How can we sustainably feed a growing world population? And what role will meat, organic farming and genetic engineering play in this? We asked two people who have been working on these topics for a long time: Barbara Unmüßig from the Heinrich Böll Foundation and Urs Niggli, an expert in organic farming.
nature: Mr. Niggli, we can reach you in a school. Until shortly before our video conference, you gave a lecture there on the sustainability problem of global food supply – that’s a good thing. Tell us, in one sentence: What is the solution?
Niggli: We have to achieve a sufficient culture of nutrition, that is, moderate our food consumption and eat more consciously. The question of where we can change something in nutrition and agriculture also electrified the students. You have made many suggestions, such as working more closely with government regulations, with advertising bans for meat, but also with temptation – for example with a creative vegan kitchen.
Agriculture is already unsustainable today – and the world population will continue to grow. Ms. Unmüßig, what do you think should be done first?
Unnecessary: The global middle and upper classes, in particular, eat excessively of meat, dairy products and eggs. The number one adjusting screw is to massively reduce meat production. Because we use 40 percent of the world’s arable land for animal feed. The second key is reducing waste. More than a third of all harvests are lost, on the fields, during transport or we throw food away in the garbage at home. If we stop these undesirable developments, then we do not have to expand agricultural areas and massively increase productivity – as is often claimed. Incidentally, we could already feed ten billion people today if food were distributed more fairly.
However, many people want to eat meat, which is a pleasure and often also a status symbol. Do you want to ban them?
Unmüßig: It is definitely about less, not about a ban. I totally agree with Mr. Niggli: It’s also about sufficiency. The restructuring of our agricultural and food systems must also be done democratically. We need awareness of how big the ecological footprint of our eating style is, through campaigns, through appeals. If clarification alone no longer helps, we must also regulate.
Photo: adobe stock
Reduce meat consumption and waste – Mr. Niggli, what do you think of these adjustment screws?
Niggli: I completely agree. The problem, however, is that from a global perspective, animal and thus soy production has continued to increase massively so far. The scenario that Ms. Unmüßig just described is also my plan A: that we are all good, sensible people and change our eating habits. But I’ve also developed a plan B – and opened myself up to a broader range of innovations in the event that we are not rational beings, that we react too late to threats. Not only towards social, ecological and institutional innovations – which are necessary in any case – but also towards technological innovations. We can’t help but use the best solutions from molecular biology, digitization and nanotechnology.
With organic farming, your big research topic, you often get the feeling that it is not very open to innovation.
Niggli: Organic farming is – rightly so, I suspect – resting on its 20th century innovations. The 19th and 20th centuries were characterized by petroleum, mining and chemistry. The organic farmers then came up with a revolutionary idea: an organic innovation. They wanted to replace chemical input with in-house processes, such as soil fertility and biodiversity. A tremendous achievement! But even if the EU is successful with its plans and we have 25 percent organic farming, there is still a lot left. I’m looking for solutions for this 75 percent. It takes a lot of technological innovation.
Needless to say, organic cultivation is a central element of sustainable agriculture. Because it is superior to conventional cultivation in terms of protecting the soil and preserving biodiversity. But of course we also have to ecologize conventional agriculture, for example with radically less use of pesticides and artificial fertilizers. Incentives are needed for this. It is fatal that the last reform of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) did not pave the way for this much-needed greening.
But they are not demanding that conventional agriculture become organic.
Unmüßig: No, organic should be retained as a special quality feature. High verifiable standards apply here, such as the absence of genetic engineering and synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. What we also urgently need: Valuable ecosystems such as forests, savannahs and moors must no longer be ploughed! I think conventional farmers would even be happy for a framework that doesn’t always make them look like the big destroyers. Because first and foremost they are creators: of life and food.
We see a lot of agreement between the two of you – especially when it comes to plan A. As far as plan B is concerned: Mr. Niggli, you wouldn’t rule out genetic engineering anymore, right?
Niggli: First of all, so as not to be misinterpreted: I do not advocate the use of genetic engineering in organic farming. Organic farming works very well according to its own laws. However, after 30 years of research in this area, I have simply seen that we are reaching an optimum. Above all, that we can no longer increase earnings any further. In recent years, I have mainly looked at global nutrition. And I came to the conclusion that the novel “gene scissors” Crispr/Cas is a very good breeding tool – and as such can be part of the solution…
… but which in turn could raise entirely new problems.
Niggli: I am convinced that gene scissors can achieve huge effects with very small changes. Exactly what you are looking for – be it disease or insect resistance or even water or drought stress resistance. And such a more resistant plant can also be placed in a very sustainable cultivation system. I don’t see why we should say here for ideological reasons: I don’t want to look at that at all. Let’s just take a look!
Useless: I’m going to raise an objection, Mr. Niggli. Yes, we are in the midst of massive climate change and therefore we need plants that are drought tolerant or can stand in water longer. But we don’t know when we need what. The unpredictable and the extremes characterize the climate catastrophe. Of course we need innovations in breeding – but they have to be able to deal with these risks. I don’t see that with Crispr/Cas. And we should integrate the local knowledge of the farmers, including that of the indigenous people. We can learn a lot there about how to deal with climate change, with drought, with extreme weather. Why do you think that Crispr/Cas provides better answers than traditional breeding methods?
Niggli: With organic farming, we simply can’t get out of this yield gap of 20 to 25 percent compared to conventional arable farming. In contrast to you, Ms. Unmüßig, I have done organic research for 30 years and also built up a large breeder group – we could not close this gap! And for the conventional farmers, I would rather have good breeding than more pesticides and nitrogen fertilizers.
Ms. Unmüßig, could gene scissors – provided certain rules are observed – be just one tool among many for you? Or do you categorically rule out genetic engineering?
Unmüßig: Well, I would first want to rule out genetic engineering – although in practice we already have a large number of applications of genetic engineering. For me, the criterion applies: Technologies must be recoverable. If I intervene in the genome, I can’t get that back. If we still use Crispr/Cas, we have to apply the strictest criteria for risk assessment. The precautionary principle must be fully applied. Apart from that, there is also the question of interest and power: In whose hands is genetic engineering research? Who uses it? In Germany, BASF and Bayer raise 50 percent of all funds for agricultural research. This shows that a large part of it flows into industrial innovations that do not necessarily have anything to do with fair and sustainable agriculture.
Photo: Adobe Stock
Mr. Niggli, let’s take a look back at the “old” genetic engineering that has been in use for years: Would you say that it has helped to make agriculture more sustainable?
Niggli: No. Almost everyone now says that the “old” genetic engineering was used completely incorrectly. The corporations have monopolized them, used them for their own purposes, and simplified the cultivation systems industrially. But that had less to do with genetic engineering as a technology and more to do with the economic framework – and by the way, not only the corporations benefited, but also the consumers who, for example, had cheap meat on their plates. Therefore, we must first discuss what kind of agriculture we want. And then in the next step, with which means and tools – maybe also with the tool of gene scissors – we want to reach them.
Unmüßig: And what makes you believe that the “new” genetic engineering will bring forward-looking, less profit-oriented agriculture?
Niggli: I think this technology is now so well established at state universities and research institutions that there will no longer be a monopoly by industry. Incidentally, I agree with you 100 percent: agriculture has a lot to do with knowledge, including indigenous knowledge. But science also has knowledge and creates new things. I don’t think scientists are lawless hara-kiri people.
Unnecessary: You hide the interest and power structures in the food sector. Monopolization in our food systems has never been as high as it is today. And who is responsible for the two billion people who are overweight, who consume too much sugar and too much salt? Big food companies that make a lot of money with such unhealthy food. Politicians must stop such undesirable developments that make people ill.
Niggli: Yes, I agree with you! Nutrition, agriculture, environmental protection, ecology, health – they all belong together. And we also need a policy that pulls in the same direction everywhere.
Sounds easier than it is.
Niggli: All in all, I can see that today there is again a huge interest in agriculture and nutrition, especially among young people. That makes me extremely optimistic: we will see changes. And absolutely in the right direction.