170 years after the famine, the late blight of potatoes remains

Dundee, Scotland, 1861

Despite the tools available to combat and control plant disease, the pathogen which caused the Irish famine continues to destroy potato crops worldwide


The famine wasn’t that long ago. I can trace my family back to Peter Lettice and his wife Mary Lowrie who left Ireland in the early 1840s, in their case for Dundee, Scotland, to avoid starvation. Many people can do the same. Knowing their names means that the headline figures that get used in connection with the famine - one million dead and one million emigrated - become very personal. Those figures get used whenever anybody talks about the famine, but they make the whole thing anonymous in a way. It's something that happened to other people and their families.

The massive global changes brought about by the famine are still evident in the large number of people claiming Irish heritage in North America, Australia and elsewhere. At home, the population of the island of Ireland (approximately 6.5 million in 2016) has only now returned to pre-famine levels.
Historians can rightly point to many contributing factors and causes for the famine. Political, social and economic issues all played a role, but the cause of the crop losses at the heart of the Irish potato famine ultimately was Phytophthora infestans. This pathogen comes from a group of organisms called oomycetes and can no longer be correctly called a fungus. In fact, it’s more closely related to the brown algae.

The ‘father’ of plant pathology, Anton de Bary, was the first to demonstrate experimentally that the pathogen caused the disease we now know as late blight and de Bary coined the name Phytophthora, meaning "plant-destroyer". English botanist Rev. Miles Berkeley had first observed that late blight was "the consequence of the presence of the mould, and not the mould of the decay" 15 years earlier (Journal of the Horticultural Society of London, 1846).

Phytophthora is an appropriate moniker. Symptoms of the disease include blackish lesions on the leaves and purple-brown lesions on the surface of the tubers themselves. When the disease is advanced, the tubers are rotten inside and there is a distinctive odour which must have struck fear into the heart of poor subsistence farmers all over the country during the famine.

As any potato grower will tell you, late blight of potatoes has not gone away. It remains the most economically destructive of all potato diseases worldwide. Typically, commercial potato growers in Ireland use between 15 and 20 applications of fungicide to control the pathogen every year and there are no commercially-viable resistant varieties available. 170 years after the famine, our potato crop is still as vulnerable as ever to destruction caused by Phytophthora. The difference now is the availability of chemical control options to keep the worst of the losses at bay.

Globally, many crops are vulnerable to diseases that have the potential to cause devastating losses. For example, rice blast fungus (Magnaporthe oryzae) is the most destructive disease of rice, a staple foodstuff that feeds half the world’s population. Diseases of cereals like Puccinia and Fusarium are a threat that require constant vigilance and we are regularly reminded that the much-loved and economically important Cavendish variety of banana (that’s the banana you had for lunch) is on the brink of extinction due to Panama disease caused by Fusarium oxysporum.

A major problem is our over-reliance on a small number of crops for much of the world’s food supply. Just 15 crop plants account for 90 percent of the world’s food with maize, wheat and rice accounting for over 50 percent of the world’s caloric intake (UN FAO). If even one of the top ten crops were to fail, the consequences could be catastrophic, especially for developing countries.
Increasingly though, we are running to stand still with a lot of the major diseases. Much like the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, keeping one step ahead of emerging and evolving plant pathogens "takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place".

In this context, it’s more important than ever that we are using all of the tools available to us to combat and control plant disease. That means an integrated approach to pathogen and pest management where one tool such as chemical control is not over-used. Such reliance on one control method runs the risk of forcing the pathogen to evolve to overcome the control measure, rendering it useless.

One of the tools that will certainly be in that toolbox is the development of resistant varieties. However, in the case of late blight, we’ve yet to breed a commercially-viable, fully blight-resistant potato. That’s not to say it’s impossible: Sarpo Mira, Sarpo Axona and Blue Danube are all potato varieties that are very resistant to late blight but they have not been commercially successful outside of the organic market.

Luckily, help is at hand in the form of modern plant biotechnology which has the capacity to quickly develop blight resistant potato varieties as well as resistant crops to various other diseases) A major problem with conventional potato breeding is the difficulty in crossing domesticated varieties with their disease-resistant wild relatives. Genetic transformation has overcome that problem by transferring a potato gene for resistance from wild to cultivated varieties. Such varieties were grown successfully in Ireland in recent years.

Gene-editing technology will allow even more precise changes to be made to plant genomes with the goal of introducing resistance for a host of important crop diseases. Whatever our personal views on such technologies, there is no doubt they will be an integral part of maintaining global food security and preventing future famines.

Recently, Ireland was named the most food-secure nation in the world. That’s an amazing turnaround, even if it has taken 170 years. In light of our remarkably journey from famine to world leaders in food security, surely there is a moral imperative on us to support other countries to boost their food security - and to advance the science that will prevent similar famines from happening to other countries in the years to come?

The National Famine Commemoration 2018 takes place at University College Cork on Saturday May 12th. The International Association for Plant Biotechnology congress 2018 (IAPB2018) takes place in Dublin in August

This article first appeared on RTE Brainstorm.

Time for a new debate about food production

Producing enough food to feed a growing human population while protecting an environment under pressure will mean changes in lifestyle, diet and food production.

The Citizens’ Assembly recently voted in favour of introducing measures to reduce the impact of food production on the environment. 89 percent of the assembly members voted to recommend a tax on greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture with the revenue raised being invested in climate-friendly agriculture. This begs the question: what exactly is "climate-friendly agriculture"?

An overwhelming majority of 93 percent of assembly members also recommended the government take action to curb food waste throughout the food production and supply chain. This is a much needed intervention. Although major retailers have made moves to reduce food waste significantly, one study has estimated that 50 percent of all food produced globally never reaches a human mouth. Instead, it is lost on the farm, in processing, storage, distribution or in the back of fridges.

This is a staggering waste given that the secure access to food is a basic human right. Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares it is "the right of every man, woman and child…to have physical and economic access at all times to adequate food". It’s a noble aspiration but it’s clear that we are struggling to make that a reality on a global scale. Figures just realised by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations tells us that 815 million people remain undernourished. A sobering figure.

It’s no surprise then that how we produce enough food to feed a growing human population (approximately eleven billion by 2100) while protecting an environment under pressure has never been higher on the agenda. Unfortunately, we can’t get away from the organic versus conventional debate when we discuss food production these days and evidence suggests that it is the wrong debate to be having

Research indicates that organic systems require anywhere between 25 and 110 percent more land than comparable conventional systems and cause more eutrophication of water bodies than conventional farming. When it comes to crop yields, it really depends on the type of crop you’re growing but, on average, organic yields are 25 percent below that of crops grown conventionally. There are other advantages of organic production though, such as increased soil quality and overall farm biodiversity.
But this is a debate that is going round in circles. There are advantages and disadvantages to both systems and we’ll need to use the best parts of all farming systems if we’re going to solve the global food security crisis.

We need to have a different discussion. It’s now well established that plant-based foods have the lowest environmental impacts and that meat production (especially cattle and sheep) has around 100 times the environmental impact of plant-based food. We need to discuss a dietary shift from beef to pork or from meat to plant-based food. That’s the debate we should be having. Going organic has some environmental benefits, but that’s negligible compared to the benefits of a dietary shift.

 Former president Mary Robinson suggested last year that adopting a vegan diet would reduce our carbon footprint (cue wailing and gnashing of teeth from farmers organisations). Pope Francis recently suggested a similar "change in lifestyle" when speaking at a World Food Day event.

We’ve also got to consider the potential role of genetically engineered crops and crops that have had their genome edited using such techniques as CRISPR. The technology is now available to make photosynthesis more efficient. As the driving force for life on earth, improving photosynthesis could be the key to improving crop yields in a sustainable manner.

CRISPR, a technology that that has far-reaching consequences beyond plant biotechnology, allows scientists to precisely engineer even single letter changes in a plant’s genetic code. This can be done without the need for transgenic DNA, making it radically different to the now conventional forms of genetic engineering which, though leading to huge advances in crop production worldwide, remain a controversial topic in Ireland and most of Europe as this recent Irish survey shows.

These tools join conventional and organic methods in a farmers tool-box. It seems unreasonable that with such challenges to overcome, we often opt to do so with one hand tied behind our back. We now need a new green revolution for the 21st century.

In 1708, the English cleric and economist Thomas Malthus wrote that the "premature death" of the human race was inevitable given the power of population increase over the ability to provide food for these new people. Despite his scaremongering, we’ve obviously overcome these challenges and seen dramatic increases in food production and human population over the last two centuries.

Much of the yield increase has been due to the adoption of (at the time) novel tools for plant breeding and cultivation - the so-called ‘green revolution’. We now need a new green revolution for the 21st century. A green revolution that is not limited by ideology but uses all proven and safe technologies available to boost yields while protecting the environment.

This article first appeared on RTE Brainstorm

Dealing with Food Waste

Recent reports that Irish people are wasting one million tonnes of food give us, as the old idiom goes, food for thought.

According to some reports, this translates into 2 billion meals and around€1 billion worth of food. At a time when some of our citizens struggle to put food on their table, this is a worrying statistic. The figures also represent bad news for our environment and indicate a food production system under pressure.

Ireland is not alone in our wastage of food. A 2013 UK study suggested that, worldwide, between 30 and 50% of all food produced never reaches a human mouth. That amounts to about 1.3 billion tonnes of food wasted every year on the planet, with losses in developing countries mostly down to inefficient growing and harvesting. In developed countries, like Ireland, consumer waste is a huge issue. Put in monetary terms, $1 trillion worth of food is wasted every year, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.

Up to 30% of the UK and Ireland’s vegetable crops are never harvested due to changing, and some might argue, unreasonable demands from the big supermarkets. This is very slowly changing. Under pressure from consumers and activists, some supermarkets have introduced ranges of fruit and vegetables which are perfectly edible but aren’t the perfect shape or size that is normally demanded. These “ugly” or “wonky” fruit and vegetables are a step in the right direction but represent just a drop in the ocean compared to the amount of produce that is destroyed each year because it doesn’t meet retail guidelines. 

So, think about that loaf of bread that you forgot about in the back of the cupboard and had to put in the bin after a few weeks. The first thing you should reflect on is that you really should clean your cupboards out more often. After that, it’s worth remembering that it’s not only the loaf of bread you’re putting in the bin. You’re also wasting all of the energy, water and other resources which went in to producing that loaf. 

From start to finish, from field to bakery to supermarket shelf, a 1kg loaf of bread takes about 1,600 litres of water to produce. Agriculture is thirsty work.

If you choose to add some roast beef to your bread it gets even worse: 1kg of beef takes 15,000 litres of water to produce. And that’s just one resource. You’ve also got to factor in the land, energy, fertilisers and pesticides it took to produce these foodstuffs that are ending up in the bin. Food waste is unsustainable.

About 9 billion people will live on this planet in 2050. According to the United Nations, we have enough food already to feed that many people if it was more fairly and less-wastefully distributed. With advances in agricultural technology, plant breeding and plant protection products, we are getting better at producing higher yields on the same amount of land. 

Energy is another limiting factor for food production, especially in light of obligations to curb climate change. For every calorie of plant-based food, it costs around 3 calories worth of energy to produce. However for every calorie of beef produced it costs 35 calories. When most of this energy comes from non-renewable resources like fossil fuels, meat (and dairy) consumption starts to look unsustainable on a global scale.

At the recent COP21 meeting in Paris, it was estimated that around a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions globally come from agriculture. So, agriculture is a cause of global climate change but it is also a victim of it. Changes in weather patterns, temperature and rainfall will increasingly dictate what kinds of crops will be grown where. Agriculture will be forced to change if it doesn’t do so voluntarily. This is an opportunity for Ireland to lead global change to a more sustainable model of food production.

In fairness, the issue of food waste is being taken seriously at the highest level. One of the results of the COP21 talks has been the establishment by the G20 group of countries of a Technical Platform to measure and reduce food loss and waste. Recently, the Rockefeller Foundation has pledged $130 million to help sub-Saharan African farmers to improve their harvesting, storage and food transportation systems.

More locally, organisations like FoodCloud and the Bia Food initiative are finding innovative ways to connect companies with food at risk of becoming waste with charities who can use such food to fight hunger. Meanwhile, in Denmark a charity has just opened a supermarket stocking exclusively ‘surplus’ food. There is no doubt that for business, the issue of food waste has become an image problem and an opportunity to engage with society to develop novel solutions.

If all of that doesn’t convince you to waste less food, it’s worth pointing out that the Environmental Protection Agency reckons the average Irish household throws away about €700 worth of food every year. We bin 50% of all the salad we buy. 25% of all fruit and vegetable that we buy are thrown away (with potatoes and bananas being main culprits). 20% of bread and 10% of meat and fish is also dumped in homes up and down the country.

A small amount of food waste in unavoidable and food safety is an important issue. However, we all have an obligation to drastically reduce the levels of food waste if we are to develop a fairer, more sustainable society.

Dr Eoin Lettice is a plant scientist and lecturer at the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences at University College Cork. This article originally appeared in the Evening Echo.

Food for thought

With the world population set to reach 9 billion people by 2050, it’s no surprise that governments and societies are beginning to rethink how they will produce food for all these extra people. 

In Ireland, we’re lucky to have some of the most ideal conditions to produce lots of healthy, nutritious food; with a benevolent climate, committed producers and a world-class ‘food infrastructure’ built up over time. 

In Cork - ‘Ireland’s food capital’. Someone who wanders around the cathedral to food that is the English Market cannot fail to notice the importance of food to this region and the central place it has within our city. With a proposed new food innovation centre on the Grand Parade, it looks like that moniker of Ireland’s food capital is being assured.

Ireland’s exports of food and drink reached nearly €10.5 billion in 2014, with the industry making up about 9% of total employment in the country. The Irish food industry has been one of the success stories of the Irish economy throughout the last number of very difficult years. The challenge, as we seek to grow this sector and produce more food for a growing world population, will be to do so in ways that are sustainable and do as little damage to the environment as possible.

English Market, Cork. (Image: William Murphy, Creative Commons)

There are many ways in which this sustainability can be achieved. For example, both industry and consumers have a real obligation to ensure that food waste is minimised as much as possible. Some estimates put the total percentage of food wasted and lost before it gets in our stomachs at between 30 and 50% globally. That means that up to half the food in our fields never reaches a human mouth and is lost either under attack from pests and diseases in the field or binned by suppliers, supermarkets or consumers for a variety of reasons. 

How we grow food crops is the subject of much debate. And so it should be. Consumers have an obligation to be informed about the way in which their food is produced. Hence the recent debates around issues like pesticide residues, genetically-modified crops, organic production, etc. These are good conversations to be having. If nothing more, a country like Ireland which relies on the food industry for 9% of its total employment must be informed about the best food production and plant protection techniques.

At University College Cork, we have a long history of studying plants and crop production. We are also the second ‘greenest’ university on the planet and the first third-level institution in the world to fly the green flag for environmental policies. So, the production of food crops in an environmentally sustainable way is a central tenet of our teaching and research at the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences at UCC. 

In 2012 we launched Europe’s only MSc course in organichorticulture to service a growing demand for higher qualifications in the sector. Organic horticulture (and organic production in general) is often defined by what it isn’t rather than what it is. For example, most synthetic chemical fungicides and pesticides are not permitted for use by organically certified growers so they must employ alternative plant protection techniques like biological control. 

From a scientific point of view, that poses some really interesting research questions like how we can increase yields of plants in ways which don’t rely on synthetic chemical inputs. For example, conventional potato growers often apply between 15 and 20 applications of fungicide each season to control late blight of potato (that’s the same disease which caused the Irish famine). That works for now, but there are clear drawbacks to this approach, putting all your eggs (or potatoes) in one basket. Research on ‘organic’ control techniques for late blight means that we might be able to expand our options for controlling this important disease in one of our most important crops. This sort of research can have benefits for both organic and conventional agriculture.

Organic horticulture is not without its challenges. The lack of conventional chemical fertilisers and pest control means organic yields are often lower than that obtained through conventional means. Additionally, and despite a premium paid for organic produce, small organic growers can often find it hard to balance the books. By recognising the main challenges, we can focus our research strengths accordingly so that we improve the lot of organic growers as well as farmers in general. This will ensure that the organic produce that consumers want is on the shelves and, where possible, is produced in Ireland.

At the moment, the organic sector in Ireland accounts for just less than 1.2% of our useable agricultural area (PDF). The retail value of the sector is about €100 million annually. The current government aims to increase this area under organic production considerably. For example, the Food Harvest 2020 plan seeks to have 5% of our useable agricultural area under organic cultivation by 2020. To do this, significant training of new organic growers is required along with upskilling of current growers. Additionally, there is a need for significant research and development in the area of organic crop production in Ireland. The MSc Organic Horticulture programme at UCC has the dual aims of training scientists and producing a body of Irish research on organic crop production techniques.

From looking at alternative methods of controlling slugs with coffee grounds and seaweed, to using computer software to monitor disease outbreaks in potato, to the study of charcoal as a soil additive, we’ve already produced a range of research through this MSc programme. This is the sort of research which is needed to ensure that growers have a variety of tools at their disposal to produce the food we want, when we want it.

This article first appeared in the Evening Echo on April 14th 2015.

Dr Eoin Lettice is a plant scientist and lecturer at the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences at University College Cork.

Growing Awareness

Last weekend saw the final event in the hugely successful Taste of West Cork festival in Skibbereen.

A huge festival market ended the festival's 10th season which has been one of the most well attended yet.

I was in Skibbereen the weekend before to take part in some of the first events of this year's season. Having talked specifically on the potato last year, I was asked back to give a broader talk on the importance of plants as sources of food and their central place in human society.

"Harvesting the Sun: How plants make food" was well attended and I thoroughly enjoyed the very plant-orientated focus of the Growing Awareness project of which my talk was a part.

Image: Taste of West Cork

Having borrowed an old bakery premises from Field's supermarket (itself a reminder of how important plants are for our 'daily bread') the organisers set to work creating a festival box office but also a lecture space and a huge exhibition highlighting the importance of plants for food.

The Growing Awareness exhibition was the result of many hours hard work by so many organisations and individuals. It was great to see my own students from the UCC MSc Organic Horticulture class, based nearby, making a contribution. The result was an accessible, vibrant and interesting exhibition on plants that will contribute to people's awareness of how important plants are to society. The organisers are to be commended for their foresight and hard work.

How Plants Make Food - Upcoming Talk

Photosynthesis is a term most of us are familiar with - if only because we were forced to learn the complex biochemical pathways in school. Although the concept of plants depending on sunlight to grow is a familiar one, the role of photosynthesis in powering our food supply is sometimes forgotten.

Harvesting the Sun: How Plants Make Food is the title of my upcoming talk at the wonderful Taste of West Cork food festival at Skibbereen, County Cork.

As part of my role with the Centre for Organic Horticulture Research (COHR), based just outside Skibbereen, I've become even further impressed by the central role food and growing plays in the life of West Cork. As a showcase for all of this, the Taste of West Cork festival is a real melting-pot of tastes and ideas which represent West Cork at its best.

Taste of West Cork runs from 6th-15th September 2013. Full details of all events taking place are available in the festival brochure.

Harvesting the Sun: How Plants Make Food, a talk by Eoin Lettice, will take place on Saturday 7th September at 12 Noon at Fields' Old Bakery, Townshend Street, Skibbereen. Admission is FREE and all are welcome.

Water, water, everywhere...

It takes over 17,000 litres of water to produce just 1 kg of chocolate.

That's one of the startling figures compiled in a new report on food waste by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in the UK.

The report: Global Food - Waste Not, Want Not; made the news last month because of the headline-grabbing figure of 50%. That's the proportion of food wasted worldwide without ever reaching a human stomach.

The figures for water usage in the report come from the Water Footprint Network and make for stark reading when tabulated (see below). For example, it takes 822 litres of water to produce 1 kg of apples.

On average, 1 kg of beef takes 15,415 litres of water to produce and one cup of tea takes 27 litres.

The various wasted inputs (water, energy, agrochemicals, etc.) associated with wasted food is often not considered by consumers but, as the report states: "[the 50% headline figure] does not reflect the fact that large amounts of land, energy, fertilisers and water have also been lost in the production of foodstuffs which simply end up as waste".

Water use in agriculture (Source: Global Food - Waste Not, Want Not)

According to a recent European Environment Agency (EEA) report on water use in Europe, agriculture accounts for 33% of total water use. That figure can go as far as 80% in parts of southern Europe where irrigation of crops is essential and accounts for almost all agricultural water use.

In the clamour for higher yielding varieties of crop plants for agriculture, it makes sense to stop and think about how current yields are squandered and how limiting resources such as water and energy and thrown in the bin.

You can read the food waste report here.

You can read the EEA report here.

I write more on the issue of food waste, the global future of crop production and precision agriculture in the Spring edition of Walton Magazine, which is out now.

Image: Watering Crops by Margaret W. Nea. Creative Commons

In praise of the potato

Image: Courtesy of the Southern Star. Details below.

I was delighted to take a trip to Liss Ard Estate, just outside Skibbereen, West Cork, yesterday to speak about the potato plant at a seminar organised by A Taste of West Cork Food Festival.

The panel of speakers for the event included Regina Sexton of UCC, Madeline McKeever of Brown Envelope Seeds and Éanna ní Lamhna, author and RTE radio contributor.

Éanna opened the evening with an informative and exciting summary of the history of the potato and its arrival in Ireland. This was followed by Regina Sexton's presentation on the potato as a food item amongst both the rich and poor in Ireland.

Madeline McKeever spoke of her experience as an organic grower based in West Cork and about the interesting work done by the Sarvari Research Trust to breed blight-resistant potato varieties.

My own talk centered on the historic and present-day impact of late blight on the potato crop and the recent advances in the science of the potato.

I pointed out that an “arms race” now exists between the late blight-causing pathogen Phytophthora infestans and those who would seek to control it. The pathogen’s genome, its genetic blueprint, was sequenced in 2011 and this shows us that it is an incredibly flexible and rapidly-adapting organism. As we develop new fungicides or resistant potato varieties to control late blight, it is just a matter of time before Phytophthora infestans evolves to overcome these barriers.

We have a number of options for the future including the development on new, blight-resistant potato varieties. These varieties can be developed via conventional breeding methods: for example, Teagasc developed the highly successful Rooster variety via its breeding programme and that potato now accounts for about 50% of all potatoes grown in Ireland. Unfortunately it’s not fully resistant to late blight.

Resistant varieties do exist and they are often employed in an organic setting: sarpo mira, blue Danube, etc. However, consumers are reluctant to change from the traditional varieties.

As expected the issue of the recent planting of GM blight-resistant potato plants in Ireland was raised by a number of audience members. I expressed my view that a small-scale, well-designed, open and honest experiment such as this, conducted by a well-respected public body such as Teagasc is to be welcomed.

Opponents of GM often call for more information and more testing to be done on GM plants. This is exactly what the Teagasc experiment is designed to give us.

We must use all the tools at our disposal: organic, conventional and GM to control late blight and protect the potato, a plant which has huge social, historical and economic importance for this country.

The event concluded with a sampling of some delicious potato-based recipes (the lemon potato cake was particularly to my liking) as well as some gripping drama provided by the Skibbereen Theatre Society. All in all, a wonderful celebration of the potato plant.

A Taste of West Cork Food Festival continues this week. More details of other events.

Image: Speakers and organisers of the "Humble Spud" event at Liss Ard. Image courtesy of the Southern Star. Seated (l-r) Madeline McKeever, Regina Sexton, Éanna ní Lamhna, Eoin Lettice. Standing (l-r) Michael Hurley (Chair) and Kay Quinn (Organising Committee) 

Read the Irish Examiner's coverage of the event here.

Why organic must turn to science to survive

According to a couple of recent news stories, organic food is no better for you or the environment than conventionally farmed food. While growers and consumers would do well to take a closer look at the findings before making up their minds, the organic sector needs to turn to science if it is to remain relevant.

The big organic story of the week is a Stanford University meta-analysis which has variously been reported as showing that "Organic food no healthier" (Irish Times), "Why organic food may not be healthier for you" (NPR), and "Organic food is 'not healthier'" (Telegraph).

According to the study published in Annals of Internal Medicine, there is little evidence from 237 existing studies that suggest organic foods are more nutritious than conventional alternatives. The authors do acknowledge that consumption of organic foods "can reduce the risk of pesticide exposure". Clearly the healthiness of a foodstuff is more than just its nutritional value, so the reduced pesticide use on organic foodstuffs is worth noting.

“Some believe that organic food is always healthier and more nutritious,” said Crystal Smith-Spangler, co-author of the report. “We were a little surprised that we didn’t find that.” Perhaps they shouldn't have been given that a 2009 analysis of 50-years of research showed similar results.

Some commentators have mentioned that they don't purchase organic because it is better for them, they shop organic because it is good for the environment. It seems, however, that this claim may not live up to further scrutiny.

The second, and less widely reported organic story of the week is a study by Oxford University scientists which suggests that while organic farming is good for biodiversity, it does not necessarily have a lower impact on the environment than conventional food production.

The Oxford study, published in the Journal of Environmental Management, is a meta-analysis of 71 peer-reviewed studies conducted in Europe. The authors report that "whilst organic farming almost always supports more biodiversity and generally has a positive wider environmental impact per unit of land, it does not necessarily have a positive impact per unit of production."

The study showed that organic production generally needed less energy, but more land than the same amount of conventional produce. While biodiversity was 30% higher on organic farms, the production of organic milk, cereals and pork all generated more greenhouse gases than the conventional alternative.

"Many people think that organic farming has intrinsically lower environmental impacts than conventional farming but the published literature tells us this is not the case," said Dr Hanna Tuomisto, who led the research at Oxford University's Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU). "Whilst some organic farming practices do have less environmental impact than conventional ones, the published evidence suggests that others are actually worse for some aspects of the environment. People need to realise that an "organic" label is not a straightforward guarantee of the most environmentally-friendly product".

an organic stamp should not be seen as the pinnacle of achievement in terms of sustainable food production What these two studies clearly show is that an organic stamp should not be seen as the pinnacle of achievement in terms of sustainable food production. On the other hand there are clearly some advantages of growing organically - increased biodiversity on farms and a decreased use and exposure to pesticides being just two highlighted in these studies. While these are positives, as conventional agriculture slowly moves away from the worst excesses of pesticide use, the importance of purely organic production may wane.

I've long argued for a third way - an agricultural system based on science where what works and is safe from all systems of agriculture can be used together to get the best results for growers, consumers and the environment.

If organic farming is to remain relevant in an era of growing food insecurity, it must be based on rigorous science and clear evidence. The organic sector must also begin to pick its battles. Organic is not the answer to all of the worlds problems. It does however have real contributions to make in terms of biodiversity and sustainable pest management.

GM trial gets go-ahead

A genetically modified potato variety will be planted in Ireland as part of a Teagasc-led experimental trial, which has today got the 'green-light' from Ireland's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

This post also appears on the Cork Independent Blog.

The field trials were allowed to proceed after an assessment of the experimental plans and designs by the EPA and a broad-ranging consultation process. The EPA also received 83 representations from interested parties - all objecting to the proposed trials. I've previously written about why, I think, this trial is needed.

Teagasc applied for a liscence to plant the potatoes back in January. These plants contain a gene which makes them resistant to late blight (Phytophthora infestans) - the organism which caused the Irish potato famine. This gene has been taken from a wild, related potato variety and inserted into the cultivated potato using GM technology.

The EPA have given their consent to the trials subject to eight conditions, saying in their decision: "The agency believes that the risk to human health and the environment from the deliberate release of these GM potatoes is negligible".

The conditions include a requirement of Teagasc to monitor the experimental site for at least four years after planting. They also require Teagasc to report to the EPA every two months on the progress of the experiments and to set up a 40m exclusion zone around the site where no commercial potato planting can take place.

This trial will ensure that we can have real experimental data, based on Irish conditions, so that we can sensibly assess the impact of GM potato planting on the environment under closely monitored and controlled conditions. From reading through the large number of submissions, it is clear that a large number of those objecting are calling for "more information" before such planting takes place. They seemingly fail to see that this trial is specifically design to provide that information they crave; and to do so in a safe, controlled and carefully-monitored fashion.

There will be a large amount of hyperbole written and spoken about this decision in the next few days. Already, the Organic Trust has warned of "grave ramifications" and a Green party spokesman has suggested it will do "untold damage to Irish farming". On the other hand, those welcoming the decision may talk of feeding the world and food security. In reality, the product of this decision will be far less clear-cut. We will hopefully learn more about how GM plants work in the Irish environment and those who support or oppose GM will continue to argue their own side of the debate.

I believe this is a positive step forward however. This experiment will provide real results which can only add to, enrich and enlighten what is an already heated debate. I look forward to seeing the results of this experiment.

Attention-grabbing rampage adds nothing to GM debate

Grain Aphid (Image: Rothamsted Research)

Regular readers of this blog will know that I've advocated a sensible and rational debate about GM crops and I've added my voice to the growing calls for trials to establish the scientific evidence for and against such crops.

In a recent article for the Guardian's Notes and Theories Blog, I've also called for a move away from division based on ideology in agriculture and food production towards a compromise solution where the best features of all agriculture systems are used safely and effectively.

That is why it's particularly disturbing that this weekend could see one of the most difficult, disturbing and avoidable stand-offs in the whole GM debate so far.

Located north of London, Rothamsted Research station is the longest running agricultural research station in the world. A trial of GM wheat plants has been ongoing since the 22nd of March. The plants are designed to repel aphid pests because they emit an aphid repellent.

The gene inserted into the wheat is synthetic in nature - it doesn't come from any other species. It allows the plant to produce (E)-β-farnesene, an alarm pheremone that the aphid itself produces to warn off other aphids when they come under attack. Simply put, the plants are designed to repel the aphids by scaring them off.

However, the trial, designed to see whether the new plants would grow as expected and repel aphids, is under threat from an anti-GM grouping called Take The Flour Back.

This group has called for a 'decontamination' of the site next Sunday, May 27th. According to their website, "Take the Flour Back will be a nice day out in the country, with picnics, music from Seize the Day and a decontamination. It’s for anyone who feels able to publicly help remove this threat and those who want to show their support for them".

In what amounts to a threat of physical force, the group has called on the Rothamsted researchers to remove the plants or face the consequences of a 'decontamination'. Protesters are encouraged by the protesters website: "If you are able to bring your own biohazard protection and dustmask, please do".

Rothamstead researchers took the unprecedented step of writing an open letter (pdf) to the protesters and producing a youtube video (below), appealing that their research would not be destroyed.


Apart from a letter from the protest group they seem to have been reluctant to engage in any sort of meaningful dialogue - even withdrawing from a public debate which they themselves had called for.
You can read a timeline of events and the correspondence itself here.

A petition, organised by Sense about Science has garnered over 5,500 signature in the last few weeks in support of the Rothamsted researchers.

At this late stage, it seems unlikely that the protesters will not attempt to destroy legitimate and much-needed scientific research on Sunday. They will also put at risk the nearby Broadbalk experimental site - itself the longest running field experiment in the world.

Rothamsted scientists will be at work on Sunday, a short distance from the trial site, to answer questions from the public. Nearby, years of scientific research could be reduced to nothing by extremists who refuse to accept the rule of law or the argument that a debate based on evidence is needed rather than a hot-headed, attention-grabbing rampage. As one commentator put it, destruction adds nothing to the sum of human knowledge.

Even at the eleventh hour, this group needs to call a halt to this 'protest' and engage in a proper debate. If the evidence against GM is as convincing as they think it is, then they have nothing to fear.