&c9=Article&c10=Comment&c11=Comment+is+free&c13=&c25=Comment+is+free%2CCif+green&c30=content&h2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">The Guardian claims that ministers are ready to back GM crops in the UK. I beg to differ, and I think readers - and reporters - should be sceptical too.</p><p>The front page of Monday's Guardian announced <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/sep/17/gmcrops.politicalnews1">firmly</a> "Return of GM: ministers back moves to grow crops in the UK". The story alleges that ministers have suddenly decided we will all love GM crops and want them grown in the UK. This is nonsense.</p><p>It is based on an anonymous briefing by one individual, who, because he or she is described as being "a senior government source" (code for a civil servant) is not actually a minister at all. The story by the Guardian's science correspondent neatly coincides with the departure of one of the government's longest standing pro-GM campaigners, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/18/ngm118.xml">Professor Howard Dalton</a>, who finishes his job as the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs' chief scientist this week. I've no idea if Howard Dalton is the Guardian's source. But the story certainly contains enough pro-GM fantasy and inaccuracies to indicate that it came from someone inside the government with a very strong desire to impose GM on the British public, and maybe even a burning resentment that they have so far miserably failed to do so.</p><p>For example, the anonymous source of the story is quoted as saying that it is a fact "that some GM crops can produce higher yields in more difficult climatic conditions". I know of no published science that supports this assertion. Indeed, some years ago, the US government's strongly pro-GM department of agriculture said that existing GM crops had not <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/394301.stm">increased yields</a>. As for "difficult climatic conditions", the only evidence we have is that some GM crops have done particularly badly when stressed, for example by drought. Genetically engineered cotton has gone brittle and lost its cotton buds when subject particularly dry and hot weather. The article also claims that the small-scale trial of GM potatoes currently under way in the UK "could lead to the potato being the first in a line of GM crops grown in the UK". Again, absolutely no evidence is produced for this assertion. In fact, every large-scale buyer of potatoes, in both North America and the UK, has said for many years now that they would not countenance buying GM potatoes. That's true, for example, of McCain's in the US and McDonald's in Europe. The GM potato trials are even opposed by the body representing British potato farmers, the <a href="http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/approval_for_gm_potato_tri_14052007.html">British Potato Council</a>. The article says that GM crops were barred by supermarkets "such as Sainsbury's and Marks & Spencer" - in fact GM was, and still is, barred by all supermarkets, in response to their customers' views.</p><p>What the article omits to say is as telling as what is included. For example, we are told that in 2004 GM crops fell foul of "poor public relations". No mention that this was the result of the government-sponsored "GM debate", organised by the scrupulously neutral (because it contained strong scientific representation from both the pro- and anti-GM camps), government appointed, Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology <a href="http://www.aebc.gov.uk/">Commission</a>. The source says this was a "bad public consultation", presumably because it did not deliver the answer the source wanted. How inconvenient of the public! The article says that GM potatoes are modified to resist blight: "the fungus that devastated Ireland's potato crop and caused famine back in the 1840s". No mention of the surely relevant fact that these trials came to the UK because they were banned in Ireland. We are also told that the field scale trials of GM "assessed their impact on the environment" - but there is no mention of the important fact that the results showed that most of the crops trialled had even more negative effects on farmland wildlife than the industrial crops they were compared to.</p><p>Reading this nonsense left me with two questions. First, how on earth could the Guardian give over its front page to a story based on the musings of one anonymous source, claiming to speak on behalf of ministers but clearly not a minister? Second, how many other commercial products could expect to get a huge plug on the front page of a national newspaper on the basis of one anonymous briefing? If some unnamed person working in or "close to" the government rang up the Guardian science correspondent and told them that ministers had decided that Sir Clive Sinclair's C5 electric three-wheeler was needed in the UK to help combat climate change, would the product get a front page free ad? I know the Guardian likes to wind up its anti-GM readers, but in future I really think it should have a bit more evidence to back up a free plug for Monsanto's and BASF's products.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gm">GM</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/theguardian">The Guardian</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/food-and-drink">Food & drink</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/ethical-living">Ethical and green living</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/petermelchett">Peter Melchett</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 \| Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> \| <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> The double-standards agency? <div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/67674?ns=guardian&pageName=The+double-standards+agency%3F%3AArticle%3A765640&ch=Comment+is+free&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Health+%28Society%29%2CFood+and+drink+%28Life+and+style%29%2CEnvironment%2CGM+%28Environment%29%2CLife+and+style%2CRural+affairs%2CPolitics%2CEthical+and+green+living+%28Environment%29&c6=Peter+Melchett&c7=07-Sep-10&c8=765640&c9=Article&c10=Comment&c11=Comment+is+free&c13=&c25=Comment+is+free%2CCif+green&c30=content&h2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">The Food Standards Agency must tackle its stance on GM foods and give proper guidance on additives or it risks losing all credibility.</p><p>Last week research commissioned by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) confirmed what was already a virtual certainty - that the cocktails of artificial additives used in many non-organic processed foods are a threat to children. Given the history of this study, the FSA's bizarre reaction left many of us dumbfounded. As the Guardian <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/story/0,,2163217,00.html">reported</a>, scientists have been saying that additives are a threat to children and a cause of hyper-activity for more than 30 years. In 2002 a study on the Isle of Wight confirmed the risk from additives. The FSA's advisers, the Committee on Toxicity, said the study wasn't good enough to be conclusive. All of us opposed to the use of these additives responded by telling the FSA that they should commission a study that they were happy would provide a "definitive" answer.</p><p>After years of delay they did so. In the meantime, research by Professor Vyvyan Howard, sponsored by the organic baby food company Organix, and published last year, highlighted the danger of particular cocktails of <a href="http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1671821,00.html">additives</a>. Then last week the Southampton study did indeed confirm the conclusions of the Isle of Wight study. What came as a surprise was that the FSA, having commissioned a study to give them a "definitive" answer, had the barefaced cheek to announce that the results were not definitive. They were. The lead researcher, Professor Jim Stevenson, said it provided clear evidence that children who consume a mix of additives can suffer changes of behaviour and that this could affect children in the whole population.</p><p>These artificial additives should be banned from all food. Organic food manufacturers produce good quality, wholesome food using around 40 natural additives (such as salt, sugar and baking soda) compared to over 400 additives, almost all artificial chemicals, used in non-organic food. The fact that these artificial additives, preservatives and colourings, are a threat to children's health is also a threat to the multi-billion pound food-manufacturing industry. They depend on these additives to give colour and taste to the cheap, mass-produced ingredients they use, and to give their products the long shelf life that global distribution systems require. But this does not excuse the FSA abandoning its principles of openness and impartiality, as it appears to have done when it received Professor Stevenson's report.</p><p>The FSA has admitted they had a secret meeting with the food industry before the research was published. As far as I can tell, no independent public interest groups were involved in these discussions. The FSA's reaction when they find scientific evidence that ingredients in processed food are harmful to health, as with salt, sugar and fat, has been to insist on new, clear labelling, for example with a traffic-light scheme. In the face of scientific evidence of harm from additives, the FSA have told worried parents to look at the ingredients list. They have already said that harassed shoppers can't be expected to spot salt, sugar and fat in such lists, so how on earth can we be expected to remember which of the 400 additives are particularly dangerous, whether it's E102, E122, E211 or E110? Worse, we need to be briefed on both the common and scientific names of these additives, and their American names, as all of these can appear on labels in British supermarkets.</p><p>The creation of the FSA was one of those early reforms of Tony Blair's New Labour government originally intended to mark a radical change from the past. Gone would be the days when food safety played second fiddle to the interests of big food companies and industrial agriculture. Secrecy, private commercial lobbying and the unethical combining of political policy on food and regulation of food safety in one department, would be swept away. The FSA does score high marks for public trust, it has stood up to the food industry over excessive salt, sugar and fat in processed food, and clamped down hard when illegal additives like <a href="http://www.food.gov.uk/news/newsarchive/2005/mar/sudanlist">Sudan I</a> were found in processed food. It holds its board meetings in public, in general consults widely, and usually takes great trouble to talk to a wide range of interests before reaching decisions.</p><p>Two years ago, the FSA asked Baroness Dean to conduct an independent <a href="http://www.food.gov.uk/aboutus/how_we_work/deanreview">review</a> of their operations, and her report confirmed this positive assessment - with just two qualifications. Lady Dean said that in two areas - GM and organic - the FSA was seen by many of those she consulted as having departed from its objective of relying on scientific evidence. The FSA were widely regarded as pro-GM and anti-organic. Given the strong personal views on these issues of the FSA's first chairman, Sir John Krebs, which he insisted on bringing to his work at the FSA, the reputation was well deserved. Lady Dean's report apparently had a significant impact on the FSA's board, clearly annoyed that their good work had been undermined by Krebs' personal <a href="http://education.guardian.co.uk/egweekly/story/0,,1713807,00.html">crusade</a>.</p><p>The appointment of Dame Deirdre Hutton to replace John Krebs was widely welcomed as an opportunity for the FSA to clean up its act in these two areas. Significant staffing changes at senior levels in the FSA followed. The agency, formed in large part from the old Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF), had been dominated by a number of old MAFF staff who carried the pro-agribusiness attitudes of that department with them to the FSA. In some meetings with FSA officials you could sit and watch younger staff react with open-mouthed (but silent) horror at the bias being displayed by their bosses. Since Deirdre Hutton's appointment, the FSA has adopted a far more neutral attitude to organic food, but it seems that there are still areas where the Krebs and old MAFF legacy persists. The Committee on Toxicity, which advises the FSA on additives, has a long and distinguished record of being completely wrong on the <a href="http://www.food.gov.uk/news/pressreleases/2002/oct/94043">cocktail effect</a> of both pesticides and additives, and the advice it gives seems designed to try and salvage its own reputation in the face of growing evidence that its critics are right, and have been for decades.</p><p>GM is another area where the FSA is still getting it horribly wrong. Last year, <a href="http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/illegal_gm_rice_found_in_u_05092006.html">illegal GM rice</a>, not cleared for human consumption anywhere in the world, turned up in US long-grain rice imports to the UK. As a subsequent court case brought by Friends of the Earth <a href="http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/press_releases/food_standards_agency_take_21022007.html">revealed</a>, the FSA miserably failed to meet their legal obligations to protect the public. Ignoring the fact that this GM rice was illegal and that there was no evidence it was safe to eat, the FSA originally told supermarkets they didn't need to bother removing it from their shelves. FoE's successful campaign forced a series of changes in the FSA's position, all endorsed by the judge who eventually heard the case. But delay, prevarication, lack of concern for the public interest in the face of GM corporate interests, and secrecy characterised the FSA's behaviour throughout.</p><p>When it comes to GM, the FSA seems to have learned nothing. They are now carrying out a review of their response to the illegal GM rice, which they promised during the legal proceedings brought by FoE. But even the FSA's review is both slow and secretive, excluding all but a few interested parties. If Lady Dean were to conduct another review of the FSA's performance today, it is hard to see her coming to a different conclusion on GM, with the FSA in conflict not only with scientific evidence but now also with the law.</p><p>The FSA's chair, Deirdre Hutton and her board, have done a good job in putting right some of the problems bequeathed to them by John Krebs and identified so clearly by Lady Dean. But there are areas where things seem to be getting worse rather than better. The government, at least until Tony Blair left office, was one of the most pro-GM in the world, but the agency is meant to be independent, not Blair or Krebs' genetically-engineered poodle. MAFF's successor, the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, is still in awe of the big food multinationals, and there is a whole generation of scientists even more committed to industrial food production than the government. The FSA has to break free from these scientists' refusal to admit their past mistakes. The Food Standards Agency is in danger of becoming a double-standards agency when it comes to GM and the key building blocks of industrial, processed food - pesticides and additives. The public deserve better.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/health">Health</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/food-and-drink">Food & drink</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gm">GM</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/ruralaffairs">Rural affairs</a></li><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/ethical-living">Ethical and green living</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/petermelchett">Peter Melchett</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 \| Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> \| <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" /> Accidents will happen <div class="track"><img alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.20.3/58335?ns=guardian&pageName=Accidents+will+happen%3AArticle%3A765617&ch=Comment+is+free&c3=GU.co.uk&c4=Foot+and+mouth&c6=Peter+Melchett&c7=07-Sep-07&c8=765617&c9=Article&c10=Comment&c11=Comment+is+free&c13=&c25=Comment+is+free&c30=content&h2=GU%2FComment+is+free%2Fblog%2FComment+is+free" width="1" height="1" /></div><p class="standfirst">The concept of 'biosecurity' is a myth. The manufacture of vaccines will always produce risks - and, in the case of foot and mouth, they are worth taking.</p><p>The spread of foot and mouth disease from one or other of the laboratories at Pirbright has produced some strong reactions. First and foremost among them is the demand to know <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/footandmouth/story/0,,2164397,00.html">who's to blame</a>. There is a very strong, and it seems to me growing, need in our culture to have someone to blame for every disaster in the countryside, from floods to animal diseases. Second, in this particular case, how could we allow the development of a vaccine intended to control the disease to become the cause of an outbreak?</p><p>Implicit in the desire to pin the blame on someone is the assumption that this could have been prevented, and that accidents don't happen. Accidents do happen, and people make mistakes, but in the countryside we are in danger of being persuaded that something called "biosecurity" can change the laws of nature. The countryside is not a laboratory. Farming works in an environment full of uncertainty, with unexpected events ranging from the consequences of our unpredictable weather, to the extraordinary ability of farm animals to get through what appear to be impenetrable barriers.</p><p>Scientists used to working in laboratories find it hard to get their heads around the idea that, for example, a wild deer may wander into an experimental plot of GM maize, take a cob, and walk a few miles with it in its mouth. Even with what are meant to be the most "biosecure" industrial animal factories, like <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/story/0,,2015217,00.html">Bernard Matthews' turkey buildings</a> in Norfolk, it is simply ridiculous to suggest animals like mice, rats, and small birds can ever be completely excluded. All farm buildings get old and it's great to see birds and other wildlife using them for nesting and shelter - in trying to make farms more like laboratories, we often do more harm than good.</p><p>Nevertheless, the concept of "biosecurity" remains unchallenged by most farmers, politicians and the media. Of course, we should do what we can to take precautions against diseases, and to keep food safe. But just as important, we should be helping crops and farm animals to be healthy enough to resist disease. In farming, as in human health, prevention is always better than cure. But just as we would be uneasy about suggesting that human beings avoid diseases by spending their lives confined in antiseptic, controlled atmosphere conditions, we should be equally uneasy about applying this to animals. Not only is it impossible to achieve complete protection, but attempts to do so, confining animals in conditions which ape laboratories, weakens their immune systems and leaves them more vulnerable to disease when it does strike. We have seen this with wasting disease in pigs and avian influenza in poultry. In both cases, outdoor reared and organic animals seems to be significantly more resistant to those diseases than animals reared in highly artificial, but more "biosecure", indoor units.</p><p>So if we're going to manufacture vaccines, just as if we're going to develop new GM crops or create nuclear waste, we have to accept there are real risks in doing so. All of us should be honest in saying we can't eliminate the risks, while doing all we can to minimise them. We need to ask the question - is the benefit worth the risk? Is there a safer, better alternative? In the case of both GM and nuclear waste, I'm clear that there are better and safer alternatives. When it comes to producing vaccines to control foot and mouth disease (or bird flu) I think we know that the alternatives are worse. If I have to choose between the wholesale slaughter of hundreds of thousands of farm animals, huge damage to farming and even great damage to thousands of rural businesses through a policy to control foot and mouth by slaughter rather than vaccination, I think the slight risk of a vaccine escaping is worth taking.</p><p>Of course we need to learn lessons from what happened at Pirbright. Of course there's been under-investment in most publicly funded research in recent decades. In part this is because responsibility for research has been handed over to the private sector. It is also because of the absurd priority given to GM research by public funding bodies over the last two decades. But a the end of the day, those of us in favour of vaccination in the face of major disease threats like foot and mouth or bird flu must accept the risks along with the benefits that this brings to farm animals, farmers and the countryside.</p><div class="related" style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><ul><li><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/footandmouth">Foot and mouth</a></li></ul></div><div class="author"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/petermelchett">Peter Melchett</a></div><br/><div class="terms"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk">guardian.co.uk</a> © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 \| Use of this content is subject to our <a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html">Terms & Conditions</a> \| <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds">More Feeds</a></div><p style="clear:both" />

organic vegetable graden guide

Benefits Of Organic Foods
By Mike
Anyone aware of the amount of chemicals included in highly processed food is aware of the importance and the benefits of organic foods in the first place. By the difference between conventional and organic food, we don't necessarily imply that between an apple grown organically and another regular one. What needs to be insisted on consists in the real benefits of organic foods for health first and foremost. Lots of consumers suffering from some form of chronic illness or even cancer, choose organic foods as safer and more health oriented than conventional products. Even if the nutritional value is not that different between the two trends, the use of chemicals, hormones and pesticides in the production of non-organic foods has an impact on the positive qualities of the product in the first place. Lots of consumer analyses do not insist on the difference in nutrients value, there are studies however that point out to the superiority and the benefits of organic foods in this sense. It seems that among the benefits of organic foods we ought to include more vitamin C, higher levels of trace minerals and plenty of anti-oxidant nutrients. A report issued by the US Department of Agriculture indicates that there has been a

Re: Raw Food Festival Sedona AZ Oct. 12-14
I wasn't aware of this. I'll be there as well now that I know about it.
Raw Food Festival Sedona AZ Oct. 12-14
Just wanted to share information regarding the Raw Spirit Festival happening in Sedona, AZ next month. My family will be attending. Hope to see each of you there! Click on the link below for event details. Also, please forward this email to others who you think might be interested! bhttp://www.rawspiritfest.com/idevaffiliate/idevaffiliate.php?id=331 Dishonne

significant decline in the minerals levels of meat, dairy and vegetables since 1940 in terms of regular non-organic crops. The present-day extensive storage and the intense processing of the crops further lowers the quality of conventional foods. Surprising benefits of organic foods include the higher content of dry matter. To make this clear, we have to consider the fact that the use of the artificial fertilizers causes the fruits or vegetables to retain more water and thus swell. Thus, a non-organic apple gives less food than an organic one. Nevertheless, besides the different amounts of nutrients, there are other advantages to organic food. First of all, there are almost no pesticide residues in organic products. Even if conventional food producers claim that pesticides are no threat to human health, one doesn't have to be an expert to know that the ingestion of anything chemical cannot help or be 100% safe for the system. The benefits of organic foods are over-emphasized at present, with more and more people choosing them over conventional foods. In time this preference will definitely trigger a reorientation of the market and even a redefinition of the standards that characterize in the first place.
This article is written by Mike

Here are some articles to start with..

Natural Organic Foods
By Mike
With hypermarkets becoming an agglomeration of poisoning so-called foods, and in the conditions of more and more sensitivities and illness, it's no wonder people turn towards natural organic foods. Read more...

Organic Meats
By Mike
The consume of organic meats is a very healthy choice for people who care about their personal well being and for the environment. The difference from industrial farms is that organic livestock gets Read more...