For most people, April 22 is just another day on the calendar, perhaps another day closer to a summer vacation. For environmental activists, April 22 is Earth Day—an excuse to peddle various initiatives allegedly designed to help Mother Nature, many of which actually do more harm than good.
This is especially true when it comes to organic food. As we’re telling readers of the Lansing State Journal and Macon Telegraph, despite the perception that organic food is better for the environment, going purely organic would produce undesirable outcomes, some of which directly contradict environmentalists’ goals.
For instance, an all-organic world would require clear-cutting vast swaths of forests. Organic food requires natural fertilizer, usually manure. By one estimate, the U.S. alone would need 1 billion more head of cattle to provide this fertilizer and 2 billion more acres of cropland to feed the cattle. That’s more than the land area of the United States (2.3 billion acres).
In addition to cutting down forests, organic agriculture rejects genetically improved foods (GIFs), also known as GMOs. This position is silly and unscientific, as a growing consensus of scientific authorities finds GIFs safe and beneficial. Using modern biotechnology (as opposed to conventional selective breeding), GIFs increase agricultural productivity, reduce the use of herbicides, and have led to farmers using less-toxic chemicals. But when the organic food industry stands to profit from what researchers at Academics Review call a “multi-decade public disinformation campaign” funded by left-wing environmental activists, don’t expect science to get in the way.
Then there’s the human side of the equation, which environmentalists tend to give short shrift. As we explain, “Not only would going organic require more land, but it couldn’t feed enough people.” Norman Borlaug, the Nobel Laureate and father of the Green Revolution that literally fed a billion people, estimated that going purely organic could feed only 4 billion people globally, leaving another 3 billion people to compete in “a version of the ‘hunger games’ that no one should want to take part in.”