Health: Organic Food

Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer Excerpts

Thursday 24th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer (LD)]

My Lords, I should remind the House of my interests as set out in the register. They include a farm and vineyard which are not run on organic lines but are run on agro-ecological lines. I welcome this chance to debate these important issues. However, I think that the way in which my noble friend has posed the Question rather extrapolates the research beyond what it claimed. The way the Question is posed suggests that health benefits have been claimed by this research, and I think that that is incorrect. What it claims is that there are higher levels of antioxidants in organic vegetables and that there are somewhat lower levels of pesticide residues. Others, including my noble friend, have extrapolated conclusions which go beyond this piece of research.

Here in the UK, I think that we have become quite complacent about the use of pesticides because we have a well regulated system and our farmers are very responsible in their use. But as someone who grew up in the shadow of the DDT crisis, I remain very aware of the dangers they can pose to our entire ecosystem. Nowadays we have endocrine disrupters which scientists agree are likely to pose a similar threat through inhibiting many species from breeding. That is the nub of the problem. The overuse of any of these manufactured pesticides can have effects that are so long term that it is hard for us to measure them in five, 10 or even 20 years. I can give a couple of examples from bananas, and of course they are from abroad where the use of pesticides is less regulated. Last year I was in Martinique, which is still suffering from the effects of the use of chlordécone, a pesticide that was used to control banana weevils. It remains in the environment for 700 years and it has now ruined the spiny lobster fishing grounds. Research published in 2012 in the Journal of Environmental Science revealed that psychomotor impairment is a result of contamination with that particular pesticide. Pesticides threaten beneficial insects too. I know that Defra is now involved in looking at neonicotinoids and the EU has chosen to impose a partial ban because of a link with the decline in our bee population. I think that there is a lot to worry about.

I agree with my noble friend that it is hard to prove what the benefits of antioxidants are. In fact, in 2004 the American Chemical Society, which is the world’s largest scientific society, undertook an enormous piece of research whose results were published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. The lead author of that 2004 study,

“cautions that total antioxidant capacity of … foods does not necessarily reflect their potential health benefit, which depends on how they are absorbed and utilized in the body. Researchers are still trying to better understand this process”.

That is still true 10 years on.

I am sure that my noble friend will remember that some years ago he wrote that,

“studies show that environmental effects depend on the style of management, not the system of farming. In general, integrated farm management achieves the best results”.

In that case he was quite right, but in this particular case he is wrong to shoot both the messenger and the message. We need an approach that recognises that every food and farming production method comes with a price. It may be, as the noble Viscount, Lord Ridley, said, that artificial fertilisers have enabled us to feed ourselves adequately. However—I am sorry this debate is not included in the debate of the noble Lord, Lord Plumb, because this issue has a big bearing on its subject—some methods of farming, including artificial fertilisers, are leaving a very heavy price to be paid by future generations. I point to soil quality in this instance. The lack of organic matter in the soil is now a significant concern to farmers throughout the world and certainly here in the UK.

I welcomed the NFU’s measured tone when it addressed the subject of my noble friend’s debate. It said:

“The NFU would welcome further research into any nutritional differences between organic and conventionally farmed food. If future research could prove that organic food does provide additional nutritional benefits to conventionally farmed food it would help strengthen the organic point of difference to consumers”.

To me, however, the organic movement is not primarily about my own health benefits. It is about the health benefits to the entire ecosystem and to future generations.