Crop Biotech, Aquaculture,
and Animal Agriculture:
Identifying Trends, Concerns, and
Best Practices
Ike Sharpless
Winslow Management Company
Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2009
Overarching Trends

Labeling concerns: COOL, GMs,
Animal Welfare, Fair Trade,
Certified Organic, etc, etc, etc…

Corporate or government
leadership: shifting perspectives?

Inter- and intra-connectedness of
agricultural crises

None of these issues can be
discussed without understanding
the role of the global food
business and the agricultural
supply chain
Labeling


Underlies a fundamental division in US-EU practices:
consumer right-to-know vs. agency stamp of approval
Labeling is often the preferred mechanism of control for
industry groups, but it does not address a core problem: that
environmental concern expressed in polls and elsewhere
often does not translate into behavior in terms of
“willingness to pay” (WTP)
The Rise of CSR in the Food
Business



Why does this matter?
 10 companies produce 40%
of all the food we buy (and 40
companies produce 85%)
 20-30% of product value
comes from the farm – the
rest is food industry-value
added
General trend towards
corporate-environmental
alliances
 IKEA and Rainforest
Alliance/WWF/FSC
 Marriott and Conservation
International
Myriad examples exist: water,
labor, health, animal welfare,
…
Tragedy of the Agricultural
Commons

All three of these domains contain
public good problems
 Biotech: non-GM farmers face
the risk of genetic contamination
[Starlink / Linked x]

Fisheries: like other extractive
industries, commercial fishing
fleets see the writing on the wall
and want to get as many fish
while they still can

Animal Ag: growing animal feed
contributes to oceanic
eutrophication and the growth of
algal blooms and anoxic dead
zones
The Role of the Food Supply
Chain

Stages of
industrialization of
the food supply




Retail commodity
foods (1850-1930)
Packaged Foods
Ready-to-eat
Foods
The birth of food
science
Agricultural Biotechnology:
Evaluating the two competing narratives

Fifteen years in: the first transgenic crops were planted in 1996 (1st to be
developed was Calgene’s Flavr Savr tomato, developed in 1989)

For better or for worse, the areas planted to transgenic crops in 2004 were:
• In the US: 46% for corn, 76% for cotton, and 85% for soybeans in 2004, up to
86% of cotton, 92% of soybeans, and 80% of corn by 2008
• Globally: 81 million hectares, grown by 8.25 million farmers in 17 countries


Both ‘camps’ seem to be identifying a pure play where none exists
Key lesson: barring allergenicity and the risk of antibiotic resistance, GM foods
are probably safe and healthy for human consumption; the real risk is how their
use fosters the uncritical acceptance of conventional agriculture generally and
large-scale monocropping in particular
the Ultimate Technofix?

Key stakeholder: BIO (Biotechnology
Industry Organization).



Represents over 1,100 biotech
companies, academic institutions, and
related organizations in the US and
31 other nations
Notable organizations include
Monsanto, DuPont, and Novartis
Arguments:





improved yields
lower costs
lower pesticide input usage
Variously “improved” foods
Decreased water use
• Bt cotton has saved a great deal of
water and herbicide input, for example
– cotton is an especially ‘thirsty’ crop
Cover of WIRED magazine,
Nov. 2008
Or Frankenfoods?

Key stakeholder:
Greenpeace (among
others)
 Arguments:
• Dangers of wild crop
transference
• Creation of
superweeds and
insect resistance
• Excessive corporate
ownership
• Continuation of
unsustainable cycle of
single-gene solutions
to problems bred from
large-scale
monocropping
The Good Things

Decreased total pesticide usage


Higher yields in easy to understand monocropped
systems can (arguably) produce more food on less
land





Especially valuable in developing countries, where
lax or nonexistent regulation encourages pesticide
companies to export their products that are banned
in the US/EU.
Only 10% of the world’s land surface is arable, and
much of it is already overfarmed and on eroded soil
Has the potential to help with diseases and
nutrition deficiencies that are systemic in much of
the developing world
“Phytoremediation”, whereby plants detoxify
pollutants in the soil or absorb and accumulate
polluting substances out of the soil
May enable the development of more efficient
grains for animal feed
Genomic mapping leads to further food safety
opportunities

The genetic structure of several strains of Listeria
and Campylobacter have recently been coded
The Bad Things

Agricultural biodiversity plummeting
(hence the Svalbard Global Seed Vault…)





From 40,000 rice strains in India to 250
Small farmers become entirely dependent
upon corporate seeds (terminator
technology)
Non-GMO seed producers suffer from
crop contamination
Consumers lose right to choose (under US
system, at least)
Works hand-in-hand with monocropping,
stymieing polycultures

“ecological theory predicts that as long as
transgenic crops follow closely the
pesticide paradigm prevalent in modern
agriculture, such biotechnological products
will do nothing but reinforce the pesticide
treadmill in agroecosystems”
Specific Cases

Bacillus Thuringiensis (Bt)
crops

StarLink Corn

Functional and “Pharma-”
Foods

“Hardier” crops (drought,
soil toxicity and salinity
resistant, etc.)
Bt Crops

“The Bt genes contain genetic
information that the plant uses to
produce a protein toxic to the larvae of
certain plant pests but is safe for
humans, animals and other insects”

BIO website, agricultural biotech FAQ
The StarLink Debacle, circa 2000


StarLink corn approved for
animal feed only (the largest US
market for corn) due to potential
human allergenicity, but found its
way into a Taco Bell taco shells
Raised serious questions about
segregation, traceability
(required 660-foot buffer zone),
and allergenicity

Subsequent FAO/WHO standards
(2001) acknowledged the near
impossibility of zero allergenicity risk
due to the inability to prove a
negative
Functional (and Pharma-) Foods

A functional food is technically
any food with health-promoting
claims or abilities


In the GM context:




(Marketing) example: yogurt
Golden Rice (rice with higher
carotenoid levels)
Crops enriched with Vitamin E,
folate, high protein content in
the form of Lysine
Hypoallergenic soy and rice
exist, and wheat is being
developed
“Pharma” foods are being
developed that may help
prevent or cure diseases such
as cholera and diarrhea
Why do we need (something
like) functional foods?





Almost 1 billion people suffer from
Goiter due to iodine deficiency (with
50 million suffering brain damage and
16 million cretinism due to the same)
Approximately 127 million pre-school
children suffer from vitamin A
deficiency, with up to 500,000 going
blind each year
Anemia—caused by iron deficiency—
afflicts 2 billion people a year, killing
800,000
A lack of zinc contributes to frequent
diarrhea
Folate—or B12—deficiency causes
neural tube defects and spina bifida in
newborns and cardiovascular disease
in adults
Why are functional foods touted?



Staple diets (cassava,
rice, maize, wheat)
cannot by themselves
provide an adequate
range of nutrients
Distributing vitamin
supplements—or
‘nutraceuticals’ is costlier
than things like golden
rice
Seen by some (but not by
others) as the next
generation of the Green
Revolution
Pharm Animals

In February 2009, the FDA ruled “safe”
a herd of goats containing ATryn, an
intravenous anti-clotting drug extracted
from their milk for a fraction of the
pharmaceutical’s production price.
These goats are the first such GM
animal to be approved in the US.


ATryn is the brand name of
‘anticoagulant antithrombin’ as
manufactured by Massachusetts-based
GTC Biotheraputics
Although groups like the Humane
Society of the United States (HSUS)
oppose GM animals on principle
because of their mechanistic nature,
there have been no animal-welfare
related harms associated with ATryn to
date
What are the drawbacks




A potential contributor to increased
pest resistance and the
development of ‘superbugs’
Opposed on GM grounds
Viewing food solely as the sum of
their micronutrients robs them of
their ‘whole food’ value (=Pollan’s
critique of nutritionists)
Evidence of nutrient uptake is
unclear


Corn/lime example in A Moveable
Feast
Positive example from Dartmouth
researchers re. higher-calcium
carrots
“Hardier” Crops



CEO of Performance Plants
Incorporated said in 2008 that
drought resistant oilseed rape and
maize will be on the market “in four
years”
“Snorkel rice” takes the ‘snorkel’
genes in flood-tolerant rice and
introduces them to higher-yield rice
Crops able to grow with less water or
in conditions of high salinity have been
“in the pipeline” for the last decade,
with little tangible gain


Hugh Grant, Monsanto’s CEO,
acknowledged when talking to an HBS
class that it was probably a PR
mistake on the company’s part to
focus solely on proprietary crops
(Bt/RoundUp) at the expense of
‘humanitarian’ technologies
Instead, biotechnology companies to
date have largely focused on
emphasizing a limited range of crops
that have large and secured markets.
Water Efficient Maize for
Africa (WEMA)



A collaboration of the African
Agricultural Technology Foundation
(AATF), various sub-Saharan African
governments, and Monsanto
“Monsanto has contributed significant
resources to the project,” Mark
Lawson, Monsanto yield and stress
platform lead, said. “This includes
white corn germplasm, the expertise
that we have in conducting molecular
breeding and a royalty-free license to
our transgenic drought technology for
small farmers in Sub-Saharan
Africa.”
Viewed cynically, this appears to be
CSR as a form of damage control, or
‘reputational risk management’
Innovations in Crop
Agriculture

New (non-soy) sources of protein synthesis







The marketability of non-transgenic but
biotech ‘borderline’ methods to GMskeptical audiences (best example: hybrid
corn in the 1920s)




Algae
Grain crops
In vitro meat
Leaf protein extraction
Mycofungi
lupins
Seed coating
marker-assisted breeding
Genomic selection
Other innovations:

Controlled release fertilizers
• Increase fertilizer efficiency and crop
yields, reduce losses through leaching,
runoff, volatilization and denitrification
In Vitro Meat

Pasture and feed-producing lands for livestock
account for 30% of the earth’s surface, contributing
to desertification and other climate-change related
events

Raises ” the possibility of creating designer

First In Vitro Meat Symposium held at the
Norwegian Food Research Institute in April 2008 –
indicated that large-scale in vitro meat production
could be price-competitive with farm-raised meat
(3400 Euros/ton, with unsubsidized chicken costing
1800 and beef just over 3500).

Patent claims made; first US patent owned by Jon
F. Vein for the production of tissue-engineered meat
for human consumption (U.S. Patent 6,835,390)

Still clearly in the early stages – not likely to be
profitable for some time, with processed meats
available in a few years and unprocessed meats
in a decade or more, but the most visible current
players are New Harvest and the In Vitro Meat
Consortium
ground beef with the fat profile of salmon”
Algae

Like in vitro meat, Algae is hampered by the “yuck”
factor

While distinct from algal biofuel, food algae could be a
potential co-product of fuel algae


The biggest recent player in the fuel algae game is
Exxon Mobile, who partnered with Synthetic
Genomics Inc. in July 2009 to invest $600 million in
Algal fuels
Up with cellulosic ethanol as an in process technology
rather than an existing one – seems to me like it needs
much more attention. Algae has the added advantage
of being able to capture fertilizer runoff, thus potentially
preventing oceanic eutrophication

Has the added advantage of possibly creating
food as a co-product of fuel, most likely for
animal feed in the form of pellets
Seed Coating

LandecAg’s intellicoat (above)


PlantTech’s agristrike (below)



“... is an agricultural technology company
that specializes in
temperature-activated seed coatings.”
“PlantTech is the largest Australian field
crop, canola and pasture Seed Company,
with an unsurpassed product range of
leading proprietary cereal, oilseed,
pasture, pulse and forage varieties, plus
access to a comprehensive range of
public varieties.”
Other developments of note: Plant Health
Care Inc.’s Myconate and Harpins
technology (see ppt in notes)
Lesson: neither of these companies
appear at all green, but the technology
does have various potential green
applications.

“It can greatly reduce insect pest, protect
the environment, save the seeds (about
1/3 seeds), increase the output of crops
(increase by 10-40%) and promote the
development of seeds project. “
Genomic Selection


Using genomic selection for markerassisted breeding, crop and animal
breeders can select desirable alleles
without actual gene splicing

"some of the most potent objection to
transgenics actually has to do with the
increase in market power that went along
with some of the input companies.
Genomic selection and marker-assisted
breeding have exactly the same kind of
economic power implications, if no more
so, as transgenics. People who are upset
about transgenics but think markerassisted breeding is okay are just
incredibly naive."

Paul Thompson (U. of Michigan), in a
phone interview
Approximate position of 28 major genes mapped
in different populations of apricot (blue
background), peach (orange background),
almond or almond × peach (yellow background),
and Myrobalan plum (green background) on the
framework of the Prunus reference map (5).
Gene abbreviations correspond to: Y, peach flesh
color; B, almond/peach petal color; sharka, plum
pox virus resistance; B, flower color in almond x
peach; Mi, nematode resistance from peach; D,
almond shell hardness; Br, broomy plant habit;
Dl, double flower; Cs, flesh color around the
stone; Ag, anther color; Pcp, polycarpel; Fc,
flower color; Lb, blooming date; F, flesh
adherence to stone; D, non-acid fruit in peach,
Sk, bitter kernel; G, fruit skin pubescence; Nl, leaf
shape; Dw, dwarf plant; Ps, male sterility; Sc, fruit
skin color; Gr, leaf color; S *, fruit shape; S, selfincompatibility (almond and apricot); Ma,
nematode resistance from Myrobalan plum; E,
leaf gland shape; Sf, resistance to powdery
mildew. Genes Dl and Br are located on an
unknown position of G2.
Other Trends in Global
Agriculture: Land Grabs in
Africa


Various Asian and
other governments
are buying up huge
tracts of land in Africa
The most notable
example: Korean
company Daewoo
caused Madagascar's
government to
collapse after a
proposed deal to
purchase over half of
the country’s arable
land
Lessons

For better or for worse, we probably
can’t put this genie back in its bottle

It’s often not the technology per se,
but its effects on market control, that
are particularly abhorrent.

Ideally, specific applications of crop
biotechnology should be integrated
into an agricultural system that
includes





Crop rotation
Polycultures
Cover crops
Integrated pest management
(IPM)
etc.
Aquaculture and Fisheries
-Key Lesson: the barriers to international cooperation
on sustainable fisheries indicates that the most
short-term progress can be made in improving fish
farming practices, especially in China (with many
caveats…).
Why is this happening?


Because
consumer
preferences for
fish are highly
substitutable,
commercial
fishers flying
under ‘flags of
convenience’
practice “slash
and burn” fishing,
exploiting one
species then
moving on to the
next
Tracking feed
and fish is very
difficult –
generally, a piece
of fish looks like a
piece of fish
Global Fisheries Crisis

On current course,
collapse of all major
fisheries by 2050.
(Science, Nov. 8)

Tragedy of the
commons / collective
action problem (the
regulators want to
support their
fishermen—they
don’t get elected by
cutting back)

The problem of
bycatch

Growing appetites
• Shark Finning
example
Capture Fisheries

Divisible by fishing area, gear and
the main target species




North Sea herring purse seine
fishery
Gulf of Mexico shrimp trawl fishery
southern ocean Patagonian
toothfish longline fishery.
Some gear and species are
inherently more unsustainable than
others


Bottom trawling
Very long-lived species
Bycatch



Wild-caught shrimp catches
up to 10 pounds of discarded
sea life for every pound of
shrimp
All major fisheries catch large
amounts of bycatch, whether
trawl, purse seine, or longline.
The problem is especially bad
in illegal, unreported and
unregulated (IUU) fisheries in
developing countries
Bottom Trawling


“The above image of the Gulf of
Mexico, captured by the Landsat
satellite in late 1999, shows the
sediment trails left behind by
individual ships (the bright spots) - a
testament to the utter devastation
the practice exerts on vast seafloor
ecosystems.”
Methods of reducing bottom trawl
usage range from the ‘campaign
stunt’ to consumer purchasing to
national and international regulation


Greenpeace-style sabotage by
dumping rocks in the North Sea to
prevent bottom trawling (potentially
dangerous for fishermen)
Avoid flatfish (halibut, turbot, plaice,
etc…)
A case study in collapse

The North Atlantic Cod
fishery has collapsed
precipitously

The solution (would have
been): honest assessment
“maximum sustainable
yield” with proper
enforcement
The Insidious Role of
Branding


Thanks to clever
marketing, previously
unpalatable fishes are
becoming desirable
delicacies which are
fished (often illegally)
using ecologically
devastating bottom
trawling methods.
Which sounds better:


Orange roughy, or
slimefish?
Chilean Sea Bass, or
Patagonian toothfish?
The Need for
Intergovernmental Oversight

Fish tend not to care about 15-mile territorial waters or
200 mile Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), which makes
transboundary intergovernmental oversight a must


The exclusive economic zone is an area beyond and
adjacent to the territorial sea, subject to the specific legal
regime established in this Part, under which the rights
and jurisdiction of the coastal State and the rights and
freedoms of other States are governed by the relevant
provisions of this Convention ... In the exclusive
economic zone, the coastal State has ... sovereign rights
for the purpose of exploring and exploiting, conserving
and managing the natural resources, whether living or
non-living, of the waters superjacent to the seabed and of
the seabed and its subsoil, and with regard to other
activities for the economic exploitation and exploration of
the zone, such as the production of energy from the
water, currents and winds ... The exclusive economic
zone shall not extend beyond 200 nautical miles from the
baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is
measured. (from the UN Convention on the Law of the
Sea – UNCLOS)
64% of the world’s ocean is international waters; of that,
3/4ths is unmanaged


“In 1995 there were more than 1.2 million decked fishing
vessels in the world, up from just fewer than 600,000 in
1970.”
much of this growth is government subsidized, which
results in excess capacity and thus low margins for
industry fishermen, who then have incentives to fish
more.
Marine Stewardship Council

Founded in 1996 as Unilever/WWF collaboration


Founding mission: “…to work for sustainable marine fisheries by
promoting responsible, environmentally appropriate, socially
beneficial and economically viable fisheries practices, while
maintaining the biodiversity, productivity, and ecological processes
of the marine environment.”
(Relative) success stories


‘Dolphin-safe” tuna
“Give Swordfish a Break” Campaign pledge
•
•


Wild Alaskan salmon fisheries certification
Unlike the issue-specific and tangible cases of dolphins and
swordfish, however, the MSC eco-label covers fish ranging from
frozen cod in Britain to Alaskan Salmon to a range of other regulated
marine capture fisheries


Pledge by restaurants to not buy swordfish from the North Atlantic, where
the average size of a swordfish has dropped from 266 lbs in the 1960s to
90 lbs at the time of the campaign (late 1990s)
“two hundred seventy chefs, major cruise lines, and Bon Apetit magazine
had all joined the campaign. The campaign was credited by the 1998
Annual Report on the United States Seafood Industry as a reason why
swordfish had dropped from the top-1o best-selling seafood list.”
as of October 2008, there are nearly 2,000 seafood products with
the MSC’s seal of approval
See the “MSC Principles and Criteria for Sustainable Fishing” for
specifics
Other Marine Capture
Success Stories

Maine Lobstermen


A complex system of informal
social mechanisms have built
up over time to respond to
environmental feedback
New Zealand

World leader in the use of the
Individual Transferable Quota
(ITQ)—a method strongly
endorsed by The Economist
in article after article—to
regulate Total Allowable
Catch (TAC)
The Keys to Sustainable
Wild Caught

As the MSC and other cases indicate, the
problem isn’t that people don’t know how to work
towards sustainable fisheries. Barring a lack of
scientific knowledge about the sea (‘out of sight,
out of mind…), they do. The problem, rather is a
lack of political will and legal authority combined
with a collective action problem relating to an
exhaustible public good

That said, these are the things that work:






restrictions on gear like nets so that
smaller, younger fish can escape
limits on the total allowable catch
closing some areas to fishing
certifying fisheries as sustainable
offering shares of the total allowable
catch to each person who fishes in a
specified area.
Work with existing national and international
legal jurisdictions to maximize utility (x: at 25
million km, the EU has the world’s largest EEZ,
granting considerable importance to its (much
criticized) Common Fisheries Policy
Impediments to Sustainable
Wild Caught

International Trade Law

Tuna-Dolphin and ShrimpTurtle at the WTO – the
case law is evolving, but
slowly

Maximum sustainable yield
can be very difficult to
determine: fish populations
and migration patterns are, in
some cases, still very poorly
understood

Tragedy of the Commons
Growth of Aquaculture

Key lesson: for better or for worse, aquaculture is the only
way to prevent oceanic collapse barring a decline in
demand for seafood (which doesn’t look likely). The
logical conclusion is to make sure fish farming is done as
well as possible.
Growth of Aquaculture (2)

Given this change, the
potential benefits (and
harms) are
enormous…far too little
focus is on improving
large-scale Asian
freshwater fisheries.
Barring greater
oversight and
enforceability of
regulations, it will be
hard to make progress
on this front.
Why ‘especially in China’?
Note the big red square (see
notes for uncut picture)
Why Tilapia?

Large size, rapid growth, omnivorous
diet, high stocking density tolerance,
no planktonic phase

GIFT Tilapia

“GIFT, or Genetically Improved
Farmed Tilapia, grows 60 per cent
faster and has a 50 per cent higher
survival rate to adulthood than the
original fish. Sometimes also known
as the Super Tilapia, the fish was
developed through vigorous
selection-breeding programs -- the
first time a tropical food fish has been
improved using such methods. The
fish used to breed GIFT was the Nile
tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus).”
HQ Sustainable Maritime
Industries

Exports tilapia to US, Korea, Japan,
and Mexico from its facilities in
Hainan, China

Mission statement
• To bring quality to every aspect of
HQ's vertically integrated aquatic
products business.
• To lead China in penetrating world
seafood markets.
• Increase profitability through the
introduction of zero-toxin products
while respecting the environment
and communities in which it works.

Best Aquaculture Practices Certified
(potentially problematic – see next
slide – but is currently the only major
standards-setting organization for
aquaculture
Best Aquaculture Practices



Implemented by the Aquaculture Certification
Council (ACC) of the Global Aquaculture
Alliance (GAA)
The ACC is a “process” certification currently
certifies shrimp hatcheries, shrimp, tilapia and
channel catfish farms and seafood processing
plants to include shrimp, channel catfish and
tilapia.
Although ostensibly independent, the GAA is
effectively an industry consortium. According
to Food and Water Watch, “Their process
combines annual site inspections and effluent
sampling, but allows for certain use of
antibiotics and chemicals. Although GAA’s
standards are more measurable than most
others, they have received criticism from
several organizations, including the Mangrove
Action Project and Environmental Justice
Foundation, for flawed standards that fail to
adequately protect mangrove ecosystems.”
Aquaculture: the Bad and
the Good

The Bad
Harmful to mangrove ecosystems
(shrimp) and marine ecosystems
(marine aquaculture)



PCBs
Standards are often ignored


A friend of mine saw firsthand massive
amounts of illegal antibiotic feeding in Asian
aquaculture
Serious potential for disease outbreak



Mangrove forests protect against
tsunamis, hurricanes, and eutrophication
by maintaining intact ecosystems
White Spot Disease in Shrimp
Infections Salmon Anemia (ISA) in Latin
American farmed salmon
Fishmeal trawling for carnivorous fish

cage-based coastal salmon farming ex:
90% of GHG result from fishmeal)



The Good
Barring any precipitous change in
demand for seafood, sustainable
aquaculture is vital to prevent
massive fisheries collapse
Inherently more controllable than
marine capture
If well managed, can provide
plentiful protein at a low Food
Conversion Ratio (FCR) while
cycling wastes and nutrients—this
is generally easier with freshwater
than marine aquaculture
Examples of conflicting
preferences: organic fish and
‘sustainable’ tuna

Whereas fish feed is usually 50%
fishmeal (which can be made from
unsold fish and fish offal, or small
whole fish) and 50% grain, organic
salmon must use fishmeal from
sustainable fisheries intended for
human consumption.

Clean Seas Tuna, Ltd. is trying to
breed southern bluefin tuna, which
is being massively overfished to
satisfy demand for fatty tuna in
sushi. They are also developing
wheat pellets to feed their marinecaged tuna. This is a ‘stopgap’
measure in the sense that it is
responding to market demand
rather than trying to reshape
demand.
Marine or Freshwater Aquaculture?




Harder to regulate
generally than freshwater
aquaculture
More likely to cause
disease transference to
wild species
However, some species
can only be farmed in
marine systems
Freshwater aquaculture
is generally better than
marine aquaculture, as
most of the fish raised
are herbivorous (carp,
tilapia)
The Case of Farmed Shrimp

Shrimp is the most popular
seafood in the US

(depending on who you
believe,) has destroyed more
than 30 % of the world’s
coastal mangroves

Requires 2 lbs of fishmeal and
squid to make 1 lb of shrimp

Various countries at severe
risk for White Spot Disease
-A growing trend in Indonesia
Organic Shrimp

EcoCamaronera Bahia—the world’s
first certified organic shrimp farm—
practices mangrove-friendly methods
in Ecuador, as does Biocentinela.


Like all shrimpers in Ecuador, both
are at heavy risk for white spot
disease
OceanBoy farms is an inland marine
shrimp farm in Florida that has ACC
organic shrimp certification and USDA
organic seafood certification (the first
to get it).

They have a very high ration of
shrimp per foot, but they pump in
extra oxygen and clean the water
frequently. There is a higher risk for
disease if poorly managed, but is
otherwise a fruitful model
Neptune Industries


Boca Raton-based Aqua Biologics (a division of Neptune
Industries) has focused on ento-proteins as well as algal waste
recycling and biodiesel
Needs more research: has apparently gone through bankruptcy early
in 2009

it looks like they went through bankruptcy, the fish and other things were
sold off but the patent and technology were taken by the majority
shareholder. He then leased the technology back to the company with the
right to buy it
The Role of GM Fish:
AquAdvantage Salmon

AquAdvantage® salmon, developed by Aqua
Bounty Farms


“Aqua Bounty is developing advancedhybrid salmon, trout, and tilapia designed to
grow faster than traditional fish.
AquAdvantage® Salmon (AAS) reach
market size twice as fast as traditional
salmon. This advancement provides a
compelling economic benefit to farmers
(reduced growing cycle) as well as
enhancing the economic viability of inland
operations, thereby diminishing the need for
ocean pens. AAS are also reproductively
sterile, which eliminates the threat of
interbreeding amongst themselves or with
native populations, a major recent concern
in dealing with fish escaping from salmon
farms.”
The company has spent more than a
decade chasing regulatory approval from the
FDA, but FDA officials have reportedly said
it is coming “soon”, especially in light of the
recent “pharmed” goats ruling.
Solutions (Aquaculture)

Good aquaculture references (recommended by friend who
works in fisheries):



http://www.enaca.org/
http://www.seafdec.org/cms/index.php
Greater independence for certification bodies

The largest certification body to date, the Global Aquaculture
Alliance’s Best Aquaculture Practices, is probably too caught
up with fishing interests to provide a neutral assessment of
environmental and other impacts

Supporting feed inputs other than wild-caught fishmeal
 “Ento-protein” progress by Neptune Industries using
insects rather than fish to provide feed protein—the
company itself, however, may be a poor investment
 Algae pellets

Traditional Chinese aquaculture
 4,000 years old, and from which the Chinese have
actually moved towards Western methods
 Rears herbivorous and carnivorous species in the same
pond using plants to serve as food (eliminates fishmeal
and is ecosystem-based approach: “integrated multitrophic aquaculture”).
 This model can also use ducks/chickens in an integrated
system where their poop makes algae for the fish to eat
(so that you only have to feed the chickens and you get
two crops) – but not done on a large scale
Solutions (Consumer)

Support:

farmed herbivorous species
consumption: tilapia, bream, carp
and catfish with BAP certification
or (better yet) Monterey Bay
Aquarium Seafood Watch approval
• Ex) the 2009 Northeast Seafood
watch endorses US farmed tilapia
as ‘best choices’, South American
farmed tilapia as ‘good
alternatives’, and Asian farmed
tilapia as ‘to avoid


small marine capture species
consumption: sardines, anchovies,
mackerel, herring, etc.
Reputable certified wild
carnivorous fish
Impediments

Tight margins are not easily amenable to
large scale modification of practices,
creating disincentives to change towards
more sustainable programs (or, as one of
my professors said, “the numbers tend to
cut down your options”

The sustainable fish are often not the
much-touted Omega 3-rich fish (they are,
however, lower down the food chain and
are thus lower in PCB and Mercury
contamination levels).

The nature of global fisheries oversight is a
classic case of market failure, with
overfishing causing some sectors to go
through a Hubbert curve not unlike that of
peak oil.

In many cases, the demand for seafood is
voracious and indiscriminate, particularly in
the Chinese delicacy market
Why does ocean health
matter, anyway?


Ocean health is vital for
coral health, and coral reefs
serve as nursery, farm, and
home to one third of all
marine fish species.
The bottom line – we really
don’t know the full diversity
of ecosystem services
provided by sea life

Example: July 30, 2009
NPR story, “Jellyfish May
Help Keep Planet Cool”
Animal Agriculture

Types of Concerns




Environmental
Labor Practices
Human Health
Animal Welfare
What’s the Problem?

“As Wendell Berry has tartly observed, to
take animals off farms and put them on
feedlots is to take an elegant solution—
animals replenishing the fertility that crops
deplete—and neatly divide it into two
problems: a fertility problem on the farm and
a pollution problem on the feedlot. The
former problem is remedied with fossil-fuel
fertilizer; the latter is remedied not at all.”
• Michael Pollan, “Farmer in Chief”
A Ridiculously Short History
of Conventional Agriculture

The Haber-Bosch Nitrogen fixing
process quintuples the available
ammonia supply for crop fertilizer in
1909
 Dramatically changes the global
Nitrogen cycle, which is only
beginning to be properly understood



To make a long story short: leftover
munitions and biological agents (i.e.,
nitrogen and phosphorous) after WWII
become fertilizer and pest/herbicides,
which along with govt. crop subsidies
make CAFOs economically viable
Earl Butz appointed Secretary of
Agriculture by Nixon: “get big or get
out”
Vertical integration, economies of
scale, and globally provisioned supply
chains (following market liberalization)
What is a CAFO, exactly?


Under EPA regulations, a
Concentrated (or Confined)
Animal Feeding Operation is
any AFO that contains at least
300 cattle, or 600 swine or
sheep, or 30,000 fowl
(somewhat variable by state;
these are the stats for
Indiana)
Between 1967 and 1997, the
number of swine farms fell
from over a million to 157,000
with the top 3% producing
60% of all us hogs. By 2000,
operations with 5,000 or more
hogs comprised 50% of US
production
The Livestock Revolution

A structural change, termed the
“livestock revolution”, is taking
place around the world but with
particular intensity in East Asia





Multinational supermarket and fast
food chain expansion creates
demand for streamlined intensive
meat production
The availability of cheap course
grain on international markets has
increased the global CAFO focus on
monogastric animals like chicken
and hogs
At current rates, Global meat/milk
demand to double within 50 years
80% of current growth in industrial
systems
Developing countries overtook
developed countries in meat
production in 1996
Livestock and the Environment
In addition to all of the problems
already cited with crop agriculture
(animal agriculture uses 33% of
world grain and 66% of US grain),
categories of concern include:






Carbon impact
Acid deposition
Eutrophication
Groundwater contamination
Watershed disruption
Increased soil erosion and lower
soil fertility
Livestock’s Carbon Impact




18% of GHGs, says LEAD
Caveat: these kinds of
calculations are ridiculously
complicated and situationspecific
Ruminants produce methane
(mostly by burping, actually): red
meat and dairy are the worst
carbon offenders
Fertilizers/manure release
nitrous Oxide (N20)
Acid Deposition
(and Acid Rain)

Livestock contributes 64%
of global ammonia (NH3)
in the form of tropospheric
reactive nitrogen
• Livestock also contributes to
ammonia volatization—in
which ammonia is nitrified in
the soil after deposition

Causes oceanic
acidification, which
destroys coral reefs and
other oceanic ecosystems
Eutrophication

Causes and effects of eutrophication
 Livestock Uses 33% of world grain
and 66% of US grain
 Manure stored in open pits
(‘lagoons’) can spill or overflow
during extreme weather causing
nitrogen runoff, and precipitation
can carry vaporized NH3 from
manure pits to nearby waterways
 Nitrogen fertilizer from crops used
to feed animals contributes to algal
blooms and oceanic dead zones
• For one example, according to the
USDA: in 1997, operations in 165
US counties resulted in 1.5 billion
tons of nitrogen outputs from
manure in excess of absorption
capacity of adjacent lands
Groundwater Contamination



Groundwater accounts for
approximately 40% of the water
used in the US water supply
“Groundwater contamination
can cause E. coli poisoning and
blue baby syndrome. Surface
water contamination can cause
illness from cryptosporidium,
giardia, and pfisteria.”
-stats on rural water quality…
But this stuff is all too general…

In light of the past 4 slides the
following passage becomes
more understandable:

“Fewer policy options exist for
controlling the impact of diffuse,
non-point source pollution from
agricultural production. Nonpoint discharges are difficult to
monitor because they occur over
wide areas and vary from day to
day depending on weather
conditions and the frequency
and timing of application of
potential pollutants”
• Managing the Livestock
Revolution, The World Bank
2005
Labor Practices and
Environmental Justice

CAFO sourcing determined by
land and labor price, creating
disproportionate health and
environmental hazards for the
rural poor from ammonia,
hydrogen sulfide, particulate
matter, and methane


Livestock’s Long Shadow
documents similar trends away
from peri-urban areas towards
rural areas in Thailand
Additionally, according to the
FAO, the “environmental
problems created by industrial
production systems derive not
from their large scale, nor their
production intensity, but rather
from their geographical location
and concentration”
Human Health Concerns


WHO: 75% of recent diseases are zoonotic
EPA noncompliance with CWA/CAA

Recent antibiotics ‘victory’…
Animal Welfare


I could talk for a very long time about this…
Different parameters inhere for different species and
different farming systems, but animal welfare standards
generally build on the “five freedoms”, which were
developed and popularized by the British Farm Animal
Welfare Council (FAWC):






1. Freedom from Hunger and Thirst - by ready access
to fresh water and a diet to maintain full health and
vigor.
2. Freedom from Discomfort - by providing an
appropriate environment including shelter and a
comfortable resting area.
3. Freedom from Pain, Injury or Disease - by
prevention or rapid diagnosis and treatment.
4. Freedom to Express Normal Behavior - by
providing sufficient space, proper facilities and company
of the animal's own kind.
5. Freedom from Fear and Distress - by ensuring
conditions and treatment which avoid mental suffering.
Can actually conflict with the environmental: (x) grassfed cows actually produce more methane than grain-fed
ones (this ignores, however, the other problems involved
in industrial corn and soy production).
Niman Ranch: a case study in
the problematic economics of
‘happy meat’



The original provider of humane
meat to Chipotle Market Grill
Bill Niman was forced to sell his
share in Natural Food Holdings
LLC, and he now boycotts
Niman Ranch for their transport
to slaughter and microbial use
policies
The net effect: until a consumer
market exists that is willing to
capture the various extra costs
of humane meat, it won’t be
profitable in the US
Other Concerns

Genetic uniformity in large-scale
livestock (comparable to crop
agriculture) results in mass disease
susceptibility


Chickens bred for meat share 30
percent or more of their genes, while
some laying hens share 90 percent.
Raises global market demand for
grain, especially soya raised at the
expense of the Amazonian rainforest


Greenpeace documented an illegal
port Cargill built in the Brazilian
Amazon to export Soya to Europe
Land conversion in Brazilian
grasslands has doubled the hectares
producing Soya in the past decade to
21 million ha in 2005, and is expected
to grow by 40 million ha or more
Solutions

As with crop biotech, the ‘solutions’
fall into two categories: those that
address Berry’s original concern
(fundamental solutions), and those
that work within the confines of
‘conventional’ agriculture (stopgap
solutions). Both should be
applauded, especially if fundamental
change appears unlikely, but in the
long term technofixes are unlikely to
solve many of the food industry’s
systemic environmental problems.

Solutions can be further subdivided
into governmental (and
intergovernmental) solutions,
producer solutions, and consumer
solutions
Stopgap solutions

Animal ag solution:


Define CAFOs as point sources
under the CWA (in process – see
law blog link)
Carbon solution:

Changing animals’ feed or
developing transgenic animals that
‘fart/burp less or better’
• ex: adding 2% fish oil to cows’ feed
may reduce methane emissions by
20%

Aquaculture solution:


Eutrophication solution


Breeding tuna
Controlled-release fertilizers
Biotech solution:

Drought-resistant GM crops
Fundamental Solutions

Following Michael Pollan’s
advice: Changing the Western
diet and modern farm policy

Changing our diets
• A more recent piece by Pollan,
“Out of the Kitchen, Onto the
Couch”, indicates that in order
to change the way we eat we
need to change the way we
cook (or, rather, don’t cook).

Changing farm policy
• Michael Pollan’s “Farmer in
Chief” provides a good outline
National Solutions

Reform the farm bill


Title I Commodity programs (“temporary”
since 1933…) incentivize farmers to “farm
the programs” and eschew “specialty
crops” like fruits and vegetables, which
also gives CAFO operators an incentive
not to switch to integrated polycultures
EPA oversight of CWA and CAA
provisions should overturn a history of
‘right-to-farm’ laws protecting CAFOs


The CWA requires livestock permits for
large installations, but, as of 2006, the US
had issued only 2,520 of the 13,000
permits required by 2001 EPA estimates,
and CAFO compliance is rarely enforced
Additionally, although the CAA is meant to
regulate air pollution, every CAFO to date
has negotiated an administrative consent
agreement with the EPA to circumvent
CAA requirements
International Attention

Relevant Multilateral Environmental
Agreements (MEAs) include:


the Convention on Biological Diversity
(CBD)
The Convention on Long Range
Transboundary Air Pollutants (LRTAP)
• The 1999 Gothenburg Protocol to Abate
Acidification, Eutrophication, and Ground
Level Ozone


The Framework Convention on Climate
Change
IO progress is divisible into the domains of
animal welfare, environmental control, and
humanitarian assistance (although the
three often overlap and even conflict)


In Animal Welfare, the World Organization
for Animal Health (the OIE in French) is
spearheading international animal welfare
guidelines
More generally, FAO/LEAD, UNEP, the
World Bank (and IBRD) are all shaping
the dialogue
Producer/Retailer Solutions

Whether to forestall impending
regulation or as a form of
‘reputational risk management’,
the following companies have all
implemented programs intended
to improve animal welfare





McDonald’s
Burger King
Wolfgang Puck’s
Chipotle Mexican Grill
The National Council of Chain
Restaurants and the Food
Marketing Institute (NCCR/FMI)
Other Critical Issues I’ve
Ignored

Local Food (and when it is and isn’t green)



Transportation itself accounts for only 11
percent of food’s greenhouse emissions, and
“food miles” (distribution from producer to
consumer) accounts for only 4 percent
Again, however, people have a panoply of
reasons for their purchasing choices (might be
more interested in supporting local business,
just as I would sooner eat beef than pork or
chicken on animal welfare grounds whereas
some would do the opposite on carbon
footprint grounds.
The health ramifications of the various issues
I’ve discussed: I recommend Marion Nestle’s
What to Eat as an excellent guide to these
questions.



Corn-fed “marbling” or grass-fed beef?
Farmed whitefish with ‘crowding toxins’ or
swordfish with bioaccumulated mercury?
Similarly regarding the famed Omega-3s in
Salmon…just as much of which can be found
in trophically lower sardines and herring.
Recap of Key Lessons

Biotech


Fisheries/Aquaculture



GM foods are probably here to stay, but
global agriculture still requires a
paradigm shift to become truly
sustainable
Aquaculture needs an independent
ecolabeling and certification
organization like that of the MSC to
supplement the industry-influenced
GAA
A much greater emphasis on restaurant
dining is required, given the high
proportion of seafood eaten in
restaurants
Animal Ag

Beyond all of the environmental and
human health concerns, much higher
levels of consumer information are
required to prevent market failure
Companies and Practices to
Watch

Companies













GTC Biotherapeutics
Performance Plants Incorporated
New Harvest
Plant Health Care Inc.
In Vitro Meat Consortium
HQ Sustainable Maritime Industries
OceanBoy Farms
Biocentinela
Clean Seas Tuna, Ltd.
Neptune Industries (Aqua Biologics)
Aqua Bounty Farms
Niman Ranch / CMG
Practices

Crop Agriculture
• Controlled Release Fertilizer
• Drought-resistant crops

Feed
• In vitro meat
• Algae
• Insect-based fish food
Additional articles I’ve come across
since writing this (see notes for links)

Economist piece on Tuna collapse (no surprise)
and the possible failure of the Alaskan Pollock
fishery (surprise—it’s very highly regulated)

(A rather disturbing) editorial from the New
Scientist: “Pain-free animals could take suffering
out of farming” (assumes that only negative
preferences matter—i.e., pleasure or satisfaction
is irrelevant; also ignores non-pain stresses)