Going Green

NPR had a great report this morning on a sea change in European agricultural subsidies. EU countries are shifting away from the absurd American model that creates surpluses, lines the pockets of big agribusiness interests, and generally mucks up the ecosystem—and towards paying farmers for "doing things that create a healthier, cleaner or just prettier landscape."

Actually, the whole series, "Going Green in Agriculture," is well worth a look-see, and the producer, Daniel Charles, has a great site, In Search of Green Agriculture.

Here is a nicely representative quote:

"If farmers are required to limit their plantings of Bt corn or cotton for the good of the ecosystem, why not go further? Why not compel (or induce through cash incentives) farmers to do other things that would produce substantial environmental benefits, such as allow some of their land to revert to grasslands and woods? ...... If genetic engineering is fascinating, or even ominous, then plowing, sowing, reaping, or breeding cannot be mundane."

Those sentences were born of frustration with debates over the environmental risks of genetically engineered crops. To me, those arguments seemed disconnected from agricultural reality. People were spending lots of time and energy analyzing subtle environmental consequences of planting genetically engineered soybeans or corn, compared to conventional soybeans or corn. Yet few seemed interested in the enormous environmental consequences of a much more fundamental choice - whether to plant soybeans and corn at all. Landscapes covered with such crops, and that includes 150 million acres of the United States, are essentially ecological sacrifice zones.

In fact, there seemed to be a curious lack of interest, among environmentalists, in most of the decisions that farmers make: Whether they plow land or not; how much land they keep in pasture or grassland; how much fertilizer they use. Yet those decisions make a huge difference.... Farmland is the environment. It is - or was, within recent memory - the primary area of wildlife habitat. Consider this: crops and cattle grazing areas cover more than half of land area of the United States, outside of Alaska.