QPoliticians have a complicated relationship with science. If they think the evidence is in line with their political goals, they love scientists and the work they do. However, when their ideology clashes with the data, our representatives twist themselves to avoid aligning their views with the facts. Case in point, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted the following comments about regenerative agriculture on July 20:
Many small farms are now using ‘revolutionary’ farming methods that have been used by indigenous people for centuries – and in doing so, they may have found the key to protecting the world’s food supply. food from climate change. pic.twitter.com/migH5zFsD3
— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@RepAOC) July 20, 2022
The tweet included a clip of a hearing where selected experts answered softball questions, giving Ocasio-Cortez’s opinion a gloss of scientific legitimacy. That played well in the media and generated a lot of likes and retweets, but it didn’t prove anything he said.
The truth is that regenerative agriculture, as it is commonly defined today, cannot “protect” the global food supply from climate change; it can’t even feed a small country. To achieve the kinds of sustainable gains described by Ocasio-Cortez, we need technology-driven farming that uses every available tool.
What is regenerative farming?
It is actually difficult to pinpoint a clear definition. Most growers and agricultural scientists are interested in sustainable, efficient farming methods that allow us to feed more people while preserving our natural resources. But that’s not what the proponents of regenerative farming usually mean when they use the term; their definition is often covered by ideological assumptions. Consider this summary from The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC):
As a philosophy and approach to land management, regenerative agriculture asks us to think about how all aspects of agriculture are connected through a web—a network of entities that grow, develop, exchange, distribute. distribute, and consume goods and services … There is no strict rule book, but the holistic principles behind … regenerative agriculture is intended to restore the health of soil and ecosystems, address inequities, and leave our land , water, and climate in better shape for future generations.
These are all laudable goals, but using flowery language like “holistic principles” will not move us any closer to achieving them. This challenge also presents itself when we try to define “agroecology,” another buzzword used to describe unconventional growing. What seems to drive the proponents of these alternative production systems is the desire to go back in time, as Breakthrough Institute scholars Ted Nordhaus and Saloni Shah explain:
Almost all organic agricultural production serves two populations at opposite ends of the global income distribution. At one end are the 700 million or so people around the world who still live in extreme poverty. Sustainable agriculture advocates are quick to call agriculture practiced by the population “agroecology.”
But mostly it’s just old-fashioned farming, where the world’s poorest derive their survival from the land… They abandon synthetic fertilizers and most other modern agricultural technologies not by choice but because they can’t afford them…
Number of research articles using the term “agricultural change,” from 1982–2019. Regenerative farming used to just mean crop rotation, but now it’s the hot buzzword of the year. Source: Peter Newton et. al.
Lest anyone think this is a caricature, the NRDC goes on to explain that “Regenerative farmers and ranchers are trying to reduce their reliance on synthetic inputs, such as herbicides, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers. fertilizer.” The problem with using this kind of technophobia as a guiding principle is that it doesn’t provide solutions to problems that everyone wants to alleviate.
Genetically engineered (GE) crops that require less water or naturally fight pests are two very practical, innovative tools that “change” advocates almost universally despise. . There is no justification for this bias because the genetics of a plant have little to do with how you grow it. Some advocates of agroecology have made the same observation; they see no problem in growing GE crops according to agroecological principles.
Timeline of the introduction of Bt corn into corn and the concomitant reduction of insecticide use in these fields. The two quantities are strongly anti-correlated, suggesting that this Bt crop makes synthetic insecticides unnecessary. Credit: Krissy Lyon
The same goes for low-toxic pesticides. Widespread use of the weed killer glyphosate, the boogeyman of modern environmentalism, allows many farmers to reduce or eliminate tillage as a form of weed control, which cuts their CO2 emissions. Herbicide-tolerant seeds introduced in the 1990s facilitated the adoption of no- and low-tillage agriculture.
In 2018 alone, farmers growing these GE crops reduced their carbon emissions by 23 billion kilotons, the equivalent of taking 15.3 million cars off the road. The NRDC recognizes the value of no-till farming, calling it “a technique that leaves the soil undisturbed when planting rather than disturbing the soil with plowing.” But the group also denounced glyphosate as “a toxic weed killer.”
Agricultural emissions generally appear to be stable or even declining. Credit: EPA
This is not to say that agrochemicals do not have negative effects on the environment, because they do. But that externality must be balanced against the massive increase in the production of pesticides and fertilizers, which will reduce the amount of land we dedicate to farming while feeding more people.
In any case, the solution is not to ban technologies that have proven their effectiveness in spades. Instead we need to create new solutions that build on previous innovations. The end result is a more sustainable food system. This is the key concept that Ocasio-Cortez and other ideologues miss when they wax poetic about “regenerative farming techniques.” Let’s give Nordhaus and Saloni the last word:
… [t]here there is no shortage of problems associated with chemical-intensive and large-scale agriculture. But the solutions to these problems—are they innovations that allow farmers to deliver fertilizer more precisely to crops when they need it, bioengineered microbial soil treatments that fix nitrogen of the soil and reduce the need for fertilizers and soil degradation, or genetically modified crops that require fewer pesticides and herbicides—can be technology, giving farmers new tools instead of removing old ones proved critical to their livelihood.
Cameron English is a writer, editor and co-host of the Science Facts and Fallacies Podcast. Before joining ACSH, he was managing editor of the Genetic Literacy Project, a nonprofit committed to helping the public, media, and policymakers by promoting science literacy. You can visit Cameron’s website here
A version of this article was posted by the American Council on Science and Health and is used here with permission. You can check out the American Council on Science and Health on Twitter @ACSHorg
