Dear readers, as you can see here and on the opinion page, not all of our readers shared the view of Roger Bate in his contribution Organic myth in Monitor 41. Even though we are sorry for the irritation the opinion page of the last issue raised with some of you, we see different opinions as a challenge for the public debate and for scientific research. We therefore welcome your reactions and submitted articles on this and other topics.
The Editors Biotechnology and Development Monitor

Neither myth nor retreat from science Roger Bate’s opinion article Organic myths: the retreat from science deals with two issues that do not tally together. For the North organic agriculture is not recommended because natural food would contain toxins and for the South it is not recommended because the returns from organic agriculture would be less than from conventional farming. However, there are several reasons why organic agriculture is preferred by those who believe in building nature’s capital rather than destroying it. There is no dispute about the fact that plants have natural toxins to protect themselves. The fact is that enormous quantities are required to get high enough doses of toxins to produce carcinogenic effects. Obviously no one consumes enormous quantities of one kind of plant at any one given point in time. The awareness of organic farming and use of compost has been treated in great detail by various researchers. Sir John Russell, in his book Soil conditions and plant growth, says that in one tiny gram of soil treated with farmyard manure, there are some 29,000,000 bacteria. However, where chemical fertilizers are used the number is cut to half. The second argument that the poor countries cannot afford to have lesser yields and that organic production is a mirage when these countries can barely feed their population is again misfounded. It is the typical technological fix for social and economic problems. In a country like India, the Green Revolution through increased production has not succeeded in supplying the food to those who need it. Why? The last four decades of food production have demonstrated that there has been a hundredfold increase in inputs in the form of fertilizers, pesticides and irrigation, while productivity as such is plateauing. The soil has responded to its maximum to the chemical inputs, and scientists themselves are acknowledging that there is a ‘yellowing’ of the Green Revolution. While more than 30 million tons of food is waiting in the granaries, at least 30 per cent of the population is below the poverty line of 2400 calories consumed per day. A shift to organic agriculture cannot take place overnight and it has to be a gradual process without deluding ourselves that only chemical farming or genetic engineering will redeem developing countries from hunger. There are many small-scale experiments taking place all over the world that provide evidence to the fact that once the soil regains its biotic wealth, the returns from the soil are better than with chemical farming. Organic farming is neither a myth nor is it a retreat from science. Vanaja Ramprasad, India

Pestilent statistics The article Organic myths: the retreat from science by Roger Bate makes unfounded claims about organic agriculture and tries to palm off Dennis Avery as the author of a scientific study showing that people consuming organic food have an eight times greater risk of contracting a potentially deadly Escherichia coli (E.coli O157). Most literate individuals now know that Dennis Avery publicized false claims such as that organic farmers employ manure harboring the toxic E.coli. In fact organic standards require that manure be composted and composting eliminates E.coli O157. The editors of the Monitor should have checked to insure that Dennis Avery had conducted a peer reviewed scientific study on risks of consuming organic foods. Instead they seem to be involved in an effort to make the Avery study a legitimate scientific publication de novo. The Monitor seems to try to legitimize claims of questionable origin. One of many articles clarifying the Avery report and its lack of academic review is written by Karen Charman under the title Saving the planet with pestilent statistics (http://www.prwatch.org/ prw_issues/1999-Q4/index.html). Joe Cummins, Dept. of Genetics, University of Western Ontario, Canada