Excerpts from the transcript from the Organic
Food and Health Conference June 2002 by Laurence Woodward (Elm Farm Research Centre)'
Soil, Plant, Animal and Man - The Vital
but Unproven Link'
Of course there is a relationship between nutrition and agricultural production. Of
course, it is important and, of course, it concerns everyone. Any half wit ought to see
that. But wisdom has been in short supply, because that has not been generally recognised.
Not by half wits, full wits, ordinary wits nor anyone else. We, our civilisation, has been
blinkered in the pursuit of quantity, probably in most of our activities but certainly in
agriculture.
For example, most researchers employed in the food sector in the UK are working on
designing "novel" food products rather than on nutritional questions. I have not
checked the figures but I am told that more money is spent on development of food
technology than on medical research. Which is not surprising because food technology
is big business.
Derek Cooper, of Radio 4's Food Programme, recalls addressing the executives and
researchers of a company marketing Cornish Dairy Chocolate Ice Cream. The product didn't
come from Cornwall, wasn't made in a dairy and contained neither chocolate nor cream. This
wonder of modern food science was composed of "corn syrup, cheese whey, mono- and
di-glycerides, carob bean gum, cellulose, dextrose monohydrate, polysorbate 80, artificial
flavours and colours." During his presentation, Cooper suggested that the company
adopt a new and upbeat marketing slogan - "Our ice cream comes from contented palm
trees." He reports that the applause was exceedingly minimal.
The principles of nutrition upon which our health depends have played no part, save by
accident, in our agricultural production, nor in the way we organise our society to grow,
process, or distribute our food.
How can this be? How can such monumental folly have come about?
As Michael Crawford and David Marsh point out in their excellent book "The Driving
Force" (to which I am indebted for much of what follows) , "In all the
controversies over what the causes of diversity might be, no-one seems to have paid much
attention to the factor in the environment that has the most obvious effect on any
organism: food."
"A mutant that depends on a nutrient it cannot get is not 'fit' and will not
survive; nor will an established species if its essential food supplies run out. ......
most evolutionists do not give nearly enough emphasis to this obvious truth. They would
not deny it but they seldom see how important it is. The point which is missed is that
food is not just food. The milk of different species is not interchangeable; its
composition is uniquely tailored to each individual species' post-natal requirements.
Cows' milk is very much richer in protein than human milk, but human milk is very much
richer in essential fatty acids. This means that the food we ate throughout evolution had some bearing on what we are
today.Nutrition will also play an important role in deciding our future.
This
seems so obvious that one wonders why anyone has bothered to write it down,
except for the fact that it has been generally ignored and it profoundly
affects the well-being of every human on this planet. The pioneers of the
organic movement could get quite worked up about this. Lady Eve Balfour,
for example, wrote "My subject is food, which concerns everyone; it is the
soil, which concerns everyone - even if they do not realise it - and it is
the history of certain recent scientific research linking these three vital
subjects."
Throughout
her life, Eve Balfour was bursting to tell all those who would listen , and
those who wouldn't, what she and other organic pioneers had realised - "that
health, whether of soil, plant, animal or man, is one and indivisible.This
concept of health is truly revolutionary. It was back in the forties and unfortunately
it remains so today. Why revolutionary?
Because in order to give form, shape and structure to that concept we would have to
fundamentally alter the way our civilisation relates to the biological base of the planet;
we would have to fundamentally alter our civilisation's relationship to all our primary
resources; and, probably more difficult, alter the way we relate to each other as
communities, regions and as individuals.
It's
not difficult to see why it remains an unfulfilled concept and has not become
a way of life.The pioneers of organic agriculture argued that a vital and
healthy soil is the fundamental and literal basis of a vital and healthy
civilisation. Most of us now have only a distant relationship with the biological
base of our planet. Yet those primary resources and our relationship with
them mainly through the provision and distribution of food are ultimately
the key to our well being. Our history shows dramatically what happens when
man loses touch with or abuses those resources.
Overall,
Western Europe consumes nutrients from nearly 5 times its agricultural area. Most in the
form of animal feed and most going into intensive factory farming of pigs and poultry
products. Commodity trading is critically important in today's world food system. No more
than 15 Transnational Corporations account for the bulk of this activity with only 6, (5
of them privately owned) dominating. They account for 90% of trade in pineapples, 65% of
Bananas, 85% of tea, 90% of cocoa beans, 70% of rice, 85% of coffee, 85% of corn, 60% of
sugar, 85% of wheat.
In the drive for greater and ever expanding economic wealth and well-being we ignore
the limitations set by our environment and become abusive towards and divorced from
civilisations biological base.
In our case it is an agonising contradiction that the pursuit of economic growth has
brought unrivalled wealth but has set us on treadmill from which it seems almost
impossible to escape. We have to achieve ever-increasing rates of economic growth to pay
for the society we have. This is more and more difficult to do. And because growth means
consumption, the more successful we are at that, the more we deplete and pollute the
planets resource base.
The
limits that are visible now deserve serious attention. They can be seen in
the rural areas and in the towns and cities of both the developed and developing
world. One has to be extraordinarily optimistic or ostrich-like not recognise
this.The nutrition and health status of society is a consequence and a reflection
of its driving force; the system of food production is one part of that driver.
In a growth and consumption driven civilisation " People are not content
with the low quality protein from vegetable sources." to quote Dennis T Avery
of The Hudson Institute, "In every country where incomes are rising, demand
is rising rapidly for cooking oil, pork, fed lamb, eggs, poultry and other
resource-costly foods that provide higher quality protein" He does not say
cheaply and therefore intensively, but that is what he means.
Nor does he mention the "western diseases" that follow this
"western" diet; heart disease, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, hypertension, liver
disease, obesity and cancers.I do not believe the world can afford for much longer anything that is so costly in
environmental and human resources.
But what is the alternative?
For all the hype and ballyhoo about so called sustainable agriculture, about integrated
farming systems, about low input systems, selected input systems or any other so called
"system" that is lumped under the name alternative agriculture, as far as I can
see, organic farming is still the only modern agricultural production system that has been
built from a concept of health and nutrition.
Unfortunately, we may be in danger of forgetting this. The thing that has stuck in most
peoples minds - farmers and consumers alike - is the prohibition of "chemical
intervention". For the most part there has been a concentration either on residues,
pollution and environment or on specific macro-nutrient differences.
In research terms, a substantial body of work has demonstrated that there are
differences between organic and other types of agricultural approaches in all these areas.
Although there are some inconsistencies, in general a favourable picture of organic
farming and food has emerged.
However, investigation and development of this founding idea and revolutionary concept
of health being at one with the health of environment, the status of animal welfare, the
nature of processing, packaging and distribution, has been largely overlooked by
researchers.
Organic
agriculture is popularly and expertly known for its avoidance of agro-chemicals
and its consequent environmental benefits, There is an essential core
of agreement which remains at the heart of the organic movement. This has
four aspects;
1)
The concept of the farm as a living organism, tending towards a closed system
in respect to nutrient flows but responsive and adapted to its own environment.
2) The concept of soil fertility through a "living soil" which has the
capacity to influence and transmit health through the food chain to plants, animals and
Man.
3) The notion that these linkages constitute a whole system within which there is a
dynamic yet to be understood.
4)
The belief in science and an insistence that whilst these ideas might be
challenging orthodox scientific thinking, they could be explored, developed
and eventually explained through appropriate scientific analysis.
There is a growing body of work regarding the production system, the idea of biological
food quality and the link to the health of animals and Man. This includes the observations
and experiments of Sir Robert McCarrison as reported by Balfour.
McCarrison, having systematically observed many peoples and many diets, realised that
there was a quality in the diets of the healthiest peoples which was absent from the least
healthy; "that the food in all these diets is , for the most part, fresh from its
source, little altered by preparation, and complete; and that, in the case of foods based
on agriculture, the natural cycle is complete. Animal and vegetable waste - soil - plant -
food - animal - man; no chemical or substitution stage intervenes."
There is a clear
trend that in appropriate crops organic produce contains more desirable components
(vitamins, dry matter, protein) and less undesirable substances (pesticide residues,
nitrates, sodium) than conventional produce. In livestock trials, animals fed on
organically grown feed generally show greater fertility and longevity than those feed on
conventionally produced feed..
The conventional view of nutrition is that it is enough to ensure that a diet contains
adequate proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, mineral salts, trace elements etc. That
how they got there is of no relevance and the presence of pesticide residues per se is of
no consequence to the health of the consumer. Hence statements from the Food Standards
Agency and others that there is no meaningful difference between organic and conventional
food.
It is instructive to remember that the first two editions of Lady Eve Balfour's book
"The Living Soil" (out of print. Ed) were produced in wartime. Most people who have read the later
editions will not know that the book was originally subtitled "evidence of the
importance to human health of soil vitality, with special reference to post-war
planning".A good deal of it is, unfortunately, still relevant today and worthy of attention. For
example she writes that "If the nation's health depends on the way its food is grown,
then agriculture must be looked upon as one of the health services, in fact the primary
health service."
"If fresh food is
necessary to health in man and beast, then that food must be provided not only from our
own soil but as near as possible to the source of consumption. If this involves fewer
imports and consequent repercussions on exports then it is industry that must be
readjusted to the needs of food....If such readjustment involves decentralisation of
industry and the reopening of local mills and slaughter-houses, then the health of the
nation is more important than any large combine." ........" if farmer, miller,
butcher, baker - all of us concerned with food - have to be incorporated into one vast
social service, decentralised, but nevertheless unified, equivalent to the proposed State
Medical Service, then even so drastic a step as that must be taken, for still the nation's
health comes first."
Unproven maybe. Vital absolutely. That is a vision for food and health that is worth
striving for.
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