January 2012

Earth Day Agriculture and Sustainable Intensification

by Greg Conko on April 22, 2010

in Agriculture, Culture, Environment, Health and Illness, Nano & Biotech, Natural Resources, Precaution & Risk, Regulation, Zeitgeist

What’s the most sustainable way to grow the food we eat? The answer environmentalists give is always “local and organic.”  But, increasingly, the answer from the scientists who’ve studied the question is the exact opposite.  A study from England’s Royal Society issued last October concluded that genuinely sustainable agriculture must embrace the use of science and technology for producing more food on less land.  It suggests that a healthy concern for protecting the environment necessitates the greater adoption of sophisticated agricultural technologies, including fertilizers, pesticides, and bioengineered (or GM) crops.  Why?  Because protecting the environment will require growing vastly more food without bringing new land into agriculture–what the report calls “sustainable intensification.”

And, just last week, the US National Academy of Sciences’s National Research Council issued an in-depth study on The Impact of Genetically Engineered Crops on Farm Sustainability in the United States, concluding that, “when best management practices are implemented, GE crops have been effective at reducing pest problems with economic and environmental benefits”.

Among the reports more specific findings:

  • “Adoption of herbicide-resistant crops could help improve soil and water quality.”
  • “Targeting specific insect pests with Bt toxins in corn and cotton has been successful, and insecticide use has decreased with the adoption of insect-resistant crops.”
  • “Many adopters of GE crops have experienced either lower costs of production or higher yields, and sometimes both.”
  • “Farmers who previously faced high levels of insect pests that were difficult to treat before insect-resistant crops have particularly benefited from applying lower amounts of or less expensive insecticides.”
  • “More effective management of weeds and insects also means that farmers may not have to apply insecticides or till for weeds as often.”

An overwhelming amount of scientific evidence amassed during the past two decades suggests that genetically engineered foods have been a huge boon for American farmers, consumers, and the environment.

Ironically, claims that organic farming is a nearer and dearer friend to the environment are difficult to substantiate because organic practices merely trade some environmental threats for others. For example, organic farms do not generate the same sorts of synthetic chemical run-off as modern, industrialized farms. But organic farms do still need to control pests, weeds, and pathogens. They also need to replace soil nutrients drawn off by growing plants. Judged by the standards of those who criticize modern agricultural practices, the techniques that organic farmers use to accomplish these tasks are far from eco-friendly.

While organic farmers do not use synthetic pesticides, they do use chemicals to control insects and plant diseases – including such potentially dangerous chemicals as copper sulfate, rotenone, pyrethrum, ryania, and sabadilla. These “organic” pesticides are derived from minerals or plants, are lightly processed, and thus are considered to be “natural” for the purposes of organic agriculture. Yet, ounce for ounce, most are at least as toxic or carcinogenic as many of the newest synthetic chemical pesticides.

In addition, because organic farmers must control weeds by using frequent, mechanical tillage – or sacrifice yields – organic agriculture contributes to topsoil erosion and disturbs worms and other soil invertebrates. Compared with modern conservation tillage practices, organic weed control is much more environmentally damaging.  And, instead of soluble nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous fertilizers, organic farmers rely on animal manure and so-called “green manures,” such as legume nitrogen fixation or organic plant matter, to restore soil nutrients. However, plowing legume crops and animal wastes into the soil leads to nitrate leaching into groundwater and streams at rates similar to conventional agricultural practices, and the chemical properties of soluble mineral fertilizers that are prohibited in organic farming are identical to those of that are released in uncontrolled quantities by the mineralization of organic matter.

Ultimately, many Americans have come to believe the organic food industry’s marketing campaign that consuming its products is the environmental way to eat.  But, those claims just don’t stand up to rigorous scientific scrutiny.

Foreign Aid is Wasteful: Recent World Bank Move Could Easily Make it Moreso

by Fred Smith on April 22, 2010

in Odds & Ends

Robert B. Zoellick, World Bank President, has attracted sovereign wealth funds to expand his organization’s ability to “assist” developing world economies  (World Bank gets help from sovereign wealth funds to invest in developing nations).   Since foreign aid, as the late Peter Bauer noted long ago, in practice is normally a process of taxing the poor in richer countries to help the rich in poorer countries, this is not encouraging.  Sovereign wealth funds are the sums accumulated by nation states (often via capital controls) for investment.  In freer economies, these funds are dispersed via profits throughout the economy and invested by private parties in pursuit of their risk/return preferences.  Sovereign funds are political versions of the same thing but politics often is less adroit at allocating capital – sometimes investing too much in high-failure sectors, other times satisfying with low risk and low return options (China, after all, is a major purchaser of US Treasuries).

These funds often do employ sophisticated advisors to help maximize their returns – much like mutual fund investors.  Since the World Bank employees – undoubtedly nice people – are unlikely to have the same skills as such financial entrepreneurs, why would they seek out the World Bank to play this middleman role?

Could it be that these funds recognize that the World Bank is the exemplar of the Too Big Too Fail global institution, that their investments will be now guaranteed by the richer nations?  Do they believe that – if a crisis occurs – the World Bank (and, thus, they too) will be bailed out?  Certainly, political institutions are loathe to see institutions fail (Fannie and Freddie, California, General Motors in the United States; Greece in Europe).  Thus, they may well expect that the World Bank will provide them risk-free profitability.  Not a bad bet given that past World Bank crises have been “resolved” by “special” assessments on member nation states and/or by working closely with their sister organization, the International Monetary Fund.  There may be, of course, other motivations, but this further entanglement of capital allocation into global politics certainly raises the moral hazard risk in a world in which it is already rife.  Capitalism’s task is to allocate capital.  It is disciplined by market profit and loss.  When politics suffers with this most important task (allocating humanity’s always scarce seed corn), we should expect slower growth in the global economy, faster growth in global bureaucracy.

Even Cranky Liberals Are Coming to Understand the Air Travel Sector!

by Fred Smith on April 22, 2010

in Economy, Politics as Usual, Regulation

 Brett Snyder, editor of the web site, crankyflier.com, wrote a revealing column this weekend, “Don’t let bag fees make you nostalgic. Airlines’ golden age wasn’t so golden..”  Commenting on the Block Airline’s Gratuitous Fees Act – the BAG Fees Act by Senator Schumer, he noted that the “good old days” were good only for the wealthy.  Elites flew, most people didn’t.  It was too expensive, too inconvenient; airline deregulation democratized air travel making it more affordable and more convenient (this phenomena is typical of the role the rich play in making innovation possible, see my blog post “The Rich are the Society’s White Mice”).  Snyder understands that ensuring sustainable profitable operations – a prerequisite if any of us are to fly at all – is complex.  Today, most people select based on fares and number of stops but they may elect in the future to pick based on the costs of the full bundle of services they expect to use (checked bags, ability to change schedules at lower price, fewer restrictions on travel, nature of on-board services).  Airlines and travel search firms are moving in this direction already.  It is that market responsiveness – not politicians who will ensure more friendly skies (for most of us) in the future.  After all, Snyder concludes:  “… in the old days … most of us couldn’t even have afforded a ticket.”

The End of Anti-Discrimination Discrimination?

by Fred Smith on April 22, 2010

in Culture, Legal, Nanny State, Personal Liberty

Affirmative action proponents face a battle this Monday when the Supreme Court hears Christian Legal Society vs. Martinez. The challenger argues that a campus religious group should have the right to seek members only among those groups adhering to their religious beliefs.  The explicit challenge involves the right of CLS to exclude non-Christians, gays and non-celibate students.  This case raises the critical issue of whether organizations can “discriminate” – that is form associations to promote specific values or whether that option is precluded by currently dominant views of “anti-discrimination.”  It will be an interesting decision.  And the chances of America moving toward a truly free world where tolerance rather than value-affirmation becomes public policy are looking much better.  The author of the piece was Jonathan Turley, a left-of-center law professor at George Washington University!

Last Bastion of Progressive Optimism

by Fred Smith on April 22, 2010

in Legal, Personal Liberty

Progressives once believed in bureaucracy.  A wise, enlightened civil service kept immune from the corrupting influence of politics would create Heaven on Earth.  That blind faith in government as a better means of advancing the public interest had many roots: a secular substitute for declining faith in traditional religion, a power grab by an expanding intellectual class, the innovations that (they thought) would ensure this result (the “independent agency,” supposed advances in the social “sciences,” and an impatience with the evolutionary gains made possible by the free market.  If spontaneous order could yield gains, think what a directed expert-led effort could achieve!

Reality has not been kind to the Progressives.  Their hope of a non-political politics rapidly went astray as their first model, the Interstate Commerce Commission, was first captured by the railroads and then by the shippers.  The ICC was soon a tool for suppressing competition, for rewarding special interest (the “regulatory capture” reality that the public choice school was to analyze much later).  Regulatory agencies faced a swiftly changing marketplace and found themselves time and time again out-maneuvered.  (It is, of course, always possible that somewhere in our society, there exists a handful of brilliant individuals who might be able to “regulate” a complex and changing marketplace, but it is highly unlikely that those individuals will be attracted to bureaucracy.)

As a result, Progressives have changed tactics.  They still favor elite control of America, but they no longer place their faith in agencies, in the “independence” of civil servants.  They have switched their allegiance to the Courts.  And, that change has meant that the courts have become much more politicized than even the most powerful Progressive institution, the Federal Reserve.  That point was alluded to in a recent Outlook piece in the Washington Post, “Picking a Justice, Ignoring the Fed” by Matthew Yglesias commenting on the massive attention given the retirement of Supreme Court justice, John Paul Stevens, compared to that given the retirement of several key Fed Reserve governors.  Yglesias notes this is somewhat surprising since in many ways the Fed has even more influence over our daily lives than does the Court.  No surprise really: the ideas of Keynes still dominate at the Fed so the Progressives are content.  The Court is narrowly divided with Progressive ideology on the defensive.  It remains narrowly a Progressive institution – they’ll fight to the death to keep it so.

Congressional Bill Threatens Direct Shipping of Wine

by Angela Logomasini on April 21, 2010 · 1 comment

in Nanny State, Personal Liberty

This week, the National Beer Wholesalers Association members descend on Washington for their annual legislative conference and lobbying visits to Congress. High on their agenda is a bill (HR 5034) that would limit consumer freedom by allowing states to prevent direct-to-consumer shipping of alcohol–trumping the Supreme Court ruling, Granholm v. Heald. Under Granholm, states are not allowed to pass laws that discriminate between in-state and out-of-state wineries unless the state can show that there is no other way to meet state policy objectives associated with such things as tax collection and protection of minors, etc. The bill would shift the burden of proof, requiring that plaintiffs show that a state law does not serve the state’s policy goals in even the smallest way. It reads [emphasis added]:

(c) Presumption of Validity and Burden of Proof- The following shall apply in any legal action challenging, under the Commerce Clause or an Act of Congress, a State or territory law regarding the regulation of alcoholic beverages:

`(1) The State or territorial law shall be accorded a strong presumption of validity.

`(2) The party challenging the State or territorial law shall in all phases of any such legal action bear the burden of proving its invalidity by clear and convincing evidence.

`(3) Notwithstanding that the State or territorial law may burden interstate commerce or may be inconsistent with an Act of the Congress, the State law shall be upheld unless the party challenging the State or territorial law establishes by clear and convincing evidence that the law has no effect on the promotion of temperance, the establishment or maintenance of orderly alcoholic beverage markets, the collection of alcoholic beverage taxes, the structure of the state alcoholic beverage distribution system, or the restriction of access to alcoholic beverages by those under the legal drinking age.’.

The NBWA says that the bill will simply “clarify” Granholm requirements and promote an “orderly market.” In reality, rather than clarify, it overturns Granhom by allowing any protectionist law that might arguably in some tiny way serve any goals associated with: “temperance,” “orderly markets,” tax collection, regulation of distribution, or enforcement of the legal drinking age. And the law would stand even where other–likely much better–means of meeting such goals exist. This serves wholesalers, making sure that all wine passes through them before reaching consumers.

Congress can make these changes since the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution allows it to grant states certain rights to regulate interstate commerce. But without congressional consent, the “dormant commerce clause” bars such protectionist state laws.

According to Wine America, which represents wineries: “NBWA’s legislation would, without any justification, allow states considering alcohol beverage measures to virtually ignore the Commerce Clause and federal law in all but the narrowest circumstances”. Tom Wark notes on Fermentation: “[t]his new law would provide a state with the ability to simply announce that the discriminatory law is meant to protect minors or assure tax collection…NOT THAT the discrimination is the only way of protecting minors or assuring tax collection. This is important. It gives states free reign to do what they like and renders the bill’s ‘may not facially discriminate’ language meaningless.”

It’s worth noting that these laws not only harm consumers, they impose serious burdens on small wineries–making it difficult for them to survive. Check out this video on the impact for wineries.

Image credit: wallyg’s photostream on flickr

Food Fight Over a Living Relic of the Past

by Greg Conko on April 21, 2010

in Agriculture, Culture, Environment, Natural Resources, Precaution & Risk, Private Conservation, Zeitgeist

There’s an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today on a big new food fight over hybrid heirloom tomato varieties.  Some years ago, shoppers fed up with the bland, styrofoam-like taste of the typical supermarket tomato started turning toward farmers’ markets, specialty produce departments, and their own back yards for older, “heirloom” varieties that taste great but generally ripen into muted and mottled colors, and non-uniform size–all characteristics that make them less appealing to retailers who prefer standardization.

There’s one big problem with heirloom tomatoes, however; they typically lack the innate resistances to plant diseases, fungi, and insect and nematode pests that more “modern” varieties enjoy.  That makes heirloom varieties easy prey to the forces of Mother Nature and, in turn, makes the fruit of those plants considerably more expensive.  Now, though, some of the country’s bigger seed companies–including Burpee, Park, and Territorial–are breeding these traits into heirloom varieties.

Despite the high level of demand from seed buyers, a number of gourmands have gotten their panties in a bunch over the mere presence of these improved varieties.  ” “I cringe when I hear the term ‘heirloom hybrid’,” says Amy Goldman, board chairwoman of the Decorah, Iowa-based nonprofit Seed Savers Exchange.”  It seems they object to the fact that heirloom tomatoes have long been “[g]enetically unchanged from one generation to another,” and the introduction of these natural resistances can only be done by breeding new genetic traits into the heirloom varieties.  That is, the superior taste of heirloom varieties isn’t why these folks like them, it’s the idea that they’re eating a living relic from the past.

Some opponents, like Ms. Goldman and her fellow Seed Savers also don’t like hybrids because they don’t breed true–that is, new plants grown from the seeds of a hybrid tomato won’t necessarily be identical to the parent plant.  But, since most commercial and backyard tomato growers buy new tomato seedlings each year anyway, the ability to save seed would seem to be a fairly isolated concern.  After all, it’s a heck a lot more expensive, in terms of the opportunity cost of one’s lost time, to save seed than it is to buy fresh seedlings each year.

But, for those who object to heirloom hybrids on the grounds that they’re not “natural,” I have some news for you.  Heirloom tomatoes aren’t remotely natural either.

wild-tomatoes2

“Natural” tomatoes (i.e. those that grow wild and have never been altered by human hands) look like the little purple and gray berries on the right side of the picture above.  They’re small and hard and full of deadly alkaloid toxins, which stands to reason since tomatoes are in the same taxonomic family as nightshade and tobacco. Oh, and they also express spectacularly vibrant natural resistances to plant diseases, fungi, and insect and nematode pests–you know, those new genetic additions that the opponents of heirloom hybrids object to.

Those resistances were unintentionally bred out of wild tomatoes by early farmers who used crude selection methods to produce good tasting fruits that were safe to eat, but at the cost of significantly lower yields.  During the 20th Century, more sophisticated breeders armed with an understanding of genetics and Mendelian heritability were able to re-introduce those natural tolerances into cultivated tomatoes, but often at the expense of flavor.  Today, however, breeders are now able to give us both the superior taste of the heirloom varieties AND the robustness of modern cultivars–much like the tomato’s wild progenitor but without the deadly toxins.   So, in one very meaningful sense, heirloom hybrids are a lot more “natural” than the plain old heirloom varieties that they’re intended to replace.

That’s capitalism in microcosm:  Early innovations are almost invariably crude and expensive.  The next generation of those products is affordable for the masses, but often lack important refinements and features that earlier artisanal products displayed.  Finally, the pull of market demand and the push of increasingly sophisticated engineering permits the creation of high-quality products with all the bells and whistles, but cheap enough for everyone to enjoy.

One wonders what really is motivating the opponents of heirloom hybrids?  Do they fancy themselves as curators of some kind of backyard gardening museum?  If so, why preserve an intermediate product and not the original?  Maybe they’re really just opposed to capitalism and technology, and this is an easy way to make some sort of symbolic stand?  My guess is that, in their innate snobbery, they fear that the wonders of their precious heirloom varieties will be debased if even the hoi polloi can have them too.

Well, either way, this particular battle doesn’t matter much to me, since I don’t like tomatoes anyway.  But I do love the democratizing quality of modern technology and industrial capitalism.

Food Safety Vote Threatens Food Safety

by Angela Logomasini on April 21, 2010

in Environment, Nanny State, Personal Liberty

This week, the Senate may vote on an amendment to the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act that could undermine the integrity of the U.S. food supply. Offered by Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-CA, this amendment would ban the use of a substance called bisphenol A (BPA) in food packaging. BPA–based resins line food containers—e.g., aluminum and steel cans—to reduce contamination of our food from rust, E-coli, botulism, and a host of other dangerous pathogens. Given that BPA has never produced a single adverse public health impact among consumers, even after 60 years use in packaging, this proposal is crazy and could undermine the safety of our food. I wrote more about his in a recent article for the Washington Examiner.

Also check out our posts on the topic at CEI’s sister website FightNanny.com, which highlights the excesses of the nanny state. Our new contributor there reports from a mom’s point of view. She also has a very interesting blog called Truth or Scare. Check it out.

Supreme Court Strikes Down Ban on Depictions of Animal Cruelty

by Hans Bader on April 20, 2010

in Legal, Nanny State, Personal Liberty

In an 8-to-1 ruling, the Supreme Court has struck down a ban on depictions of animal cruelty as a violation of the First Amendment, in United States v. Stevens.

The statute’s language was broad enough that it could conceivably have applied to depictions of lawful hunting.

The Supreme Court rejected arguments that the statute could be saved by construing it more narrowly than its plain language would suggest, as Bill Clinton advocated doing in a presidential signing statement.

The justices rejected the idea that the statute was OK because it contained an exception (or safe harbor) for speech that has serious political or artistic value.  (Obscenity laws are deemed to be OK by the Supreme Court because they contain such an exception, but the Court said obscenity law is different, because obscenity was considered unprotected speech at the time the First Amendment was drafted.)

The Supreme Court also rejected the idea that speech restrictions can be upheld whenever they pass a cost-benefit balancing test.

In dissent, Justice Alito argued that the statute should be interpreted narrowly not to reach things like depictions of hunting, and then upheld in order to enable Congress to wipe out the “crush video industry,” which he argued was “closely linked” to actual violence against animals committed precisely in order to produce those videos.

The language of the statute the Supreme Court struck down, 18 U.S.C. 48, can be found here.  Arguments in the case can be found here, along with links to the briefs.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court issued another First Amendment ruling, that struck down restrictions on corporations and unions spending money to criticize politicians.

Biased press coverage of the Supreme Court has been a boon to the Obama Administration.  Obama has repeatedly made false claims about Supreme Court rulings.

What’s the Cost if Congress “Fails” to Enact Cap-and-Trade?

by Marlo Lewis on April 20, 2010

in Global Warming

That is the question posed this week on National Journal’s energy experts’ blog. My answer, available  here, is that “failure” will have multiple benefits:

– The U.S. economy won’t be hit by virtual or outright energy taxes in the midst of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, improving prospects for a recovery.

– Congress will not declare political warfare on coal, continuing America’s access to abundant, affordable base-load power.

– Congress will not adopt carbon tariffs, avoiding an era of trade warfare between the United States and emerging industrial powerhouses such as China and India.

– The U.S. Government will lack a bully pulpit for pressuring poor countries to ban coal-based power, allowing them to escape from energy poverty.

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