The Ruminant: Audio Candy for Farmers, Gardeners and Food Lovers - e.55: Why Everyone Who is Sure About a Food Philosophy is Wrong

Episode Date: September 4, 2015

This episode, I'm joined by Tamar Haspel, who writes a column for the Washington Post called Unearthed. Tamar recently wrote about the problem with embracing a given food philosophy too rigidly. It's a thought-provoking piece. Tamar talks about it in this episode. 

It makes sense that people use local, organic, conventional as shorthand for what their top priority is. And, you know, you're right that there's nothing wrong with that. I'm glad to see people arguing about it because at least these are people who care about the food supply. And I think that that's a really important first step. Most people don't. And I think that that's a really important first step. Most people don't. But it gets to talk about her concern that our embrace of this or that food philosophy is preventing us from making progress towards a better food system. That's coming up, so stick around. This is the Ruminant Podcast, and I'm Jordan Marr. The Ruminant is dedicated to sharing good ideas for farming and gardening.

There's tons of interesting stuff at theruminant.ca. I hope you'll check it out. All right, let's get going. Hey everybody. Can you believe it? It's a new episode with new content. I followed through on a commitment. Huzzah! Anyway, here we are.

I've got a great episode for you today. I had just such a good conversation with Tamar Haspel, this writer at the Washington Post. The column's called Unearthed. She does about an article a month, and there's some great reading in there. So I really hope you'll go and find her writing. It's really good. So one thing I didn't follow through on

is that last week I told you I might have a smaller segment in this episode about rotary plows because a listener that I'll be collaborating with a bit, at least for the next few episodes, Scott Humphreys, got on the phone with me because he wanted to talk about rotary plows. He has one, I have one, and we thought it might be useful for other owners of these machines to hear us chat a little bit. That conversation has happened, but we're going to take our time in editing it and it'll be coming in a future episode. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions for rotary plow users, why don't you send them over?

Editor at theruminant.ca. Any little anecdotes about your experiences or, like I say, suggestions for people would be really great. Another thing I'm going to be working on, and this is a suggestion that came from Scott, is an episode all about off-season work. I think that's a really good idea because I think many farmers face the challenge of how to string together income through the winter if that income's not coming from farming. And so what I'd like to do is talk to a number of farmers about what they do in the winter. I'm going to talk about what I do. Scott's going to talk about what he does.

And I hope I can convince some of you to participate as well. So if you want to record something with me about your off-season efforts, well, give me a text message, 250-767-6636, or email me, editor at theruminant.ca. I would love to hear from you so that's coming up for a future episode another upcoming episode i have booked ian nauer he is a farmer and food network guy he's been on tv a little bit uh because he's a chef as well and he has this fantastic uh cookbook that i have here on the farm and love. And probably next week, we're going to have that episode up and when which Ian and I'll be talking about farming and cooking and everything in between. So you can look forward to that and to this future segment

on rotary plows. Thanks, folks. That's about it for now. Here's my conversation with Tamar Haspel. And I will probably talk to you a little bit at the end. Tamar Haspel, thanks a lot for coming on the Ruminant Podcast. Thanks for having me. I'm glad to talk to you. Tamar, I've invited you on because I recently discovered your column in the Washington Post. I think it's a fantastic column, and I wanted to specifically ask you about an article or a column that you wrote on July 26 called, Why Everyone Who Is Sure About a Food Philosophy Is Wrong. Yes. Well, thank you for the kind words. And I'm glad you're interested in that column.

There was a little pushback about that because, of course, there are lots of people who believe that their food philosophy is right. And, you know, the basic reason that I wrote it is because I think that food and philosophy are bad bedfellows, because feeding people, now 7 billion, presumably 9 billion in the not-too-distant future, is an endless series of compromises. There's just this tug-of-war between people and planets, and feeding people inevitably does damage to the planet. And there's no principle that's going to guide you through. The basic two sides of the argument are,

on one side we have the efficiency of production that we have here in the United States in our conventional system, and at the other end is the organic attention to soil health and minimizing damage to the planet. And so those two things are always sort of at odds with each other. But the reality is neither one of them is a universal guiding principle. You never sacrifice the planet to a little bit more efficiency. And likewise, sometimes it makes sense to sacrifice some damage to the planet in order for large increases in efficiency. And so, you know, it's all case by case. It's all one at a time. There are things

to like and things to not like about every philosophy under the sun. Right. And so before we go much further, Tamara, I just want to, in your very great summary that you just provided, you only mentioned conventional and organic. In your article, you break it down a little further, and I just want to give listeners a sense that you do get more specific about food philosophy. So can you further break it down a little more in terms of, I mean, I'm using my own words, but in terms of the camps that you see, that you tend to see when we talk about, you know, the ideal way to produce food? And there are a number of them,

as you point out. And the ones that I paid most attention to, I looked at conventional, I looked at organic. I also looked at local because there are a lot of people who believe that producing more food within 50 or 100 miles of the people who are eating it is one effective way to feed people responsibly. And then there's anti-GMO, which seems to be getting a great deal of steam right now. Yeah, I think local is really a good example of how most food philosophies have something good and something not so good. And, you know, the idea that we can get food in our immediate community has a lot going for it. It means that, you know, there's a place I can bring my kids to meet a farmer or a pig or to pick raspberries or to buy some delicate produce that doesn't travel well like the beautiful summer tomatoes. It's also, I think, it helps foster a sense of community in a lot of places. People like to go to the farmer's market.

People like to meet people who are growing their food. People like to interact with the other people who are buying at the farmer's market. People like to meet people who are growing their food. People like to interact with the other people who are buying at the farmer's market. And I would never sell any of those things short. But the idea that we should grow a lot of diverse kinds of food on small farms, and most of these farms are relatively small, in the immediate area means a couple of things. It means we sacrifice the efficiency that comes from growing just a few crops. And it also means that we're growing a lot of crops in places that aren't so hospitable for growing crops. You know, one of the reasons we grow the vast majority of our vegetables in California

is because California is good for growing vegetables. I live on Cape Cod, where if the soil is sandy, we don't grow vegetables so well here. And so the resources that are invested in growing them down the street from me are going to be much, much greater than the resources invested in growing them in California, even including having them shipped across the country. And so, and yeah, Tamara, you, you provide a pretty powerful example of that. I mean, you, you reference, um, you know, the, the, the output for cucumbers in Maryland, uh, is about 7,800 pounds per acre of cucumbers

versus Florida, which is, uh, you know, basically three times that, uh, 26,000 pounds per acre. And so even when you factor in the environmental damage caused by the extra food miles, we're still better off in that example getting those cucumbers from Florida. And I think yield is something that's missing from a lot of the discussion of organic and local. Because we think of large-scale conventional agriculture as being a resource hog and as being bad for the environment.

But if you're growing cucumbers where you need four times the land to produce the same number of cucumbers that somebody in Florida can do, think about the fossil fuels that go into that. Think about the inputs for the soil, even if it's an organic system. Think about the labor that goes into that and how that labor might be better utilized in our food system. And so, you know, we get a lot of warm fuzzies out of discussions of local and organic food. And with some justification, there are a lot of local and organic farmers who are doing wonderful work. But if we try and widen the lens on that and think about what our food supply would look like, if that were the way we fed people, we butt up against some very, very significant shortcomings. So, I mean, you know, what you've highlighted in

the article is that all of these different approaches have pros and cons, but that we tend to, unfortunately, you know, really embrace this system over that system and become somewhat dogmatic about the system that we advocate for. What we haven't talked about yet and what you talk about in your article is what's wrong with that? Why is that such a problem? Well, I think it's a problem because it means we're unlikely to make any meaningful change in the way that we farm.

And I think that it's important that we take a constructive look at the way we grow food in this country and around the world and think about how to do it better. But the thing about agriculture is that it's mind-numbingly dull to most people. And when you start talking about these things, you know, what are the pros and cons of organic? What are the pros and cons of local? What are the pros and cons of conventional? The devil is always in the details. And once you start talking about, you know, the kinds of inputs that are required and the application rates per acre and the yield per acre and the spoilage, people's eyes glaze over. And so it makes sense that people use local, organic, conventional as shorthand for what their top priority is. And, you know, you're right that there's nothing wrong with that. I'm glad to see people arguing about it, because at least these are people who care about the food supply. And I think that that's a really important first step. Most people don't. But it gets to the point

where the discourse and the quality of the discourse interferes with rather than promotes constructive change. And I think, you know, the argument about GMOs is exhibit A for this, that there is such a vitriolic opposition to genetically modified organisms. And I think in a lot of ways, organisms. And I think in a lot of ways, it's a proxy for deep and reasonable concern about an industrialized and corporatized food supply. But it's really hard to find something specific to object to in that food supply. And so GMOs seem to offer a foothold into this big, slippery issue of, you know, large companies' involvement in this, you know, commodity food supply. And so people really hang on to that. And it's a way of expressing a dislike and a distrust for the way we grow now. But it's not constructive because GMOs are not the problem. And it's disheartening to see so much blood and treasure wasted on this

argument when there's so many more important issues out there in the world. So essentially, you're suggesting, if I understand you right, that when we become dogmatic about the way we think things should be done, then we just can't... Well, I guess for one thing, dogma is kind of the enemy of progress because it means that we fail to see the shortcomings in our own advocated approach. And it also just... And of course...

Sorry, go ahead. Dogmatic is a pejorative word and, you know, we're, we're both using it here. And, and so to say what's wrong with dogma, um, you're already sort of admitting that there's something wrong with it because you're calling it dogma. Um, but if you call it instead it instead, you know, the principle, then it doesn't sound bad. What's wrong with principles about growing food? And you could ask the question that way. And again, it, I go back to the issue that I think that the principles that are raised in all of these fights about how we need to feed people responsibly are very important, but they just don't translate well on the ground when you're making decisions about how I'm going to grow strawberries on this patch of land. Well, I agree it's a pejorative term.

Well, I agree it's a pejorative term. I think it might be important to, at least in some context, use that term, though, when such, again, I'll use the term dogma is preventing more constructive conversations, I guess. Well, I certainly used the term, philosophy and never the tween shall meet. And I agree with that characterization, although I think what that can lead to is another problem of, you know into one philosophy. And that's what prevents constructive conversation between advocates of different camps, I suppose. And that's my big concern. And I do feel like I see that. I see that it's not like everyone's dogmatic, but we do have members of various movements related to agriculture who are dogmatic, who are very passionate and idealistic, and their participation is important, but sometimes that fervent belief in this system over that system leads to, I guess I would argue, a sanctimoniousness, and that's what leads to tension among the groups when they try and talk about the best way to approach modern agriculture.

Certainly sanctimony is the enemy of discourse, but on the other hand, we all are very attached to the idea that the conclusions that we come to about these things are the right ones. and you are committed to the idea that organic agriculture is the only responsible way to feed the world, I understand going out in the world and really almost not being able to wrap your mind around people who disagree with you because it seems like such a clear priority to you. It seems like such a clear priority to you. And so, you know, the way I've tried to approach it is by understanding what the assets of each of these food philosophies is. Because I think if you go into any conversation acknowledging, you know, what's good about somebody else's ideas, you know, it's going to be a better foundation for a constructive discussion than if you lead with what's wrong. And so, but you're right. It's very, very difficult. It almost, and other people, I have not, but other people have compared these kinds of arguments to, you know, religions.

religions that it seems to be very much about heartfelt beliefs and, you know, talking about here. So I thought maybe I could just get you to elaborate on the main camps or philosophies that you started with at the top of our conversation, you know, organic versus conventional. So I thought I could just start, I could just ask you, okay, so if I'm someone who fervently, passionately, let's say, argues that organic agriculture is the future of agriculture, that everyone should be doing it, and then ideally everyone should be certified organic, what's wrong with that? Well, here's the thing. There are a number of things wrong with that, but the idea that we should focus on soil health is not one of them. idea that we should focus on soil health is not one of them. And one of the things that I wanted that I pointed out in the piece was that everybody thinks that soil health is important. And the

basic organic philosophy before it became, you know, a system of certification was paying attention to soil health. And I don't know anyone who argues with that. But once you start layering on these requirements and codifications, you get into trouble. And so, for example, the organic standard, the United States organic standard draws a line between natural and synthetic. And that's basically the witness test for what's appropriate to add to organic agriculture. And there are exceptions. There's some synthetic compounds that are permitted. But for the most part, if it's natural, it's okay. And if it's synthetic, it's not. But I've talked to a lot of toxicologists about this. And the idea that if it's natural, it's less toxic is simply

false. And so to evaluate the inputs that you're allowed to use based on their naturalness, rather than based on their toxicity, makes no sense from an environmental standpoint. And so sometimes organic farmers are left using, for example, fungicides that are copper-based that are very toxic when a synthetic might be able to do the job with less impact to the environment. And, you know, there's some other things in the organic standard that are troubling. And one of them that troubles me is the idea that if you give an animal antibiotics, you have to take it out of the organic system for all time. And this bothers me a great deal because what you're doing when you do that

is giving a farmer a strong financial incentive to not treat an animal with antibiotics, to hope that that animal will recover without those drugs. And there's no statistics on whether or how much animal suffering there has been as a result of that, but I think that it's safe to assume that there has been some. And also the idea that once an animal has had antibiotics, it's not suitable for organic food production anymore is ridiculous because after a waiting period, there's going to be no trace of that antibiotic in the animal's products,

whether it's milk, meat, or eggs. And in conventional systems, there's a waiting period after you administer antibiotics before you can harvest any kind of meat, milk, or eggs from those animals. And so this reinforces the idea that any antibiotic use in livestock is a bad idea when I think it's clear that judicious use of antibiotics is important for animal welfare and also for food safety in some circumstances. So those are just a couple of examples of where the organic standard

does not seem to be an optimal, doesn't translate to an optimal agricultural system. And doesn't, I guess, with both examples kind of reflect the complexities involved in some of these approaches, in some farming practices? It does. And all of this is complex. And of course, a lot of these particular problems with organic are rooted in the problem, not so much with organic agriculture, but with a system that certifies organic agriculture. Because as soon as you get into the business of certification, you have to say, yes, these things are okay and these things are not okay. And as soon as you do

that, you take away a lot of flexibility that farmers have to make decisions on case-by-case basis. And I talk to a lot of organic farmers and they make the decision to be organic for a number of reasons. One of them is that they think that that's a better way to farm. But another is they get a premium for those products. And every farmer I talk to butts up against the limitations of the organic standard and wishes that there were some things that they could do that they're not allowed to do and they end up doing things that have no environmental significance but end up costing them and ultimately their customers more for no good reason right okay so that was great can we switch over now to conventional ag as it has been sort of defined and influenced by the green

revolution so so let's let's talk about that system and some of the the inherent flaws of that system so the green revolution was the period i guess defined from the 40s to the 60s um where uh the use of mostly chemical inputs fertilizers specifically um in but also the use of mostly chemical inputs, fertilizers specifically, but also the development of new varieties of seed, increased yields dramatically. And it's sort of the basis of the way we grow most crops in this country. Half of the land that we have in production is corn and soy. And often it's just those two crops in rotation and sometimes with wheat thrown into the mix. And this is directly the kind of agriculture that came out of the Green Revolution. And on the plus side, the yields are astonishing. Corn yields 15 million calories per acre.

Now, to put that in perspective, each of us humans needs about a million calories a year. So the idea that you could feed 15 people, just their energy requirements, obviously not their nutritional or protein requirements, their energy requirements, obviously not their nutritional or protein requirements. But that you can satisfy the caloric needs of 15 people with one acre of land is astonishing. The downside, of course, is that during the Green Revolution, there wasn't a lot of attention paid either to soil health or to pollution from runoff from those chemicals. And obviously, growing just a few crops is the enemy of biodiversity. And so, you know, we read about

the shutdown of the Ohio water system because of algae blooms. and there's pretty widespread agreement that most of that is fueled by agricultural runoff. And I've talked to a lot of conventional farmers who don't like that system any more than you and I do. And in fact, there are improvements going on in agriculture to target specifically, almost on a square meter by square meter basis, what exactly that piece of ground needs to grow the crop that's going to be planted on it and fertilize only that amount. And so I think that conventional agriculture is improving on those shortcomings, but there's no question that they still exist. Okay, thank you.

So, Tamara, I'm with you on just going back to your main idea here. I'm with you on the need to root out and eliminate, and I'm going to use this word again, dogmatic thinking. to root out and eliminate, and I'm going to use this word again, dogmatic thinking. I think we all, well, many of us, including myself, could be humbler about what we believe about the best way to approach agriculture. And I've seen this problem of dogma in both organic and conventional sides of the debate. But here's my concern. And I know you'll tell me if you disagree or if you think I'm reaching here. Um, and perhaps in my concern, I'm going to reveal my own entrenched biases, but, um, I worry, well, I'm going to, I'm going to

reference your, your article again. And there's a description of conventional ag in a paragraph in your article that's, it goes like this. You describe conventional ag as a system characterized by soil degradation, pollution, and heavy dependence on chemicals. Um, and you've, you've kind of just reviewed that in the exam, example you just provided, but, um, there's, that's a pretty terrible description a terrible situation right and i worry about like a type of agricultural relativism i guess like well everything has its pros and cons and therefore we should try and refrain refrain from being too judgmental about other the way other people are farming or that sort of thing so So I guess I'm just pushing back a little and saying, well, isn't some of this fervent criticism important? And can we,

I know I'm simplifying a bit in a way that's not fair to you, but, but, you know, should we be saying, well, you know, no one's got it completely right. And therefore, you know, everything is more equal than we'd like to believe or whatever. I see where you're going with this. And for starters, you can challenge me on absolutely anything. I'm a big girl, and I actually enjoy talking to people who disagree with me about things. But I think I would look at this a completely different way

because you're very focused on this idea of dogma, and you talk about, use words like being nonjudgmental. And I don't usually, that's not where I go with this because I prefer to stay focused on the agricultural issues and not the personal issues. If I think you're wrong, the agricultural issues and not the personal issues. If I think you're wrong, I'm not going to take issue necessarily with your lack of humility. I'm going to take issue with the idea that you're espousing.

And there are very legitimate criticisms. And when I bring all of these up, it's almost as though I'm asking to debate about exactly what you're talking about. The reason we're not having constructive conversations about this is versus conventional battlefield. And yeah, to characterize an agricultural system as being, to say that an agricultural system is characterized by pollution and heavy dependence on chemicals, yeah, that's a pretty heavy indictment. And other people make that same indictment. What I'm asking for, though, is to make that indictment at the same time you acknowledge the huge increases of yield that have fed people.

And when we talk about decreasing the pollution and decreasing the dependence on chemicals, we have to do it in the context of maintaining the kinds of yields that we've grown to expect from our crops. I don't think that answers your question. No, I mean, I think it does. Ask it another way. Well, I just, I'm going to, I will try and ask another way. I'll go back to this phrase I use, agricultural relativism. I just, when I look at that description in your article as an organic...

I don't believe in agricultural relativism. I don't believe in agricultural relativism. I don't believe that everybody's kind of right. I believe that there are ways to do things better and ways to do things worse. And the problem isn't that everybody's right and everybody's wrong in the sense of the facts on the ground. It's when you aggregate those facts into a philosophy that you tend to go wrong. And so, no, I'm not looking for a kinder, gentler, can't-we-all-get-along,

although I would like us to all be able to get along. I'm not looking for, gosh, I don't even know how to say this to get my point across, because I know exactly what you're saying. And I'm in favor of judgmentalism. Because I think if something is right for me, and for you, it's right for everybody. I am not a relativist. But I think that if you're not a relativist, you have to be really, really sure about thinking about what's right before you go out in the world with that opinion. Okay. So I think then this is a good segue into what is your, in your article, how do you advocate, like, what's a better way to, to come at these, these challenges? Okay. It's, it's certainly not, um, in being entrenched in a, in one food

philosophy. So what is, what is the better approach? Unfortunately, it's all case by case. And, you know, what's a better way? Well, it depends what way you're talking about. And, you know, there are a few things. I'd like to see the organic standard ditch the distinction between synthetic and natural. Actually, what I'd like to see is a best practices standard that's not the organic standard, that defines some practices that give farmers choices, but can assure consumers that the products that they're buying have been grown in a responsible way but then you get into all kinds of trouble when you try and define what those practices are absolutely so it's it's a very very difficult problem to solve because, you know, growing cucumbers in Florida is a whole lot different from growing corn in Nebraska. And I think that the place to start is probably crop by crop.

by crop. And, you know, the USDA has incredible resources as far as defining how crops are grown in different places in the country and what the advantages and disadvantages are. They have all kinds of data on these things. And I guess if I were to be in charge, that's where I would start. I would sit down with the people at the USDA who understand these things best and the farmers who are actually growing the food and try and work out a best practices standard. But it would be necessarily general. But I think that that's better than nothing. And I thought it was interesting, Tamara, that near the end of the article, you talk about how the closer you get to agriculture,

in your experience, you found the more open-minded people are, that you think farmers are some of the most open-minded people. When I talk to farmers, they do something one way and are often very forthcoming about what the disadvantages of the way that they have chosen are and how their neighbor down the street does it a little differently and how they used to do it differently and they're thinking about doing it differently again. And that I think farmers understand that every system has trade-offs and they're prepared to talk about what those trade-offs are. And they necessarily understand those trade-offs because, you know, they're trying to make a living from this farm and they perfectly well know what the repercussions are for every decision that they make. And the farther away you get from the farm gate,

the more sort of philosophically committed to a school of thought I've found that people are. And actually in academia also I think that people who study these things and teach in some of our land-grant universities are also much less dogmatic than the public at large. And again, this is a function of being interested in the details that bore most people. And so here we have this incredibly complex problem, and most people have jobs that have nothing to do with agriculture. They're just trying to make good decisions about the food that they put on the table. I mean, I have the luxury of spending basically 24-7 on these things and really trying to understand them, and I can tell you it's made me quite a hit at parties.

you know, trying to understand them. And I can tell you, it's made me quite a hit at parties. And but most people, they just want some basic guidelines. And unfortunately, basic guidelines don't really work. Well, Tamar Haswell, I'm really glad you came on the room and to talk about this really thought provoking article, why everyone who is sure about a food philosophy is wrong. And I hope my listeners will check out your monthly column in the Washington Post. It's called Unearthed. And there's some really great articles in there. I think you've been doing it about a year and a half now. Is that about right? Yeah, going on two years. I think it'll be two years in October. Oh, right on. Well, I'm really glad that you're doing it. And what are you working on right now? Right now, I'm working on glyphosate oh how toxic is it really i i can't wait i can't wait

to read it tomorrow thanks thanks a lot thank you for having me jordan i appreciate it wasn't that great man people like tamar make this job so easy because they're so thoughtful and articulate i really hope you'll go and check out her column, Unearthed. Go and Google it. It's in the Washington Post, and I've read a number of her other articles. They're all pretty good. And one more time, I'll repeat,

I am working with Scott Humphreys on a future episode about off-season work, and I would really like to hear your experiences with off-season work when the farms shut down. So if you want to get in on that and record a little bit of audio, please contact me. You can text me, 250-767-6636, or you can email me, editor at theruminant.ca. And in the meantime, please head over to the Ruminant website, theruminant.ca, and check out everything that's on there. to the ruminant website, theruminant.ca and check out everything that's on there. There's, there's all kinds of stuff, some photo-based blog posts, some of my essays, and of course,

lots of past podcast episodes. So enjoy that stuff, folks. And if everything goes well, I will have a brand new episode for you next week. Take care. Because why would we live in a place that don't want us A place that is trying to bleed us dry We could be happy with life in the country with salt on our skin and the dirt on our hands. I've been doing a lot of thinking, some real soul searching, and here's my final resolve I don't need a big old house Or some fancy car To keep my love going strong So we'll run right out Into the wilds and graces

We'll keep close quarters With gentle faces And live next door To the birds and the bees and live life like it was meant to be Ba Ba Ba Da Ba

Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Da Da Ha Ha Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do Do do do do do do Do do do do do do