It’s an ambitious goal, but Bhutan’s government thinks it’s possible: at the Rio 20+ climate conference, Bhutanese Prime Minister Jigmi Thinley announced that his country will become the first in the world to have a completely organic agricultural system. While in Rio, Thinley made a solid case for sustainable farming, pointing out that the earth loses 24 billion (yes, billion) tons of topsoil every year – and 30% of the world’s arable land is becoming unproductive because of erosion.

Thinley said his new “National Organic Policy” is especially important in Bhutan, where two-thirds of the population works in agriculture. “Humankind has the ability to feed everyone on earth healthily and sustainably,” he said. NPR took a look at the pros and cons of the debate and brought up an important issue: farmers that have depended on chemical fertilizers for years will probably not be happy to give them up so quickly. But experts say it is possible.

So will this tiny nation set a mammoth example for the rest of the world?

Photo Credit:
CC BY-SA 2.0: sprklg/flickr.com

The road from Santa Marta winds along Colombia’s Pacific coast to Bogotá. It’s one-lane traffic and the path is dotted with potholes. Massive trucks idle in impossibly long lines: tankers, timber trucks and hazardous material transporters all share the same road because it is the only one that takes them to their destination. The landscape along the ride, though, is beautiful: lush, green mountains line the road, carpeted with palm and banana trees as well as ferns. But the idyllic scenery has a darker side, too: here, FARC guerrilla fighters used the thick green canopy to hide kidnapping victims and hold them until they received ransom money in return.

Between the emission of methane (which traps more heat than CO2), deforestation for animal feed production, loss of biodiversity due to eutrophication, acidification, pesticides and herbicides as well as land degradation, 'factory farming' (the method through which most of the world's meat is produced) is considered more an earth pollutant than vehicles.

Scientists at the Medical University of South Carolina are now hoping these environmental concerns will lead to more funding for what they consider the food of the future: lab grown meat. The scientists have taken embryonic cells that develop into muscle tissue from turkey and bathed them in a nutrient bath of bovine serum on a scaffold made of chitosam to grow animal skeletal muscle tissue. In order to make the meat juicy, they are adding a vascular system so that interior cells can receive oxygen. The scientists say this will take the need for feed out of the equation as well as stop the clearing of land for the factory farms.

The scientist in charge of the product plans on calling the resulting food 'charlem' for Charleston engineeered meat. It's a thought that almost makes you want to become vegetarian.

(jhoff)

(Photo by ogondio)