Product Description

A former agricultural specialist for the federal government, Avery argues that high-yield agriculture using chemical pesticides, fertilizers, and biotechnology is the solution to environmental problems not a cause of them, as environmental activists have found. Using high-yield methods for farming,

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #702824 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 475 pages

About the Author
Dennis Avery is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. Avery served as agricultural analyst for the U.S. Department of State where he was responsible for assessing the foreign-policy implications of food and farming developments worldwide. He has testified before Congress, appeared on most of the nation's major television networks, and now serves as the editor of Global Food Quarterly.

Customer Reviews

Good for a laugh
Avery tries to pass his chemical company advocacy off as science. If you are familiar with real science, you might just want to read this for the laughs. If you are looking for actual information, don't read this--it will only confuse you.

This is crazy
Pesticide is a poison. If you think spraying poison on our food is going to improve anything, you've got another think coming. Sustainable agriculture puts back what it takes from the environment. Factory farming pollutes our air, water and soil. According to a study conducted by the Department of Economics at the University of Essex , industrial farms cause $34.7 billion worth of environmental damage in the U.S. each year. True, there have been cases of E. coli bactiria, but the is the result of improper handling, using fresh manure instead of allowing it to decompose properly first. And it isn't only organic foods that were grown in maure. And non-organic food is also sometimes grown in manure. And the pesticides kill bugs, not E. coli bacteria.

Recent studies have shown that sustainable crops contain higher levels of nutrients, minerals, and antioxidants, including vitamin C, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, and polyphenols. Organic crops also have lower levels of certain toxic heavy metals. Better soil management (crop rotation, cover crops and composting) used in organic and sustainable farming helps enrich the soil and increase the concentration of vitamins and minerals in the plants. Chemical fertilizers, used on conventional, factory farmed crops, lower the nutrient content of the soil, increase the level of potentially harmful nitrates, and can contain certain toxic heavy metals which can be absorbed by the plants.

Pesticides are one of the most common toxic substances found in food. They can impair the immune system and cause diseases.

Pesticides can also affect the nervous system, endocrine (glands and hormones) system, immune system and reproductive system. Pesticides have been linked to Parkinson's disease, learning disabilities, hyperactivity, emotional disorders, weakened immune systems, and birth defects. Long after their use, pesticides remain in the soil and water. Despite being banned in 1972, DDT has been found in the breast milk of over 99% of all mothers in America. The American Association of Poison Control Centers estimates that in 2002, 69,000 children suffered from pesticide related poisoning or exposure to poisonous pesticides. According to Cornell entomologist David Pimentel, "It has been estimated that only 0.1% of applied pesticides reach the target pests, leaving the bulk of the pesticides (99.9%) to impact the environment."

I Fear For The Environment
The latest edition of Dennis Avery's book, "Saving the Planet with Pesticides and Plastic," was published in 2000, but given the green mania that is presently sweeping the Western world, it is still a timely and important work. As the author admits, the idea that pesticides and plastic will literally save the planet is just an attention-getting exaggeration, but he neatly pulls together the evidence from nearly all reputable researchers and official bodies in the fields of agronomy, soil science and ecology that pesticides, when properly used, present no significant risk to the environment or human health. Avery effectively makes the case for industrial fertilizers as a vital input to modern agriculture. He also shows how the growing practice of mass indoor feeding of livestock is both humane and enviromentally beneficial. This should be required reading for animal-rights activists and their urban sympathizers, though I doubt that nothing short of a religious conversion could ever change their minds.

One of the most important parts of the book is Avery's critique of organic farming. At one time, organic farming could be dismissed as a relatively harmless fad that serviced a boutique North American market. Now, eight years after this book's publication, organically-grown food is becoming a mainstream component of consumer tastes. The most serious failing of organic farming is its invariably mediocre crop yields. Avery (and other agricultural professionals) have calculated that in order to feed by organic and other traditional farming the projected 9 billion people populating the world in the mid-21st century, a land area equal to South America and Europe will have to be cleared off just to grow crops. You can kiss the Amazon rainforest and the North American temperate forests goodbye. The organic food movement, for all its endless declarations of environmental sensitivity and "sustainable living", is apparently incabable of grasping the irony. Organic farming is manifestly unsustainable in the real sense of the term, but as its alleged "sustainability" hardens into popular dogma all over the developed world, I fear for the environment the world's wilderness areas.