Going hormonal over beef

The mention of hormone use in beef often stirs visceral reactions. Uncomfortable with a seemingly “unnatural” production method, consumers may seek relief in USDA Organic brands or Reserve programs where such a practice is shunned. Although synthetic hormone use carries a heavy stigma (yeah, thanks, baseball players), its actual use in livestock production is far more simple, safe, and even beneficial than you’d think.

Beef producers choose to use hormones to increase efficiency by 20% (Wileman et al., 2009): cattle gain more lean muscle on less feed. Remember the carpool effect discussed in the blog post Food Routing: Local or HOV? The more lean muscle material (lean meat) that can be piled onto fewer body frames means less maintenance energy wastage, less fecal/urinary excretion, smaller carbon footprint, less environmental impact per pound of beef. Some are concerned that animal bodies are weighing down too heavily onto their skeletal frames, causing lameness and breakage, but this is impossible given that estrogen improves bone density and strength, and in some cases causes bones to continue growing (Felson et al., 1994). Consumers derive most of their fear from the inaccurate suspicion that they ingest the hormones that the animals are given; they fear that the substances given to live animals linger in meat.

We’ll get one thing straight: hormones are never injected. The dose from a dissolvable pellet per animal immediately begins to signal for muscle building and breaks down after it “delivers its message”. There is no hormone blood-pooling, no accidental over-dosing; it’s just not possible, nor profitable (cattleman common sense: implanting with more than one is a waste of money, does not amount to increased growth, and could get you jailed). Growth promotants are implanted as a slowly-dissolving pellet in the ear, or they are fed in trace amounts. Animals are not allowed to be slaughtered until the compounds have had more than enough time to decompose and reduce down where they reach an equilibrium at a natural blood concentration. This is why, over and over, the FDA and USDA report that beef from implanted cattle are insignificantly different than non-implanted cattle. Despite the following reasons why, on a most basic biochemical level, there is nothing to fear, the FDA and USDA stringently regulate growth promotant use and routinely test for residues in meat. Secondly, the beef industry excels at self-regulation and mutual accountability through the Beef Quality Assurance program.

Beef producers use two kinds of growth promotants:

1.      Hormones (low-dose ear implants, usually a form of estrogen) signal for continued lean tissue development after the animal reaches sexual maturity (Trenkle, 1997).

2.      Beta agonists (mixed in feed) block amino acid breakdown so that the same weight isn’t maintained as the body "idles" and generates heat, but increases as the animal eats dietary protein (Borohov et al., 1987; Dawson et al., 1988).

Both chemicals are naturally occurring in us and in cattle. Being chemically unstable and having limited half-lives, they degrade all the way down until they reach a normal equilibrium concentration in the animal’s body.

A meta-analysis of ten studies by Taylor et al. (2009) summarized that no significant relationship between conventional beef consumption and breast cancer (mammary tissue being most sensitive to estrogen intake) could be alleged.

Let’s put things into perspective (Preston et al., 1997):

1.      Milk estrogen concentration: 0.12 parts per billion (nanograms/gram)

2.      Unimplanted beef: 0.16 ppb

3.      Implanted beef: 0.22 ppb

4.      Eggs: 35 ppb

5.      Soy flour: 1,510,000 ppb !!

6.      Female daily production: 5,000,000 ng

7.      Male daily production: 100,000 ng

Consequently, vegetarians have repeatedly tested positive for higher circulating androgens because of high consumption of soy products (Armstrong et al., 1981; Thomas et al., 1999).

You’ve heard the rumor about precocious development in females (recent generations of girls hitting puberty earlier)? Blaming this on milk and meat consumption doesn’t make sense, but blaming it on diets higher in starch and sugars does. These simple carbohydrates cause insulin levels to rise, which sets off this chemical chain reaction in the body: Insulin --> GnRH (gonadotropin releasing hormone) --> LH (luteinizing hormone) & FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) --> increased estrogen production (Poretsky et al., 1999; Ultrianen et al., 2009; Rosenfield et al., 2009). In starch and sugar, I believe, you have the culprits for early puberty and possibly even ovarian cysts. Similarly, there are  several beef cattle studies that use  high energy diets to increase blood sugar (--> blood insulin) to ultimately decrease the age of puberty in heifers (Corah et al., 1977; Moseley et al., 1977; 1982; Randel & Rhodes, 1980…).

For more information on why growth promotant use in beef production is safe, refer to Avery & Avery’s 2007 study.

What do you Think?   

Is The Grass(-finished beef) Always Greener?

Two years ago, I would have never written what you’re about to read. I was so convinced that “you are what you eat and you are what you eat, eats” that I not only assumed, but willed for the absolute superiority of grass-finished over conventional beef. I scoffed at the scientists and lecturers that disagreed with my thoughts in defense of conventional beef production. I inspected hairline fractures in their arguments while I leaped over logic gaps to follow “food revolutionists”.

After completing my studies in beef cattle nutrition, I have found that, frankly, the good news I used to hear about grass-finished beef is not all that great, and the bad news about conventional beef is not all that bad. Although I respect niche-market cattlemen for their creation of an artisanal product—I really am particularly fond of the grass-finished taste—I can finally admit that whatever you and I have heard from a handful of avant-garde critics about ecological and nutritional superiority is…hype.

USDA defines “Grass-Fed” as the product of animals whose diet is solely forage-based, without any inclusion of grain. I’m using the term “Grass-Finished” because all cattle, no matter the system, are reared on their grass-consuming mother’s milk and eat forage until the “finishing” stage that brings them up to harvest weight. They either remain on pasture and keep eating forage or enter a feedlot and consume a mixed diet of corn, grain and oilseed by-products, and preserved forages like alfalfa hay or silage. I’ll refer you to Anne Burkholder’s blog if you’d like to know more about how a feedyard is managed.  

Nutrition Facts

While studying ruminant nutrition, I learned that “you are what you eat” somewhat applies to humans and other monogastrics (pigs, horses, etc.), but not quite as much to ruminants. Sort of in the same way milk cultures in to yogurt, ruminants use microbes to “culture”, or ferment, their diet into metabolic intermediates (volatile fatty acids…like lactic acid in yogurt) and microbial bodies (microbial crude protein…like what most of yogurt consists of). What a cow actually digests is much different than what she originally ingests. That helps explain…

1.      Omega 3 content: 0.052 g (3 oz. Grass-fed); 0.039 (3 oz. conventional); Yes, grass-fed beef will consistently have a statistically significant increase in Omega 3, but this difference is inconsequential compared to a 3 oz. serving of salmon, which has 1.83 g. The daily recommended intake of Omega 3 is 1 g…fish oil, yes please…60 ounces of grass-fed beef, no thank you. Indeed, the ratio of Omega 3 to 6 in grass-finished beef, being lower than conventional beef, is more optimal (about 1:4 vs. 1:10; Schmid et al., 2006; Leheska et al., 2008) in the way of reducing arterial swelling, improving circulation, and reducing triglycerides (Morris et al., 1993; Harris, 1997; I will make a qualifying statement about ratios in the section on Fats). I have seen data showing that some grass-finished beef has as much as 0.10 g Omega 3 (Leheska et al., 2008; French et al., 2000), but this value is not likely to improve because of microbial fatty acid alteration in the rumen (natural biohydrogenation – turning polyunsaturated fats like omega 3's into saturated and trans fats). In fact, beef from feedlot-fed cattle have much greater potential to increase in Omega 3 values because of the higher passage rate which reduces microbial interference with the dietary fats. If feedlot animals are fed Omega 3s with linseed or algal oil, their beef increases in Omega 3 to the same level as grass-finished beef (Razminowicz et al., 2007).

2.      Vitamins A and E from grass-fed beef might be found in quantities 7 times higher than conventional beef, but a serving will only provide up to 2% of the daily value for both vitamins (Daley et al., 2010). Beef in general is not a good source of these vitamins.

3.      Fats: Although grass-finished beef has consistently less fat overall than does conventional beef (about 10% less fat, Leheska et al., 2008), the types of fat grass-finished beef offers concerns me. If you ever eat a burger made of grass-fed beef, you'll notice something strange. The grease that falls from the burger to your plate will in a few minutes harden into a hard wax-like substance, reminiscent of candle drippings. Conventional beef patties drip grease that remains oily and doesn't harden much as it cools. As someone with hypercholesterolemia, I am very sensitive to monounsaturated fat—saturated fat ratios. When I lived in Spain during college, I didn’t watch this and almost went on statin medication as a skinny 21-year-old! Monounsaturated fat (MUFA; think olive, canola, pecan oils) makes my HDL (good) cholesterol rise, while saturated fat (SFA; think hard fats like butter, grizzle) makes my LDL (bad) cholesterol rise. Your HDL/LDL can reflect your MUFA/SFA dietary intake (Adams et al., 2010; Gilmore et al., 2011). Grass-fed beef has less MUFA than SFA (ratio of 0.71 – 0.95), while conventional beef has a more optimal ratio of 1.1 – 1.31. Keep in mind that I may cancel out beef's positive "ratio" effects by over-consuming Omega 6 or SFA, so that my overall diet ratio may be far from optimal. Grain-finishing deposits more MUFA, especially where the beef is marbled, while grass-finishing deposits more SFA and even trans fats (3 g in Choice grass-finished beef vs. 0.14 g in Choice conventional beef per serving) because of ruminal biohydrogenation (Smith et al., 2009; other data c/o Dr. Smith). For lower amounts of trans-vaccenic fats, I recommend buying conventional beef or grass-fed beef that grades USDA Select or lower.

4.      CLA: The alleged benefits of CLA (conjugated linoleic acid, a fatty acid only available in products from the cattle/sheep family) are that it fights cancer, reduces arterial inflammation, and lowers body fat. These have been confirmed in laboratory rodent studies (Schultz et al., 1992; Parodi, 1994; Belury, 1995; Nicolosi and Laitinen, 1996; Pariza et al., 1996) but not in human studies (Brown et al., 2010). Grass-finished beef can offer up to two or three times as much CLA as conventional beef, but both are still a good source at ranges of 0.1 – 0.15 g per serving (Leheska et al., 2008; French et al., 2000).

While scientific credence for health advantages of grass-finished beef wanes, I still buy both types of beef, because both provide 29 different cuts of lean (< 10% fat) meat that don’t even need seasoning like other meats do. As someone prone to anemia and upper respiratory issues that is also at risk for Alzheimer’s disease, it’s good to know that a serving of beef has three times as much iron, six times as much zinc, and seven times the vitamin B12 of chicken. Plus, it’s nice to get as much iron in one serving of beef as there is in three cups of raw spinach, or as much protein as 230 calories of raw tofu, 374 calories in beans, or 670 calories in peanut butter (25g protein from 180 calories of lean beef!). 

Environmental Facts

Any animal management system that does not advance the growth rate of its animals will be inadvertently spending resources for maintenance more so than production, which is wasteful. Slow growing animals will consume more food and water and excrete more solid and gaseous waste per unit of meat or milk they produce. Grass-finished cattle go to market at almost twice the age and at lighter weights than do grain-finished cattle. In light of this…

1.      Land Use: Some neo-agricultural purists advocate finishing all beef produced in this country on pasture. Putting climatic limitations and weather capriciousness aside, let’s say all the acres of grain crops used to finish cattle at feedlots were converted to pasture. It requires 3 times more land to finish cattle on grass than it does to grow crops for finishing cattle in a feedlot (Avery & Avery, 2007). In order to produce the same amount of beef, an additional 60 million acres of non-forested land that receives > 38” annual rainfall would be required to support this goal (Capper et al., 2009). Did anyone find Atlantis yet?

2.      Methane Production: Cattle consuming grass produce as much as 3 times more methane than cattle on a feedlot diet. This has to do with different fermentative pathways that can operate in response to different diets. Since I’m a nutrition nerd, please post a comment and ask about it you’re curious. However, I typically view cattle methane production as a moot point because cattle contribute to only about 15% of world totals (Wahlen et al., 1993…see post “Bitten hands that feed…”).

3.      Sanitation:  Free-ranging cattle like those on a grass-finished system are free to excrete wastes directly into groundwater. Waste deposited by feedlot cattle is contained and treated. Feedlots must follow stringent regulations for water quality control. They must submit a site-specific Pollution Prevention Plan that is engineered to “prevent and limit discharge of pollutants to surface and ground waters” and must include a plan for a catastrophic 100-year, 24-hour rainfall event. For more details, read Avery & Avery, 2007.

I buy beef in general because it keeps open range and wildlife habitat profitable as ranchland instead of as pavement or row crops. Beef cattle management protects 75% of wildlife habitat in the United States from development. 

What do you think?

Food Routing: Local or HOV?

Foodies (like me!) love fresh produce, picked at its peak. We love gardening, but we also love the next best thing, farmers markets. While supporting local businesses, we appreciate the eye contact, small talk, and regular relationships we develop. This love affair may have prompted almost a 4-fold increase in operating U.S. Farmer’s Markets from 1,755 in 1994 to 6,132 in 2010 (USDA-AMS Marketing Services Division, 2010).

We may have heard that buying locally-produced food and buying produce in season are ways to be more environmentally-friendly consumers. However, the assumption that going Green means shopping at farmers markets instead of grocery stores, or buying products from people that use “rustic” vs. “factory”-farm practices, just isn’t true.

We all know carpooling cuts down on fuel expenditures per person. More accomplishment on fewer running motors is a good thing. More food production on fewer body frames or more food transported on fewer, larger vehicles makes production and transportation per unit of food less environmentally costly. A small-scale, perhaps local, operation would use a pickup truck to transport just over a thousand dozen eggs to a retail outlet. A large-scale operation, presumably much farther away from a city, would use a 6-axle, refrigerated tractor-trailer to transport tens of thousands of dozens to a retail outlet. One might compare three egg cartons: one from a local farm, one from the farmers market (from a small farm 138 miles away), and one that came from a few states over, 1,291 miles away from the grocery store. You picked one up at the local farm 44 miles away, another at the farmers market 11 miles from home, and the other is from a grocery store 2.4 miles away. You were driving a car that gets 21 mpg, while the farm truck gets 18 and the tractor-trailer gets 5.5 mpg. Which of the three systems requires the most fuel to transport food?

Conveniently, Dr. Jude Capper and others from Washington State University figured this all out for her presentation, entitled “Demystifying the Environmental Sustainability of Food Production” at the Cornell Nutrition Conference for Food Manufacturers, 2009. Here were the results:

Fuel expenditure per dozen eggs:

1.      Local farm: 2.4 gallons, car

2.      Farmers’ market: 0.63 gallons (0.01, farm truck + 0.62, car)

3.      Farmers’ market with hybrid vehicles: 0.40 gallons (0.01, farm truck + 0.39, hybrid car)

4.      Grocery store: 0.14 gallons, (0.01, tractor-trailer + 0.13 personal auto)

  

It’s quite shocking that the grocery store model presents the most fuel-efficient choice of the four! In following the model of Capper et al. (2009), it seems that filling your car with groceries from the grocery store to reduce trips, or walking/biking to the grocery store or farmers’ market would clearly present options that expend the least fuel. No more guilt trips to the grocery store, literally! What do you Think?

Organic Or Not?

Today’s post will review the effects of crop management system (organic or conventional) on several points of interest: productivity, nutritive content, groundwater contamination, pesticide residue, soil quality, and carbon footprint. The topics more closely related to organics in beef production will be covered in posts dedicated to antibiotics, hormones, and E. coli 0157:H7 (oh, my!) later.

1)      Introduction

First law of thermodynamics: energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only change form. There is no such thing as low-input systems (commonly, organics) producing high outputs. While energy spent on conventional agriculture (such as that used in producing inorganic fertilizer) may change form in organic agriculture (increased labor for composting, manure and compost application, weeding, mulching), crops still don’t magically appear – it still needs soil nitrogen for growth (see post: “…Determined to Succeed!”), and nitrogen accumulation requires energy (carbon). Less cannot equal more.

Fuel vs. labor costs may in part determine the cost of conventional vs. organic production. More machines doing work at a lower cost means more people are free to choose an education, a profession, or a location of their desiring…then again, less people are receiving pay as farm workers…because less costly food is produced which is affordable for more people…thus, a dilemma emerges. Life is full of dilemmas in a zero-sum, no-free-lunch world.    

2)      Productivity

There is little argument that conventional agriculture produces more food per acre than organics. This means that, in a conventional system, more can be grown on less land—which is good, since only 25% of the surface of our planet is land. Take tomatoes for example: 1000 kg organic vine tomatoes = 122 square meters of land vs. 1000 kg conventionally-grown loose tomatoes = 19 square meters.

Studies consistently show that organic grain and soybean harvests are 20 – 40% less than conventional (not limited to…Cavigelli et al., 2007; Halberg and Kristensen, 1997; Mäder et al., 2002) Perhaps one or two years of organic cropping compared to one or two years of conventional cropping might produce similar crop yields (i.e., studies from the Rodale Institute, Badgley et al., 2006). These are the types of studies often cited by those who are pro-organic, but longer-term comparisons of both systems consistently show yield deficits (from 10 – 40%) within organic systems compared to conventional (Smolik and Dobbs, 1996; Shepard et al., 1996; Mader et al., 2002). Even one of the most pro-organic scientists of our time, Dr. David Pimentel, agrees that it has not been proven that organics can feed the world: “Avery et al. imply that I reported that all US and world agriculture could be grown organically without commercial nitrogen fertilizer. They are incorrect—I never said this in my review, nor have I ever said this in any one of the more than 500 scientific papers I have published” (2005). Remember that compost and manure does not really add to soil fertility, it maintains soil fertility by recycling, and it does so with diminishing returns. What does merit further study is the use of legumes (beans, alfalfa, clover…) to fertilize soils enough to replace synthetic fertilizer use, as Badgley et al. suggest (2006). 

3)      Nutritive Content

A meta-analysis (a study of 55 studies) concluded that there was no difference between organic and conventional produce in protein, antioxidants, Mg, Ca, P, K, Zn, Cu, and Vitamin C (Dangour et al., 2009). Another meta-analysis (on 45 studies) showed no human health superiority from an organic vs. conventional diet based on antioxidant status, breast milk composition, cancer cell proliferation, and other biomarkers (Dangour et al., 2010).

4)      Pesticide Residue

Part of the USDA organic certification process requires a 3 year withdrawal period from any unnatural pesticide use on farmland. If the neighboring farm uses inorganic pesticides and the wind carries its residue to the certified Organic farm, the organic farmer is held liable. Therefore, Organic produce will consistently have lower pesticide residues than conventional produce (Baker et al., 2002). Curiously, this doesn’t mean organic produce has zero residues. Some pesticides in use by the conventional systems and any pesticide used by organics will be biosynthetic (deemed safe at any concentration by EPA). All pesticide products bear a labeled statement that reads something like "For use up to ___ day(s) before harvest". This is the time period that is required for the compounds to deactivate and decompose into an EPA-deemed "safe" level. The EPA and FDA stringently regulate pesticide use and test produce for residues. Click here to see an example of a report. Pesticides include herbicide and insecticide. Herbicides are compounds that disrupt plant-specific processes. Herbicides will only affect you if you contain chlorophyll or can you produce your own essential amino acids (essential = can only come from your diet; Duke & Powles, 2008); if you possess these attributes, you should seek medical attention immediately. Certainly, the preparation and application of insecticides and fungicides can be dangerous, which is why I had to train for and obtain my pesticide applicator’s licence in order to purchase and apply industry- grade chemicals. There is less of a consensus about insecticides and other animal pest management compounds, especially for its effect on young children (NRC, 1993). However, no quantifiable evidence of short term or long term exposure to pesticide residue (within EPA/USDA tolerance levels) from produce demonstrates any deleterious effects on human health. Finally, everyone should wash their produce, regardless of its “organic” status, before consumption anyway.

5)      Bacterial Contamination

Organic foods are more at risk than conventional foods for bacterial and parasitic contamination because they rely on compost and manure to fertilize soil (Rembialkowska, 2007). Additionally, mycotoxins (poisonous fungi) are more apt to grow in organic crops because fungicide use is prohibited. On the other hand, Williams and Hammond (2001) found that there was a reduced risk in bacterial contamination within organic foods. Risk does not always translate into reality, of course. Organic farmers do well to aerate their compost to keep any harmful bacteria at bay. If you’ve never been worried about this before, don’t worry about it now, just keep washing your food like you always have. And please wash your hands. Food is no different than everything else in life that can transmit microbes.

6)      Groundwater Contamination

Per unit of food produced, phosphorus and nitrate groundwater loading were found to be the same for organic and conventional systems based on a meta-analysis by Mondelaers et al., 2009). Per unit of land, however, Mondelaers et al. (2009) found that organic systems usually have less nutrient-loading. Another study compared systems with equal land units and found that nutrient loading was the same regardless of organic status (Dufault et al., 2008). The point of either system is to produce food, so a pound of food as a functional unit provides the most valid comparison.

7)      Soil Quality

No-till systems using herbicide (conventional) are said to be the best at conserving soil quality (Soil and Water Conservation Society, 1995, as cited by Avery et al., 2005). Tillage required by organic systems increases soil erosion. However, soils in organic systems often have higher organic matter content since plant residues and manure are often added to the soil in these systems, displaying a positive effect on soil health (Mondelaers et al., 2009). Studies have been confounded by varying tillage practice within organic and conventional practices.

8)      Wildlife Biodiversity

Organic farming is positively associated with improvement in wildlife (wild and rare plants, more bugs, more birds up and around the field) compared to conventional (Mondelaers et al., 2009). Yes, pesticide abstinence tends to coincide with more bugs, more birds to eat the bugs, and more “wild plants”.

9)      Carbon Footprint

The differences between organic and conventional “carbon footprints” (fuel use efficiency) are unclear (Gelfand et al., 2010; Johnson et al., 2007) Certainly, no-till systems rely less on machinery (e.g., tractors, tillers…). However, organic systems don’t use synthetic fertilizer, which relies on fossil fuels for its manufacturing. The fuel efficiencies transportation of goods within either systems is highly variable as well. Presumably, then, taking food production as a functional unit, the conventional system may win out on fuel efficiency per unit produced. Too many confounding factors impede a sound conclusion as to which system is truly more “green.”

Again, what is sustainability: the ability to prolong the human population indefinitely; or, in other words, the ability to “feed the world” (which, of course, implies the responsible management of resources). In pursuit of this, shall we intensify what we can produce on less land by choosing conventional, thereby preserving land from cultivation? Or, shall we less intensely impact a larger land area with organic cultivation? Perhaps we can settle on this: we cannot conclude that either organic or conventional farming is absolutely superior to the other at this point. More likely, the two systems have much to learn from one another. What do you Think?

Unacceptable.

A national animal rights group, Mercy For Animals, released undercover video footage of dairy calf cruelty yesterday. Farm hands were given an executive order by their supervisor to euthanize calves that were exposed to and crippled by severe winter weather. Instead, video evidence shows them striking blows to the animals' heads with hammers. This activity is utterly intolerable within the livestock and dairy industries, but somehow it was captured and conveniently used to promote this message:

"Boycott animal abuse. Choose vegetarian."

Here are my questions.
1) Were the farmhands prodded on by the undercover cameramen?
2) If abuse was suspected, why did a pre-meditated framing occur instead of a true investigation?
3) Why would anyone claiming to love animals so much mildly stand by and watch through a video lens instead of so easily intervening to stop the killing or persuade them to use a more humane method?
4) Why was an agenda prostheletyzed at the cost of animal lives?

What do you Think?

...Determined to succeed!

Nitrogen—catch it if you can. It’s the component in manufactured (inorganic) fertilizer that is responsible for as much as 60% of crop yields in developed countries (Stewart et al., 2005), and is responsible for feeding 48% of the world population (Erisman et al., 2008). It is a critical component of amino acids and nucleotides, which form life’s hardware and software, respectively. Yet nitrogen can readily change from a form that plants utilize to one that is nonreactive, like nitrogen gas (78% of air we breathe), or a reactive, ozone-depleting, greenhouse gas, the ever-nefarious nitrous oxide. Nitrogen can also leach out of soils as nitrate, which can enter waterways and cause algal blooms that decompose into hypoxic dead zones in oceans, to the chagrin of aquatic life, tourists, and fishermen. Moreover, nitrogen fertilizer can be one of the most expensive input costs in crop production, and nitrogen losses are detrimental economically as well as environmentally. Since nitrogen (N) is usually in the wrong place, in the wrong form, at the wrong time, soil scientists and agronomists have been following nitrogen molecules for decades (literally, with isotopic labeling), trying to impede its losses and promote its capture by plants.  

Organic farming systems use recycled N by fertilizing with composted organic waste and manure, or rely on legumes (alfalfa, clover, beans…) to draw in nitrogen gas from the air and convert it to plant-usable forms.

Conventional systems rely on compost, manure, and legumes also, but primarily fertilize soil with N by adding synthetic fertilizer. Fossil-fuel-generated heat converts nitrogen gas to ammonia nitrate and other N-containing fertilizers in the manufacturing process. This is why synthetic fertilizer prices are so sensitive to energy prices.

One system yields 7 – 35% more food than the other system (Alex Avery, Hudson Institute, 2009), being also responsible for reducing starvation rate from 1/3 in 1965 to 1/7 in 2010 (FAO), but we’ll open that can of worms next week!

Following the advent of industrial ammonification in the last century, it was generally thought that “more was more” when it came to fertilization and farming. Over-application of N exacerbates nitrification and denitrification losses (Watson et al., 1992). No one realized this until research like that performed by Stout et al. (1974) showed that “less is more” by graphing the points of diminishing return for fertilizer and crop yields. Beyond a certain point, applying N is simply wasteful and harmful. Even as N application rates are more precise and are performed as indicated by soil tests, N still tends to escape the field by way of natural processes. Here are the discoveries that have mitigated challenges by nitrification (nitrate leaching) and denitrification (gaseous N).

More ways to reduce nitrification (nitrate leaching):

Less N leaches out of clay than sandy soils (Macduff et al., 1990)

Development of nitrification inhibitors (Singh and Verma, 2007)

Splitting the total N application into several small applications for crops, while and not before they are growing (Alcoz et al., 1993)

Dry application of fertilizer is better than dissolved in water (Pratt et al., 1976)

Practice no-till or conservation tillage (Drury et al., 2004)

Crop rotation (studies by Wright and Hons, 2004-2005)

Low-intensity grazing (Wright et al., 2004)

High soil organic carbon (Williams et al., 2001)

...

More ways to reduce denitrification (gaseous losses):

High soil organic carbon (especially from soils under conservation tillage) significantly reduces nitrous oxide emissions (Bijay-Singh et al., 1988)

...

You may notice that no-till farming systems promote efficient capture of nitrogen…as well as sequester more carbon to reduce atmospheric CO₂. Unfortunately, organic farming relies heavily on tillage to combat weeds, which of course frustrates this whole scheme of N and C capture. Then again, in organic systems, soil carbon accumulation by manuring, mulching, and cover-cropping is more common. Next topic will be much more consumer-friendly, since we’ll debate organic vs. conventional!

What do you Think about all this farm chemistry today?   

Bitten hands that feed...

Communication and mutual understanding tumble easily into the wide chasm between the 2% who produce food and fiber in this country and the other 98% of Americans. People usually fear most what they don’t understand and aren’t familiar with.

Furthermore, consequences induced by the great Ag vs. Non-Ag Sector divide have led to misfortune and lowered morale for many agricultural producers. The few that bear responsibility for feeding the many also bear an unequal share of legislation, public scrutiny, and law enforcement, while city dwellers often get let off the hook. When it’s rural political power vs. urban political power, majority rules.
                             

      A Share of Legislation 

      California, Proposition 2 passed in 2008. The law, which will go into full effect in 2015, decrees that laying hens must have enough room in their cages to fully stretch their wings, lie down, and turn in a circle. That sounded good to 63% of California voters (ironic: 63% of Americans are pet owners…i.e., if they owned chickens, they’d probably carry them around everywhere and paint their toenails, too…wait, like I DID!). No one thought one more step ahead to wonder:

1. Why it could have made sense to house hens in that way (see comments and Hard to Swallow)
2. How the birds laying the inevitable $2/dozen egg imports would be treated
3. How many struggling families may have to forgo eating eggs because of higher costs
4. The gargantuan start-up costs for those wanting to remain in or enter the business 

…and what we have now is a massive outsourcing of food, i.e., a national security issue. Schwarzenegger pledged that any imported eggs would also be made according to Prop 2. Really? Where’s the egg in the McMuffin coming from, and will it be on the Dollar Menu? 

A Share of Law Enforcement

So, a city-dweller would never expect the EPA to issue a fine for exceeding a bacterial Total Maximum Daily Load  because your dog is using the backyard as a toilet and it’s entering the drainpipe when you turn the sprinklers on. An example of urban bacterial sources are as follows: 38% waterfowl; 26% humans + pets; wildlife 24%; rats 11%. Sometimes pets can contribute as much as 40% of the bacteria. Ugh, and you can also compare total bacterial output by source.

If a rural-dweller owns livestock, however, even though livestock bacteria only make up 22% of the total bacteria in a waterway, that person is held accountable. An example of rural bacterial sources are as follows: Pets, 8%; Septic leaks, 11%; non avian wildlife, 29%; avian wildlife, 7%; cattle, 22%; unknown, 10%; avian livestock, 1%; other non avian livestock, 12% (data courtesy of Dr. Redmon and Mr. Wagner, TAMU) Better keep a close eye on those ducks, people.  

And can you believe it, the EPA wants to regulate dust production on agricultural property? They can, since 2% of the population is relatively easy to regulate.

A Share of Public Scrutiny:

It is also curious that agricultural greenhouse gas emissions (6%) receive more attention than electricity generation (76%), transportation (11%), and manufacturing (4%). Or, with regards to methane production, cattle always come up in conversation, even though these are the statistics: natural swamps (26%), rice paddies (20%), fermentation by cattle and other livestock (15%) oil, gas, coal leaks (14%), biomass combustion (10%), landfills (7%), and animal waste (3%; Heilig et al., 1994, Houghton et al., 1990, as cited in Wahlen et al., 1993)

Is agriculture getting a fair share of legislation, enforcement, and scrutiny? What do you Think?