One thing that bugs me about sustainability, specifically in its use to refer to environmental responsibility, is the definition that’s often thrown up at the beginning of talks as a definition of sustainability, from the UN: “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. This is not a definition of sustainability. It is a definition of sustainable development, as though development is inevitable. Maybe they were using a different definition of development than I do, but it seems to me that development and sustainability are incompatible. Development means MORE and what we need, at least in the developed world, is LESS. One concept implicit in that definition that I do like is that we should provide for ourselves without doing irreversible damage to the earth’s processes and living systems. Irreversible damage like sending the climate past a tipping point, or extinguishing genetic lines, or toxifying all the drinking water, or wiping out interdependent systems of cooperating plants, animals, and microbes. These outcomes will certainly compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, so that aspect of the definition is right on the mark.

However, I agree with Toby Hemenway that most affluent people who have been brought up in Western culture don’t understand the difference between their needs and their wants. Anything you like having can be construed somehow as a need. A definition of sustainability that encourages affluent people in developed countries (i.e. exactly the people we need to convert) to imagine that there will be development aimed at satisfying their needs, whatever those might be, and that this development will somehow be achieved without causing ecological harm, is inherently flawed, and makes people complacent, and will not produce the cultural shift we need.

As a guideline for environmental stewardship, the definition also suffers from being entirely human-centric. I would be happier with its aims if it stated that we should care about the ability of not only future generations of humans, but also both present and future generations of non-humans, to live and thrive on earth. Under such an expanded definition, impacts like human-induced climate destabilization or groundwater pollution should be avoided because they effect not only humans’ ability to provide for their future needs, but also wild animals, plants, microbes, etc.

A new term is sorely needed. It has to have broad appeal, because we need to convince absolutely everyone to line up behind it. Any term that conveys a sense of LACK/WEAKNESS rather than GAIN/POWER will not work, because it will be repulsive to the monkey-brain side of us that desires only to accumulate power chips and then flaunt them to achieve reproductive success. That basic drive is what spurs our current acquisitive, ambitious culture forward, doing its massive ecological harm (present company excluded of course). The goal is to slow the draw-down of nonrenewable resources, stabilize climate change and eliminate harm to living systems. We need a label for these values that hits you in the gut with the fact that it’s all about your personal choices affecting LIFE on earth, not something weak and vague that implies a top-down, policy-based solution. For energy use, we can talk about living within a solar budget. In agriculture, I like the use of the term ‘regenerative’ because it sounds so positive and moves beyond just not causing further damage, to actually envision improving things. It will be a challenge to come up with something that comprehensively applies to many aspects of human activity, like sustainability does.

Maybe an action word like the Guardian movement (we are guarding our earth), or even LIVE! (which, I just noticed, is EVIL backwards), or HEROIC (because we are leaping into action to avert an impending disaster). No these will never do. You creative types, help me out here!

The three attributes that are prohibited in organic feed, but that are standard practice for non-organic, are 1) use of petroleum-based pesticides and fertilizers on the grain, 2) genetically engineered grain and 3) antibiotics in the feed. The first two are not unrelated, as you probably know. The reason for the engineering in genetically-engineered crops is to introduce traits that either replicate pesticides (Bt corn, for example) or that make the plant tolerate herbicides (Roundup Ready crops). So the use of GM crops, among other problems, leads to more insecticide and herbicide in the environment. Although it won’t be on the label, grain that is not organic has a high probability of being GM. According to USDA stats (from 2007, so the figure could be higher now), 73% of corn, 91% of soy, 75% of canola, and virtually all sugarbeets grown in the US are from genetically modified seed.

Insecticides and herbicides sprayed on grain that is subsequently eaten by animals builds up as residues in their meat, especially in the fatty tissues. And it also builds up in the human who later consumes that meat. Pesticide exposure in humans is linked to lymphoma, asthma, alzheimers, infertility, neurological disorders, and fatal birth defects. Many pesticides are known endocrine disruptors, which is fancy science talk for messing up your hormones – which regulate things like brain function, insulin, reproduction, metabolism, building muscle mass, etc. This looks to me like a list of the top health problems in the US. Funny that their connection with pesticides is not widely discussed in the media.

Although avoiding direct consumption of pesticide-riddled food is desirable on its own, there’s also the larger picture to consider. As this wikipedia article reminds us, pesticides don’t just go on the target plant, they go all over the place, disbursing through the air and flowing along in ground and surface water, negatively impacting wildlife and people who live downstream or downwind, leading to a long chain of ecological impact. Farm workers exposed to synthetic chemicals have a much larger incidence of cancer, chronic diarrhea, and other diseases than the general population. Their life expectancy of 49 years(!) (compared to 75 for an average American) is largely due to pesticide exposure. Their children have a much higher risk of developing fatal birth defects. Rural communities near cropland where pesticides are applied also see increased incidence of these diseases (see this PANNA article).

The harmful effects of pesticides on wildlife (birds, plants, aquatic animals) are too numerous to list. One of the founding principles we base our practices on, is to raise food without negatively impacting wildlife. Wikipedia reports that “The USDA and USFWS estimate that about 20% of the endangered and threatened species in the US are jeopardized by use of pesticides”. Wow. Count me out. Pesticides seem to be particularly harmful to natural pest reducers, such as frogs, lacewings, lady bugs, etc. So the application of pesticides reduces the natural system’s ability to control pests, thus deepening the farmer’s dependence on the pesticide. What a beautiful system for the pesticide salesman. Natural pollinators, such as honeybees, are also harmed by pesticides.

On top of all of these issues, the age of energy descent is upon us. Synthetic pesticides and herbicides, being derived from petroleum, deepen the dependence of agriculture on petroleum-based inputs. We would rather reduce our reliance on petroleum, and reward those grain growers who are doing the same. (Realizing, of course, that there are many other petroleum dependencies built into our supply and distribution chain).

Turning to the issue of GM crops, when growers switch to Roundup-ready crops, which are engineered to withstand being sprayed with herbicide, they typically use more herbicide for weed control than they would without the GM trait. This leads to an arms race with the weeds. The weeds develop more tolerance, more herbicide must be applied, and the cycle repeats. It is estimated that US farmers apply 15 times more herbicide on GM cropland than on non GM. The herbicide-resistance is leading to the development of so-called super-weeds, which are now basically unstoppable. Read more about this on source watch . Besides their encouraging more herbicide use, GM crops are a prime suspect in the incredible increase in food allergies in recent years. They have also been shown to cause liver and kidney damage in lab animals. There are many other reasons to be wary of GM crops (genetic contamination to other open pollinating crops, for one), and we would rather our dollars go to grain farmers who choose not to raise them.

Then there is the issue of antibiotics. Organic animal feed does not contain antibiotics, but conventionally raised animals are given low daily doses of antibiotics in their feed. Not only to counteract the prevalence of disease that goes hand-in-hand with high-density factory farms, but also as a growth stimulant (meat animals put on weight faster when given the antibiotics). This practice contributes to antibiotic-resistant bacteria. We may face a future where infectious diseases are not controllable, largely because of our profligate use of antibiotics for livestock. CBS news even did a piece on this problem. A recent report finds that antibiotic-resitant traits are building up in soil microorganisms. MRSA is a growing cause for concern, especially its increasing presence in medical facilities.

I could probably come up with more reasons, but those are my top 6. Taken all together, the decision to buy organic food for our animals seems clear. There is a growing recognition that animal feed crops are a large source of ecological damage – both in terms of pollution and climate change – (see the FAO report Livestock’s Long Shadow), but organic feed does lessen some of that impact. When you buy meat, dairy, and eggs, I hope you will keep these points in mind and buy organic.

Further reading:
http://www.gmo-watch.com/
http://www.eatright.org/About/Content.aspx?id=6812&terms=organic
http://www.sustainabletable.org/issues/pesticides/#fn9
http://www.fao.org/ag/magazine/0612sp1.htm

For many of my adult years I ate almost exclusively a vegetarian diet. That was during the years when real food was difficult if not impossible to source.  The morality of the death of the animal wasn’t ever the deal breaker for me, although of course I don’t take it lightly. My decision was influenced by the following issues:

• Animals, being at the top of the food chain, concentrate toxins. Fat stores toxins. I don’t eat animals that have been fed pesticide and herbicide laden feed. It seems just as much of a junk food to me as, hm, marshmallow peeps .
• Food animals compete for space/resources with wild ecosystems.  When I learned that the South American rainforest was being cut down to make space to grow beef cattle, I immediately stopped buying beef. I would rather the wondrous insects/plants/animals/birds of the rainforest be left alone to flourish in their natural habitat, than have meat on my plate. Even if I couldn’t stop the destruction of native habitat, at least I was not going to pay for it to be done on my behalf.   Even in the US, wolves are in competition for water with beef cattle or sheep out on the open range, so ranchers shoot them.  I personally would rather there be wolves, so I don’t want to send money out to folks who kill wolves or object to their reintroduction into their native range.  The negative impact on habitat from pesticides and herbicides by conventional agriculture is also my  primary motivation for buying organic food where possible. Of course, other agricultural crops might be grown on ex-rainforest, and probably are, but somehow the rainforest beef was getting all the press.
• As an animal lover, at that time in my twenties, I decided that if I was not willing to slaughter animals myself for my food, it wasn’t ok to pay mercenaries to do it for me.  This is kind of an extreme position, I supposed, but I felt that it was facing up to reality. Since every morsel of meat I have ever put in my mouth came from a once-living animal who had to go through dying, I decided that it if I couldn’t look that process in the eye, I had no right to eat them.
• Growing animals for food can be very resource intensive, which draws down nonrenewable resources. It takes alot of water to grow a pound of cow, and alot of calories of feed to produce a calorie of meat. Granted, some animals are raised on pasture rather than feed, but most meat for sale in conventional retail outlets is raised or at least finished on grain.  Bringing them grain to eat takes fuel. On the other hand, growing plants and transporting them to a retail outlet also consumes water and fuel, but an order of magnitude less.

That was in the eighties.  Since then, even more reasons to avoid commercial meat have sprung up.  Conventional practices for raising meat animals in flesh factories, otherwise known as CAFOs, confine the animals in such tight quarters that they don’t have room to turn around. For their whole lives.  That seems excessively cruel to me and I don’t intend to send money to folks who do that. It should be just as illegal to cruelly confine a pig or veal calf as it is to do the same thing to a dog.  To make matters worse, large animals like cows emit greenhouse gases; that contribute to global warming, more if they are raised in CAFOs.   Altogether, that adds up to alot of reasons not to eat conventional meat.

These days it is much easier to buy meat that has been grown without those problems. We buy or raise  organic meat (no toxins or antibiotics, and less damage to local ecosystems), from animals that are raised on pasture so they have plenty of room to roam.  We are blessed in Central Massachusetts to have a variety of farms raising pastured, organic meat. We buy meat mostly from Misty Brook farm, in Barre, who I’ll write about in a separate post.  Many Hands Organic Farm has been a trailblazer in raising organic meat and teaching others organic methods for many years.  Besides raising chickens for ourselves, we are raising organic, heritage-breed turkeys this year to sell. Growing and slaughtering my own poultry has meant coming to terms with the life and death cycle of animals raised for food. The experience really makes me appreciate the food on my plate. There’s still the global warming issue to contend with, so we eat meat sparingly.  With two of us in the house, we eat only about 2 chickens and around 3 pounds of red meat a month.   Although this is far from a vegetarian diet, it seems like a good middle ground for us.  We stretch the meat we cook into lots and lots of servings, using meat like a spice rather than a dish on its own.

As in many consumer purchases, buying meat produced for food has a variety of consequences that are hidden from the consumer.  The issues are complex.  The issue of vegetarian eating is one that many people grapple with, but it doesn’t have to be an all or nothing deal.  Reducing the amount of meat in our diets is definitely one positive way to cause less environmental harm.