By William Alexander, the author of The $64 Tomato: How One Man Nearly Lost His Sanity, Spent a Fortune, and Endured an Existential Crisis in the Quest for the Perfect Garden. (THE NEW YORK TIMES, 27/05/06):
They spring from a tree that I've nurtured from a sapling. I have protected them from deer, squirrels, insects and fungi, and fed them a healthy diet of compost and manure. So why do I feel so guilty about eating these apples?
Because they are not organic.
It's not that I didn't try. Maybe Whole Foods can sell organic apples, but I sure can't grow 'em. I labored mightily for several years to cultivate, first, organic apples; then minimally sprayed apples (spraying only in response to a pest invasion); and finally in desperation for home-grown fruit, I surrendered the high moral ground to the apple maggots, codling moths and fungi that were destroying my trees, and resorted to prophylactic application of a chemical wide-spectrum orchard spray.
It was not a decision taken lightly, and the first time I sprayed the trees I felt like I had let down an entire generation: my generation, the Woodstock generation. To be sure, I was not a flower child, but I consider myself an environmentalist — an environmentalist armed with a malathion-loaded spray gun. Is that a contradiction? As gardening season gets into full swing, consider what we might call the herbivore's dilemma: Should I grow and eat only organic vegetables?
An organic garden (or farm) does not come cheaply. I'm not talking only about financial costs. I'm referring to the human and — this may surprise some — environmental costs. On the human side, when bugs appear in my organic vegetable garden, I first use the most organic of treatments — my fingers.
When that proves insufficient (and it almost always does), I escalate to a pesticide containing pyrethrins and rotenone, substances made from the roots and stems of several tropical flowers, and favored by backyard gardeners and organic farmers. It is most effective, however, when directly sprayed on the bugs, as it has little if any residual effect. So it requires frequent spraying while the bugs are active (this is usually while I'm at the office, as the bugs and I follow the same schedule). Still, it is organic, so you get to feel virtuous in the garden.
Until, that is, you learn that rotenone has been implicated in Parkinson's disease. If that's disillusioning, consider another organic substance extracted from a tropical plant: strychnine. Nature, it seems, is really good at making poisons (just ask Socrates).
I'm no chemist, but is it possible that the manufactured chemical malathion — at least in the small quantities used in my garden — is as safe to use as the organic chemical rotenone? Plants have to literally be drenched (particularly if harboring hard-shelled beetles) daily in rotenone, while malathion can be used sparingly, and needs to be applied only occasionally. Both break down in the environment fairly quickly.
But neither one is really desirable. And if a little pesticide in the backyard is acceptable, tons of pesticides, running into rivers and streams, moving up the food chain, are not. Which brings us to the next quandary. There is, in fact, a technology available today that can drastically reduce if not eliminate the use of pesticides, natural or manufactured: genetically modified organisms.
Such plants are engineered with natural insect resistance and offer substantial reductions in pesticide use without the increased costs associated with conventional organic crops. Monsanto, for example, claims that over the last 10 years, use of its genetically modified seeds has reduced the application of pesticides by 172,000 metric tons. Yet such "Frankenfood" is anathema to the very people who are the strongest proponents of organic food.
Oddly enough, Monsanto achieved this apparent miracle by taking a page out of the organic playbook. For years, organic farmers have been using sprays containing Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt, a naturally occurring bacteria, different strains of which are toxic to certain insects. Bt is a favored organic pesticide because its toxicity is very specific, making it harmless to just about everything but the pest in question. By splicing the Bt gene that manufactures its toxic protein into the plant (say, corn or potatoes), the entire plant is rendered toxic to the pest, all without the use of pesticides.
At first blush this would seem like something an environmentalist would cheer, but suspicions abound about genetically modified crops. The most publicized one, especially in Europe, is over whether eating such foods endangers consumers. But the focus has been shifting lately from food safety to questions about the effects of modified crops on conventional agriculture.
For example, scientists and organic farmers worry that unlike Bt spray, which breaks down within days and is applied only when needed, the toxin in Bt plants is present all the time, and in all the plant's tissues. Thus it is only a matter of when, not if, some insects develop resistance to Bt. Insect resistance to Bt would do irreparable harm, not just to genetically modified crops, but to organic crops as well, because Bt sprays would be rendered useless.
Furthermore, what are the risks of cross-pollination of genetically modified crops with conventional plants? Is genetic engineering acceptable when used to increase yield, reduce weeding or simply improve flavor or nutrition?
There are no easy choices, for the gardener or the consumer.
I suspect that in the not-too-distant future, backyard gardeners like myself will have the option of planting genetically modified trees that offer the elusive dream of home-grown organic apples. But will the apple be offered by a savior or a serpent? As I gown up to spray my apple trees, donning face mask, hat and boots, I'm thinking that, like Adam, I may be ready to bite. What's the worst that can happen?.