World sugar consumption has tripled in the last 50 years!

Well first of all the world population has more than doubled in that time, so this accounts for most of it.  Beyond this one of the things Michael Pollan pointed out in his book Omnivore’s Dilemma is during the time high fructose corn syrup was introduced into US soft drinks, America’s consumption of ordinary sugar stayed nearly constant.  In other words, the HFCS was just more sugar added on top of existing consumption, and HFCS probably doesn’t satisfy an appetite for real sugar.

Considering an increase of all sweeteners together is misleading.  If you only consider per capita consumption of ordinary sugar, you aren’t likely to see a meaningful increase over the last 50 years.

Not only is a modest amount of ordinary sugar a relatively safe and constructive part of a balanced diet, but it’s an appetite suppressant and trying to eliminate or reduce it will almost certainly lead to the overconsumption of other foods.  It’s known for example that people who drink sugar-free soft drinks are statistically heavier than those who drink the sugared version, and this could be one reason.

Just Like Europe

It’s true a few countries in Europe have special taxes for soft drinks, but as far as I know this is not a tax on sugar.  In particular drinks containing aspartame are not exempt from these taxes.

In Europe it’s more common to drink soft drinks in restaurants, who often depend on sales of drinks for a large part of their profits.  It’s less common to drink soft drinks at home, and there are very few people who depend on soft drinks as part of their grocery shopping.  Taxing soft drinks is more a way to tax eating out at a restaurant than anything else.  Soft drinks are also usually an imported product, and by taxing them it encourages the consumption of local products like beers and wines.

In the US many people who consume large amounts of soft drinks live in the so-called food deserts of inner cities, with limited access to healthier alternatives.  A sugar tax would only serve to raise the grocery bill of these people.  A sugar tax in the US would be a disproportionate tax on the poor.

More Profit in Sugar Alternatives

The problem is while sugar is a commodity crop, and relatively speaking expensive to transport, process and store, as well as subject to swings in price depending on availability, the alternatives like HFCS and aspartame are not.  These alternatives are patented, cheap to manufacture and represent huge profits for the companies that sell them and own the associated intellectual property rights.

Calories

The argument is sugar ‘and other sweeteners’ contain too many calories, making it ‘better’ to consume an artificial sweetener like aspartame.  In fact there is not a single shred of credible evidence to suggest any link between the number of calories you consume and health.  Calories are a very old unit of measure determined by literally burning food and seeing how much heat is given off.  Your body does not metabolize food this way, and you can’t make any comparisons.

It’s true, there are low calorie diets which help people lose weight, but in nearly all cases the diets cannot be sustained and the weight returns after ending the diet.  In fact most people who attempt such diets end up heavier in the end.  This is all you can say about calories, and there’s nothing about this weight gain and loss that’s healthy.

Dangers of Non-Sugar Sweeteners

Alternative sweeteners like aspartame and HFCS have so many health concerns or suspected health concerns associated with them, that I’m not even going to get into it here.  I’ve written some posts about these, and you can find lots of other things by searching the Internet.

In particular both of these are suspected of being behind the current world wide obesity epidemic, and are both suspected or known carcinogens.

Age Limit for Buying Soft Drinks?

Not to be left out here are of course the tobacco and alcohol lobbies.

To begin with the tobacco lobby does not want any legal competition with their products.  This is the reason they were and are behind things like prohibition, worldwide drug wars and age limits that ensure young people grow up with a period of time where tobacco is the only legal drug available.  It’s pretty logical they would like to see sugar less available, because craving it could also make using tobacco more attractive.

More importantly the tobacco industry wants to see the culture of enforced age limits, as a way of making their products seem safer.  After all if we have age limits for everything from alcohol to tanning salons, and tobacco has a relatively low limit, it makes tobacco products seem safer and more normal to young people.  In fact there are few more lethal products worldwide than tobacco.

Alcohol follows closely behind tobacco, because if you’re addicted to tobacco, you’re much more likely to consume larger amounts of alcohol.

What is it about elections in the US that brings together such powerful political lobbies in such intrusive ways?

Alternatives?

How about some alternatives to a sugar tax:

Prohibition of soft drink and candy vending machines in schools, except for products containing 100% fruit, ordinary sugar, water or other completely natural ingredients.

Prohibition of sponsorship or promotion of processed foods, in a similar way promotion of tobacco products is prohibited in many places now.

Prohibition or tax on HFCS and aspartame.

A tax in the US on saturated fat, like in Denmark and Hungary.

End subsidies on corn, HFCS and ethanol.

A levy on brand name soft drinks, in a similar way brand name cigarettes are priced higher in the US.

Anyone have other suggestions?

Hello to all
I am a researcher in iran.I and my cooperator have collected 22 accessions from region of Tarom (one of areas of Zanjan province). We want to research taht how many genotypes are being farm in this area and also study resistance to puccinia alli. please gide me how I operate thate conclude best.

on this post.

He actually doesn’t say it’s specifically on garlic, rather alliums in general, but since my original post was on garlic I assume that’s what he meant.

Does anyone have any information for him?

I can say that in the last few years since I’ve been making posts about garlic rust, I first read that it was present in on the US west coast, specifically in California in the region around Gilroy and a few isolated places in Oregon.  I also knew it was present in northern Europe because it was in my garden and those of fellow gardeners in the UK, Denmark and Sweden.

In the years that followed I had reports from readers that it was present in the entire Willamette Valley area of Oregon, and later British Columbia in Canada and Los Angeles, in southern California.  Two years ago someone reported it appeared in Ethiopia.  I see mentioned on the Internet it’s also appeared this year on the east coast of the US in Maine.  It seems to be spreading now, almost all over the world.

Following a suggestion from Søren, a fellow blogger in Denmark I’ve been experimenting with spraying dilute milk on my plants.  I have not done this in any sort of scientific way, but my feeling is it’s of significant benefit.  It seems to slow the rust down and manage it, to the extent it’s no longer a serious problem.  I spray this on the plants about once a week or after rain, during the last 2-3 months or when I think rust infection is likely to occur.  It’s benefit seems to be much greater if applied before the plants are infected.  I use a ratio of 3-10 parts water to one part milk.

In the last several years I have grown more than 120 varieties of garlic in my garden, and a friend of mine more than 300.  We have not really noticed significant signs of resistance to garlic rust on any of them, except a few of the more vigorous varieties like Susan Delafield and Estonian Red (a purple stripe type) seem to stand up a little longer to the rust probably because of the strength of the plants, and some silverskin varieties like Chilean Silver seemed to get infected a little later than the others.

The other thing a number of people observed was the application of high nitrogen fertilizer, in particular animal manure, caused the rust problem to become much worse.

The spoken language is French, with English subtitles.

If you wish to download a version to play directly on your own computer, you can do that here. The original video without embedded subtitles can be downloaded here.

This is an ‘ongoing’ series, so be sure to check back at the link above for possible future releases.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

You can find the original Dutch language version here.

Here is a reply from the scientists who opposed the demonstration.

The original Dutch language version is here.

Here’s a quote from the second letter:

Sleep comfortable
Just think: what carries the least risk to humans and the environment? A potato with well-characterized resistance genes (the GM version) or a potato with the same genes in it and also a lot of other genes that we all know nothing (and bionica and toluca example)? If you do not see dangers in the use of bionica and toluca varieties, sleep on both ears in terms of the GM potato.

Part of the strange language here is the translation from Dutch, and I’ve fixed it a little by hand, but the point is clear.  From a scientist’s point of view — fewer genetics are better.  The traditionally bred blight resistant varieties Bionica and Toluca are dangerous to plant, because they have too many unknown and not useful genes in them!  Really?

The only way forward is monocultures, and as little biodiversity as possible?  Otherwise humans and the environment are at risk?  If you don’t agree, sleep comfortably on both ears?  This is like president Bush telling the world they were either with him or against him in Iraq.  I don’t think this is the basis for common ground.

For the sake of clarity, I’m only including a few quotes of the original post and comments, and I would encourage anyone reading this to have a look at the original post linked to above, and convince yourself I’m not taking anything unfairly out of context.  Maybe you’ll get an insight into how ‘the other side’ thinks??  I dunno…

French anti-science vandals invade a Belgium farm and destroy crops

Phytophthora infestans causes ‘late blight’ in potatoes. In regions of potato cultivation with a temperate climate, like Belgium, this is the single most dangerous disease. The disease costs farmers in Belgium about 55 million euros annually, and controlling it causes significant environmental pressure. However, in the last few years a number of resistant varieties based on conventional plant breeding techniques were introduced to the market, and work is being done on developing genetically modified Phytophthora-resistant lines.

These GM plant are environmentally much more friendly than some existing  methods of treating fungus attack on plants  such as the commonly used toxic copper sulphate.

But the GM potatoes will not be used if the anti-GM fanatics have their way.
A research field trial of these blight-resistant potatoes has just been destroyed in Belgium.
Some anti-technology activists came by bus from France to destroy the fields.

Okay, where to start.  First of all the participants were primarily Belgian.

In Belgium three languages are commonly spoken French, Flemish/Dutch and English.  The first two are languages of the neighboring countries France and The Netherlands, as well as native languages of the Belgian people.  English is a sort of neutral language, as well as being the language most people from other countries speak.  When promoting the event, it’s logical the promotion would be in these three languages.  They were trying to promote the event both in Belgium and abroad.

The vast majority of participants, many of them known by me personally, were from Belgium.  The main organizer was a Flemish/Dutch speaking Belgian.  I know this from listening to the accents and languages spoken in the videos I posted, by reading news reports and blog post on the Internet, and from private email correspondence.  Trust me, it would have been big news if large numbers of people had come in from France for an event like this, and no mention of it has been made anywhere except on Biofortified.

The link provided on Biofortified points to a website in France promoting the event in French.  There’s no indication anywhere unusually large numbers of people came from France as a result of this promotion.

As far as being anti-science vandals, what about the scientists in the action?  For example Barbara van Dyck, who lost her job at the Catholic University of Leuven for participating.  Perhaps if you support her termination from the university, you should send an email stating she was ‘anti-science’ as a reason and see if it helps?  I wonder if the truth was more the demonstrators were not so much anti-science, but rather anti this author’s version of science.  I think in fact most participants consider themselves very strong proponents of science.  My position is certainly pro-science.

While it’s very true Phytophthora costs Belgian farmers lots of money, the problem is really a lack of promotion of the already available Phytophthora resistant varieties, and lack of investment in developing new traditionally bred resistant lines.  Consumers do not want GM potatoes, and there is no legitimate reason to develop them except to force consumers to accept something they don’t want.  There is also strong pressure from the agri-chemical industry to continue promoting non-resistant varieties, until such time as GM varieties are available to take their place, because there are lots of profits in selling the chemicals used to combat Phytophthora.

The reality is in a few years the chemicals used to combat Phytophthora will be phased out in Europe, because they are too damaging to the environment.  This measure has already been passed by the European Parliament. The large agricultural interests hope at that time the only viable varieties available will be GM resistant varieties. There is no truth to the idea that the GM potatoes are ‘better for the environment’, they are simply being developed for commercial reasons.

The use of copper sulphate really has very little to do with this discussion or with Phytophthora on potatoes.  It’s true copper sprays can be used to combat Phytophthora, and it’s true this is used in Europe.  Copper sprays happen to be illegal in The Netherlands, one of the largest potato growing regions.  Copper sprays are also of limited use with potatoes.  Copper is mostly used on grape vines in places like Italy and France, or on tomatoes.

The reason copper sprays are of limited use with potatoes, is they are relatively expensive compared to the crop produced as well as Phytophthora is not an immediately fatal disease, or as the author on Biofortified says ‘dangerous’ disease, in organic agriculture.  There are a variety of techniques that can be used to manage Phytophthora without chemicals, like removing infected haulms.  These methods are not practical in large scale mono-cultures, but neither is wide scale spraying of copper based chemicals.  I wonder if the author on Biofortified has ever grown potatoes?

• Talking to activists about the science didn’t work.

Jo Bury, the director of the VIB science research institute that planted the potatoes, said around 100 scientists had tried to talk the actists out of vandalism.

“We are deeply shocked about the violent actions by the activists of the Field Liberation Movement. The field trial with blight resistant potatoes was almost entirely destroyed. Our hearts are with the scientists whose hard work was destroyed today.”

“Althought his is a dark day for science as a whole, we want to thank all 350 scientists and farmers who came out and supported Save Our Science. It was a strong message to the world that we believe that science has an important role to play in the development of environmental friendly agriculture” Geert Angenon, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Geert De Jaeger, UGent, Rony Swennen, K.U.Leuven, Jeroen Crappé.

Okay, no clue.  No mention of a counter-demonstration anywhere in anything I’ve read.  This is the first I’ve heard of it.  There’s little doubt in my mind that the scientists involved in the trials were probably present, and maybe some others.  I think this would be pretty normal.  But a larger number of ‘pro-science’ scientists than Field Liberation people?  That’s a little funny, and certainly no more than a pipe-dream.

As far as the 100 scientists trying to talk the demonstrators out of it, what does that mean exactly?  As I read what this author wrote, it seems to suggest 350 scientists showed up but only 100 tried to talk the Field Liberation people out of it.  What about the other 250?

Did the attempt to talk the Field Liberation people out of it occur in advance?  Was there anything published in writing on their position?  Certainly if their arguments were the same as this author, they would have fallen on deaf ears.

The reality is many people behind the Field Liberation Movement are themselves scientists, farmers and otherwise very intelligent people and current in their fields.  I’m certain they would welcome sensible public debate on the issues, and are well prepared to hold their own.

7 comments to French anti-science vandals invade a Belgium farm and destroy crops

GregH:

It’s funny how people are always railing against GMOs claiming their reasoning herbicides this and Bt that and Monsanto the other thing, while saying they’re not against the science, they just want more research. I assume there will be a huge outcry among the anti-GMO people for destroying the research (which appears to be government funded non-corporate) they claim they want done on the traits they don’t claim to find fault with….right after they get around to objecting the destruction of those French government run virus resistant GM grape rootstocks a while back.

daedalus2u:

The standard objections of anti-GMO activists don’t apply in this case. Potato is not native to Europe, there are no near-relative weedy species that it can cross pollinate with. Commercial potato isn’t propagated by seed, it is propagated clonally by bits of root. The traits can’t spread by pollen to other fields or contaminate other potato crops.

GregH:

These are the same people who trashed GM grape rootstocks. Yeah, rootstocks, so not even the flower or fruit were genetically engineered. I think it’s safe to say the standard objections are really just lame excuses for common thugs to break something. Must make them feel real big. They’re probably laughing it up and patting themselves on the back for the great blow they think they struck to Monsanto (the fact that this was not Monsanto’s research is likely lost on them).

Ben B:

Concerning this “research”, one row of potatoes was from BASF.
The “traditional’ arguments against GM are still functioning in this case : those potatoes are “pesticide patented clones”.
The industrialized “pesticide” system is responsible of an enormous part of today’s environmental disaster (more than half of GHG emissions due to our food and agri system, according to Olivier De Schutter, UN Rapporteur on the Right to Food + Soil erosion, oil-dependent unsustainable system), and those plants keep on pushing in this direction.
Patenting the living brings to corporate takeover on seeds, the most important thing on the food chain (more infos http://www.grain.org/docs/trips.pdf). Our economic system hates what’s free, like nature’s work on plants. If privatizing life is a synonymous of “progress”, then we’re going forward at high speed.
Clones in the fields means biodiversity loss, more diseases, threats on health.
The “usual” arguments of pro-GM people imply to continue in the system responsible for today’s economic (farmers situation in developed countries), social (one billion persons starving) and environmental (agri and food system responsible for more than 50% of GHG emissions) disasters, claiming that it will bring solutions. We may have a small problem of coherency…
Whereas solutions exist. Sustainable small scale family farming can feed the world – even with 10 billion persons. Actually, it already does… The main problem is repartition of food produced (70% of world agricultural land directly or indirectly for feeding cattle), eating habits (too much meat in developed countries), and production system.

Karl Haro von Mogel:

Oh no – one row of potatoes was from BASF? Then they must all be ripped out! Seriously, that is a bad reason. If BASF has a blight-resistant potato then it is entirely appropriate to evaluate it alongside other varieties.
The rest of your comment demonstrates that you don’t know how potatoes are grown – potato varieties are all clones of one good plant, produced through tubers. Even your favorite old varieties grown on organic farms are clones.

daedalus2u:

Where to start, so much misinformation. The genes for resistance came from wild relatives of potato. These genes have been introduced via cross-breeding in other strains of potato.

The idea behind using these natural resistance genes is so that the use of synthetic fungicides is reduced or even eliminated. Isn’t the reduction of use of synthetic pesticides a good thing?

You can’t just stop using fungicides on potatoes if they are not resistant because the entire crop can be destroyed. This fungus is what caused the Irish potato famine which killed over a million people from starvation because it destroyed the potato crop.

Commercially grown potatoes are always clonal.

Growth of potato strains other than these clonal potatoes will not be affected. They may even benefit because these potatoes are resistant to the fungus, if they are planted they will not increase the growth, spread and persistence of the fungus which could affect non-resistant potatoes.

OrchidGrowinMan:

daedalus2u,

I agree: misinformation, catastrophization, emotional language and outright lies are all too common. People LIKE to be excited, but don’t like to grind through research. They LIKE to play the White Knight, but may need to invent a dragon to do so. It’s more exciting and feels more Noble to fight a Vast International Conspiracy than to address sewage treatment and drinking water contamination.

I think a lot of the problem is related to the game of “Telephone”: Person 1 hears that there may be a possibility of a slight risk of a minor side-effect, and passes that information on. Person 342 hears that there is a virtual certainty of a global catastrophe, and communicates this to Person 1, and the cycle continues.

Credulity, poor understanding of statistics, science, and risk-assessment and the excitement of being a member of a Just Cause combine to generate a population resistant to reassessing their positions and who are sometimes effectively manipulated, and not in a good way.

I think the comments mostly speak for themselves.  I agree, misinformation.   I have sympathy for BenB.  How can you soar like an eagle when you’re surrounded by turkeys?  I’ll correct a few errors.

First of all the genes used in these GM potatoes are from very poisonous wild relatives genetically incompatible with ordinary potatoes.  They can’t cross breed as far as I know and certainly there was no attempt to get them into ordinary potatoes with traditional breeding.  Isn’t this of concern to some people reading this?  Genes from poisonous wild relatives, inserted into something intended for food, without any credible public or peer reviewed safety testing?

And it pains me to have to say this, but yes potatoes are propagated by tuber or meristem cloning, but you don’t have to grow them in monocultures!  Like any other crop you can work with a number of different varieties and inter-crop them with other plants.  The GM potatoes are being developed for use in monocultures, and it’s the intention we become dependent on a small number of patented genes to protect one of the worlds most important crops from a repeat of the Irish Potato Famine.

Does it help us all to know how the other side thinks?

On their Dutch and French language blog, organizers of the Field Liberation Day action in Wetteren, Belgium declared their success. They also published a multi-lingual dossier on the GM potatoes here, English is mixed in with other languages.

On the 29th of May about 500 people gathered at the trial fields. A broad mix of people including professionals, scientists, farmers, young and old.

Standing between them and the potatoes were about 60 police officers dressed in full riot gear prepared for battle, a 2 meter high fence, razor wire and electronic sensors.

As the demonstration progressed about half the participants, 250 or so, penetrated the barrier and entered the trial fields. There were about 30 arrests, and prosecutions are expected to follow.

While the fields sustained about 20% damage on the day of the action, some participants returned in the days following to continue damaging the fields.

Civil action is expected against the demonstrators, as the multinationals behind the trials claim financial damages.

The demonstrators are now looking to build a support network; including moral, legal, logistical, financial and other help. If anyone reading this would like to participate, let me know and I’ll make sure you’re in contact with the right people. I think you can also probably contact them via their blog I linked to above.

Bees

One of the things uncovered by demonstrators were beehives kept 30 meters from the potato trial fields. A glimpse of this is shown in the last few seconds of the second video.

University Researcher Fired

A few days following the action in Wetteren, academic researcher Barbara Van Dyck was fired by the Catholic University of Leuven . She wasn’t fired because she trespassed, damaged anything or broke any laws. She was fired because she was present during the demonstration, outside of working hours on a Sunday, and voiced her public support. She was fired for performing what in many places in the world are constitutional rights.

Just in case any of us thought universities were places of free thought and expression, now we all know we were wrong.

Regardless of your personal views on the Field Liberation Day, please consider signing the petition to ask for her reinstatement and sending an email to the University. Details can be found here.

Free Expression

So much of what happened on May 29th comes down to freedom of expression and proportionality of actions.

Sixty police in riot gear? If I ever had problems with vandalism in my garden, even if I knew who it was and had dates and times in advance, I would never get the attention of the police here. It doesn’t matter if I had a breeding project, or if I had years of time an effort invested into what I was doing. It’s also not just me as an individual, but we have the same problem at my community garden complex where we have 50+ gardens, problems with vandalism, and the police won’t do anything about it.

If I were to grow something provocative, for example marijuana (which is permitted here in small amounts), and my garden was overrun with 19-year old stoner-vandals, I might even get into trouble with the police for creating problems.

What’s more provocative than a field of GM potatoes? The people behind the planting of the field are as much or more to blame for it’s destruction than the demonstrators themselves.

There isn’t any court in the Netherlands that would award me more than market value if a field of potatoes in my garden were destroyed by vandals and I sued for damages. It doesn’t matter how much work I put into growing and possibly breeding them. Face it, even if you could find someone who wanted to buy and eat them, the potatoes aren’t worth more than 50 cents a pound. What’s this talk of civil action…arrests and prosecution…over potatoes?!

This is very much the same logic of Monsanto suing farmers like Percy Schmeiser when their crops become contaminated with GMOs, and it’s abuse of the justice system and civil courts.

Anyone reading this who has ever had a garden or farm knows that, however distasteful it may be, destroying someone else’s plants and the work behind them is mindless and no problem at all. Build a wall and block the light. Enter at night and pull the plants up. Throw salt on them. Spray them with herbicide. Pollute the genetics of wild crop relatives with GMOs, so organic seed saving is more difficult or impossible. This can easily be done by 3-4 people in the darkness of night, and hundreds of people aren’t necessary.

As growers of plants we are totally at the mercy of nature, natural disasters, climate change, genetically modified crops and even vandals. We all need to take all of these things into account when we grow things, and roll with the punches as they come.

The people being punished for participating in or supporting Field Liberation Day, are not being punished for the destruction of $100 worth of potatoes, they’re being punished for bringing 500 people together to express ideas and opinions and filming 60 riot police beating unarmed demonstrators. They’re being punished for making us all think about what a monstrosity research into GM crops has become, together with all the politics and unfair laws behind it.

Supposedly it all comes down to us consumers. What I hear is if we don’t accept GM foods, they won’t be sold. Has anyone else heard that too? I don’t think the big agro-chemical companies have heard this yet.

Does it really come down to destroying one another’s work before the message is heard?

This past Monday and Tuesday nights Vandana spoke at two places in the Netherlands, first in Zeist (near Utrecht) and then here in Amsterdam.  Wow, what an amazing woman.  She’s a brilliant person, and very well spoken.  It was really a pleasure to hear her speak.  There are a number of videos on the Internet of her speaking, and if you’ve never heard her, I suggest having a look at some of these.

Top on her agenda at both venues was to discuss farmer suicides in the Indian Punjab region, the ongoing tragedy that’s one of the most serious in modern history.  This combined with the fact that of the roughly 1 billion people in the world today who are hungry, half or 500 million work in the food production and preparation industries.  There is really something messed up in the priorities of today’s world if the people who give us our food are so poor.

Vandana is very good with facts and statistics, and I took several pages of notes.  She discussed things like GMOs, patents, world trade issues and human rights.  Most people who are regular readers of this blog will have heard a lot of these things before either here or elsewhere, so I won’t cover them now.  I’ll probably mention some in future posts, and indeed some are so important they deserve an entire post to themselves.

She took a few shots at the Netherlands too.  For example making fun of the new government’s decision to eliminate the Environmental Ministry, or the fact that the amount of land equivalent to roughly 3 times the size of the Netherlands is used outside the country to grow the soy and grains necessary to feed the animals here.  She mentioned the Dutch were involved in intercepting ships at sea transporting generic (so-called ‘counterfeit’) medicines from India to other countries.

Zeist

The symposium in Zeist was really very interesting, not just because of Vandana herself, but by who attended and how it was organized.

When Tom Wagner visited last year I briefly entertained the possibility of trying to organize something for him here, but the community of people who might be interested in attending something like that is so disorganized and everyone has their own opinions and alliances.  I quickly decided getting a group of people together here would be impossible.  I’ve approached some of these people in the past for various reasons, and it nearly always happens that we quickly decide we don’t have anything in common and go our own ways.  Part of the problem too is many people in the Netherlands don’t like having anything to do with people from other countries, which of course to most of us is a strange concept.  It’s a fact for example that I have almost no regular readers of this blog in the Netherlands.  On any given month I might only have 5 or 10 local readers, but 10,000+ from other countries.

What was interesting was no one name seemed to be associated with organizing the visit by Vandana Shiva or the symposium, rather it was a consortium of mostly large businesses and organizations.  No expense was spared, and quite a lot of money was spent on it all.  As well as paying for Vandana Shiva’s visit, they served us dinner cooked from organic and locally sourced ingredients, local organic fruit juices, organic wines.  The costs we all paid to attend did not cover all their expenses, that’s for sure.

A very broad range of people attended, including at least one identifiable representative of a Monsanto owned seed company.  There was at least one academic from the University of Wageningen.  The symposium itself was hosted after hours in a bank lobby, and there were a number of venture capitalists and investment companies present.  There were farmers and plant breeders.  There was one very passionate grower of organic flower bulbs.  There was a member of the EU Parliament.  It was a bit of a funny situation because when we registered, we had to state our affiliations, and they printed this on our name tags.  Some people were walking around with the title ‘consumer’ or ‘gardener’.

Everyone was there to talk very seriously about the future of agriculture in the Netherlands and the world.  There were some very heated debates!

Towards the end the question was posed to the panel and the audience, if you had 10 million euros to fix agriculture, how would you spend it, and it’s clear a number of people were looking to that question for real ideas to be implemented.  There weren’t really a lot of clear answers to that question however.

The following evening in Amsterdam Vandana had a very good answer when she was asked where she would like to see more money spent.  She suggested school gardens and community gardens.  She offered the challenge that in the next decade we should not let a single small farmer fail, and money should be spent to that end.

Amsterdam

Vandana’s talk in Amsterdam was of course also fantastic, but the venue was a little lacking.  First Vandana gave her talk, then someone from the University of Wageningen gave a presentation that essentially promoted modern agriculture.  Afterwards, there was supposed to be a debate between the two.

Vandana’s talk was in English, and the other person spoke in Dutch.  The debate was supposed to be in English.  There was really a lot of language conflict.  At one point there was a brief discussion in Dutch, Vandana asked for a translation, and she was told it was too typically Dutch and she wouldn’t understand.  I think that was very rude, and it left Vandana in a position where she may have felt people were telling secrets around her.

What this all meant was too much of my evening was taken up by a presentation promoting the Green Revolution, and the debate that followed was too unfocused.  I think Vandana ended up being slightly insulted.

The talk was held in a place called De Rode Hoed or ‘The Red Hat’.  Vandana picked up on the name and mentioned it was also the name for open source software.

Really??

It’s kind of strange this news sort of came and went with hardly a comment from the blogging community.  This is just the opinion of the US justice department, and might not hold, but it has could have wide ranging ramifications including in the area of genetically modified crops.

The article linked to above is mistaken, in my opinion, when it comes to what it says on GM crops.  It says they would not be covered by this decision, because the genes they use are man made and not naturally occurring.  I wasn’t aware we were to the point of being able to create artificial genes, at least as far as genetic engineering of plants, but maybe someone will put me in my place if I’m wrong on this…  As far as I’m aware all research into plant breeding, transgenic or otherwise, involves genes found in the wild.

This could be really big news, or it might be nothing.  Anyone have an opinion?  Wild speculation maybe?

Staff at the facility say a planned move would take at least 15 years to complete, and they are being given just 3 months.  The loss to science and global biodiversity would be devastating if this forced move proceeds as planned.

The institute lost a case in court brought by property developers who want to use the site to build exclusive housing.  An appeal to the ruling is pending, but this is expected to lose.  Apparently in this case the law seems to be solidly on the side of the property developers.

The last remaining hope is intervention by either Russian President Medvedev or Prime Minister Putin, either one of which can set aside the court ruling.  Via Twitter, President Medvedev announced he would look into the matter.

You can help by making a personal appeal to the Kremlin!  You can sign an online petition here.  You can also write the Kremlin a letter.  Or tweet them at @KremlinRussia_E.  Time is running out!

It was a rainy day yesterday as I planted out my seedlings grown from True Potato Seed (TPS) received from Tom, so the pictures probably seem a little grey.  Rebsie of Daughter of the Soil planted hers out a few days ago, and many others across Europe are planting them in their gardens too.  This past year Tom travelled across Europe, meeting people, giving away his seeds and doing a series of workshops.

These seedlings are results of crosses made by Tom in his garden, between different historical and modern potato varieties.  There are a lot of these crosses, and for the sake of convenience these new varieties don’t yet have names but rather have been assigned a number.

These numbers and the genetics behind them are discussed by Tom in the videos I linked to above.

I was a little late in planting these seedlings out, and you can see some of the new tubers are starting to form in the little plastic pots I started the plants in.  Sorry, my camera didn’t focus properly on this.

In Simple Terms — The Genetics

The UK scientists say they are trialling two genes found in wild potato relatives, shown to result in late blight resistance.  These genes have been inserted into Desiree, a common commercial potato variety.  I have yet to verify this, but I believe we have these same two genes in our potatoes.  In this sense, our trials overlap. [edit: This probably isn't true]

The genes in Tom Wagner’s potatoes go far beyond the trial in the UK.

Before, during and after Tom’s trip to Europe he’s been searching for and collecting the genetic materials from varieties of potatoes already shown to have blight resistance.  He’s been doing this by collecting tubers and seeds from these plants, putting them in has garden in the US, and using traditional breeding methods to cross pollinate them.  As opposed to the two genes the UK scientists are working with, Tom is working with millions of genes.

One Gene is Not Enough

One of the problems in breeding late blight resistance in potatoes is it’s a quickly mutating disease, capable of overcoming the resistance in a short time.  Many varieties created in the past are no longer resistant for this reason.  In order to overcome this problem, and create a variety that’s even more resistant, it’s necessary to use combinations of genes.  This is why the scientists in the UK are working with two and Tom is working with as many as he can find.

This is often referred to as vertical resistance or gene stacking.

The Ongoing Battle

Late blight dates back to the time of the Irish Potato famine when the potato varieties grown were susceptible to the disease and all quickly destroyed by a sudden outbreak.  The problem was made worse, because the number of varieties grown was very small, so there was little chance of any of them having natural resistance.

It’s believed late blight was originally brought to Europe in an infected tuber in a potato shipment from North America.  The disease quickly spread in Europe because the climate here provides a much more favorable environment for it.  It was also an unusually serious problem because the potato had become one of the most important sources of food for Europeans.

The approach taken to control late blight until now has been with chemical fungicides.   This approach has not been without it’s problems however.

Late blight is nearly impossible to control once the plant has become infected.  There are chemicals that can do this, but are generally considered too toxic for human consumption.  This means you have to prevent the plants from becoming infected in the first place, and so you need to begin applying chemicals when you first think an infection may be possible, often weeks before an infection would actually occur.

As late blight has mutated over the years, the chemicals used to control it have necessarily become stronger and stronger and more toxic to both people and the environment.  We are now to the point where literally tons and tons of these chemicals are used every year in Europe alone.  It’s to the point where developing stronger chemicals is no longer feasible.

A recent development in late blight mutation is it’s now reproducing sexually, and different strains can now exchange DNA.  Until now all reproduction has been asexual, meaning mutations were considerably slower.  It’s all but assured future mutations of late blight will now occur much more rapidly.

Two-Gene vs. Multi-Gene Approach

The two gene approach taken by the UK scientists has a high chance of resulting in late blight resistance. The real question however, is how long this resistance will last.

The argument of course, is when the resistance of this variety is no longer adequate, they will look for more genes in wild potato relatives and create a new GM variety.  If necessary, they can use more than two genes.  This approach however looks an awful lot like the fungicides now being used.  As these scientists move from one gene to the next, work their way through all the combinations they think of, eventually they will reach the end when it no longer works.

In a case like this, the interactions between all the genes are not likely to ever be fully understood.  The UK scientists will only be working with genes or combinations of genes they can single out as being important in existing varieties, and they won’t see everything.

Tom’s multi gene approach on the other hand is much more likely to be sustainable, and is more likely to show functional resistance on farms.

By using Tom’s approach an unknown number of genes will be involved in the resistance.  By taking existing resistant varieties, using the combinations of their genes in their entirety, all genes involved in that resistance can be used, not just the ones that can be specifically identified.  In addition, by creating crosses with several different resistant varieties, all the genes from all the varieties can be used in their totality and in different combinations.

By creating a number of resistant varieties in this way, then growing them in different places and continuing the process of crossing new resistant varieties as they appear, new resistant genes will be discovered.  This is in part because there will be natural mutations in the plants themselves creating new genes, but also previously unknown ones will be found.  This ongoing process is much more likely to produce late blight resistance in the long run, and the chance of ‘running out of genes’ like what will happen eventually with the GM approach is significantly reduced.

In addition by working with a number of different varieties resistant to late blight in different ways, all at the same time, the chance of losing the entire season’s potato harvest like what happened during the Irish Potato Famine is significantly reduced.

Other Benefits of Biodiversity

There is another very important benefit to Tom’s multi gene approach.  If one picture is worth 1000 words, have a look at some of Tom’s recent potato lines (click to enlarge):

Which would you rather eat, one of these or a GM Desiree potato?

One of the things Tom likes doing is working with older varieties that were favorites among our ancestors.  For example, Tom has Irish roots and likes to work with the Lumper potato which was the most widely grown at the time of the Irish Potato Famine.  In fact he’s created a number of blight resistant varieties using the Lumper as a basis.

By using Tom’s traditional breeding methods, it’s possible to recover traits in popular old varieties, and bring them back into new ones.

Some Other Important Differences

How about we talk security fences here?  Here’s a picture of my security fence:

It’s a 4 ft hedge behind a shallow canal.

Unlike the £20.000 8 ft security fence and 24 hour security guard the scientists in the UK have, I only have the good graces of the other allotmenteers in my complex.  Someone is usually around in the day, but otherwise my plot is unattended.

Another difference is funding.  The costs of everyone participating in Tom’s trials are paid out of pocket.  Tom in particular has devoted his whole life to his work, has never been paid royalties for his varieties, and uses huge amounts of his family’s money to pay his costs.  If we had the money invested in the UK security fence alone, we could dramatically expand our trials not to mention offset some of our expenses.

A Specific Response to the UK Scientists

In the media recently were some statements made by people involved in the UK trials, and I wanted to respond to one of them.

From the BBC:

Professor Jones said that the trial was well within the biosecurity parameters required in order for permission to be granted.

“The rules are that the field trial has to be at least 20 metres from adjacent conventional potato fields,” he said.

“Very hypothetically, if a few pollen grains make it from our GM potatoes to some cultivated potatoes, given that we do not eat the fruit but the tubers, there is absolutely no way that the DNA we use can enter the human food chain.”

“There are also no wild relatives of potato in Europe that it could cross (breed) with.”

I think the argument could be made that contamination from the field trial is unlikely, but the idea of 20 metres being adequate isolation is totally absurd.  First the variety used in this trial, Desiree, produces large amounts of pollen and is a very poor choice in terms of reducing contamination.  Insects can carry pollen from potatoes large distances, and if these potatoes are ever grown commercially the contamination would be widespread.  If the scientists were concerned about spreading contamination, why not use a variety that doesn’t produce pollen?

A male sterile variety, for example British Queen, could easily pick up a single grain of pollen from this GM variety, turning it into a seed ball that could get lost in the field and produce weeds for years to come.

Potato tubers themselves are always left behind in farmers fields, which then turn into weeds.  Potatoes by their nature are a weedy plant.  There may not be potato relatives growing wild in Europe, but there are plenty of possibilities for contamination.

The spreading of this sort of contamination threatens the breeding work I’ve laid out here, and puts the entire future of organic potatoes in jeopardy.

Mulching

Christopher and Rosemary made a post recently about this, with lots of great information.  I’m just going to add a few things to what they already said.

In terms of controlling weeds, there are two main mulching techniques, sheet mulching and using material high in carbon.  In case of the former the idea is to smother the weeds, and the latter is to create a chemical reaction between carbon (C) and nitrogen (N).

C and N are everywhere in the garden, and all composting and rotting is a reaction between these two elements.  Dry brown plant materials are high in C, and green plant materials and manures are high in N.  In addition there’s N present everywhere in the air, and it’s an essential nutrient in the ground.  All plant and animal life depends on N.

When you put high C mulch on the ground and it starts to rot, it needs N from somewhere, and it tends to take it out of the top 2 or so centimeters (roughly 1″) of the ground.  Because it makes the surface layer of the garden soil N poor, it makes it hard for plants to grow in it.  Any plants with roots deeper than this can get N elsewhere in the ground, which is why you can place mulch around established plants.

After mulch rots, it releases the N into the ground again, so there is no net loss of N in your garden.  You do not need to add extra N to make up for any loss of N, because none is lost.

If you want to use mulch to kill established plants with roots deeper than a few centimeters, normally you use some sort of sheet mulch.  In my garden I use plastic, what in Europe is usually called ground cloth and in the US I think is usually called landscape fabric.  Probably most people reading this know what I’m talking about.  It’s a reusable woven plastic material, often with green or orange lines, that lets water and air pass through it but blocks light.  In this way it destroys weeds, but not other life in the ground.

Many people use biodegradable sheet mulches like cardboard or newspaper, which can be left in place to rot as well as covered with dirt and planted into right away.  Lasagna gardening can make use of this principle.  I use too much sheet mulch to use something that’s not reusable, otherwise I would have to bring too many mulching materials into my garden.

As an alternative to using sheet mulching to kill established weeds, you can also use a very reactive high C material.  Wood chips are an example of this.  Fresh wood chips are very aggressive in removing N from whatever they come in contact with, and will generally kill established weeds.  For this reason, they are normally used on paths around the garden rather than in the garden itself.  It’s also important not to turn wood chips under, because they will make the ground very N-poor and difficult to grow anything.

The other thing that happens when you use mulch, which is unrelated to everything else I’ve said here, is even when weeds to manage to grow through the mulch their roots tend to come up near the surface.  This generally means they can be removed with a rake or are very easy to pull out by hand.

Lasagna Gardening and Raised Beds

For no-dig/permaculture style gardening, it’s important to control the weeds with mulching techniques.  There’s no such thing as a garden free of weeds!  You will always have to do some weeding by hand, but you want to make your job as easy as possible.

It’s also important to keep the ground as loose as possible, so when there are weeds, they are as easy as possible to remove.  This is normally best achieved by maintaining distinct layers in your garden soil, which help promote good drainage and a good home for beneficial organisms.  These layers are where the idea of lasagna gardening come from.

You need not do very much special to get these layers, by simply not disturbing the soil and adding home made compost from time to time on the top of your garden beds, they will develop layers on their own.

It’s also important not to walk in your beds, in order to minimize compacting of the soil.

It’s very possible to combine the idea of sheet mulching and lasagna gardening, and Ewa recently made a post about this including a how-to video.  For my purposes however, this is kind of a lot of work and it’s not always necessary.  Constructing a bed like this is only necessary if you have a spot where you want to build a garden bed, that has established weeds, and you want to plant in it right away.

Raised beds, while convenient because of their height, meaning you don’t have to bend down so far, are also not always necessary.  It’s also possible to make use of what Kenny calls borderless raised beds.  These aren’t really raised beds at all, but rather a place in your garden you simply designate and treat as a raised bed but isn’t raised.  These generally work as well or nearly as well as a true raised bed, and what I mostly use.

Unless you have recycled materials available, constructing the type of bed in Ewa’s post or a true raised bed can involve a lot of unnecessary, expensive and sometimes environmentally unfriendly materials like peat products or timber.  For example raised beds are generally built with wood that if treated will leach chemicals into your garden, and otherwise will only last a few years before needing to be replaced.  They can also be built with bricks or stones, but this is more work and the materials have to be brought from somewhere.  In any case, raised beds are generally only worth building if you know you will use the same garden for a number of years.

My Methodology

Sheet mulching takes about 6 months to kill the plants under it, and since my garden is in continuous use, I can usually plan in advance when needing to kill an area of established weeds.  I use the woven plastic material I mentioned above, and on an ongoing basis mulch parts of my garden.  Any time a part of my garden becomes unused for a time, like at the beginning of winter, I make an effort to keep it covered with plastic if possible.  It’s of course always better to keep something growing in the ground, like a cover crop, but this isn’t always possible.

I built a number of raised beds I posted about here.  Otherwise, I make ‘borderless’ raised beds by building temporary paths with small paving stones, about 30cm or a foot square.  In the picture on the top of the same post above, you can see I then use a lot of straw to control annual weeds.

Before I plant in each bed I rake any straw that may remain from the previous year to the side, loosen the ground a little bit with a digging fork, then plant directly into it.  Some of the beds also get some added compost.

The whole process in the spring of first removing the plastic mulch from the ground, building paths with paving stones, loosening the ground with a digging fork and raking the ground clear all takes a very short time and is very little work compared with digging weeds out every year like the other gardeners in my community garden do.  I’ll try to post some pictures of this sometime, so you can see better what I’m talking about.

You can compare this to my earlier do-it-yourself efforts at soil testing.

Measured values are given first, followed by target values in parenthesis if these are given in the original report.

Organic Material   10.3%

Calcium                 2-5%

pH (KCl method)     7.2  (>6.4)

Available Nutrients:

Phosphorus              58   (45)

Potassium                22   (21)

Magnesium              230  (125)

Nitrogen                  1.4  (1.0)

Unavailable Nutrients:

Phosphorus               1370  (1000)

Potassium                     5  (7)

Biological Activity:

Detected mg of CO2 per 100g per 7 days     86   (70)

Conclusions and Advice:

Conclusion:  Soil has a high organic content, and a good pH level.  For most nutrients, there is sufficient to excessive available and unavailable amounts.  There is sufficient nitrogen and biological activity.

Advice:  Add 300 liters of fresh manure or high quality compost per 100m2. As an alternative, 50 liters of dried cow manure per 100m2.  The actual amount varies with crops grown.  Lime loving plants (soft fruit, potatoes, cabbage, carrots, etc) 2 kg of (dolomite) lime per 100m2.  Nitrogen loving plants (soft fruit, potatoes, leaf vegetables, cabbage, beet, etc) only in case of slow growth 500g nitrogen per 100m2 in the form of dry organic fertilizer.  For example, this can be 4Kg bone or blood meal per 100m2.  Further fertilizing is not necessary.

The advice seems to be open to some interpretation.  I probably don’t add quite as much compost as they say here, and I don’t add any of the other fertilizers or manures, but since they say amounts vary with crops grown I guess you could say I’m following the advice.  It’s worth mentioning I also grow a lot of nitrogen fixing plants.

At the same time I could be adding an awful lot of manures and nitrogen fertilizers and also be following the advice.  300 liters of fresh manure per 100m2 is an awful lot!

I think it’s more a part of the culture here to depend on soluble nitrogen in the form of manures or fertilizers, rather than fixed nitrogen, and that may be part of the reason the advice is given in the way it is.  The test doesn’t seem to show fixed nitrogen.

The excessive availability of some of the nutrients is probably related to past chemical fertilizer use.

I purposely waited until the end of the second growing season to do this test, so I had a chance to amend the soil and grow some nitrogen fixing plants.  I also wanted to give any previously used fertilizers a chance to wash away.

I do sometimes notice low nitrogen levels, and I also notice when I grow a heavy feeder like sweet corn, the soil is pretty depleted for the next season.  Mostly my experience is that my soil is in pretty good shape, and this test seems to confirm that.  It can also be true that some of the excessively high levels of the major nutrients (NPK) can tie up and make unavailable some of the micronutrients, and I could be having problems with this.