Sometimes, productivity is the problem

By Mark Buchanan

Much human activity is focused on the quest for efficiency - getting the most out of our resources so we can improve our standard of living. But what we perceive as efficient is often making us worse off in ways that are difficult for the human mind to grasp.

Consider, for example, the constant improvement of crop yields. On the surface, it's a classic illustration of Adam Smith's assertion that society benefits from individuals' desire to enrich themselves. The profit motive drives farmers to get more corn, wheat, and rice from their land, and companies to produce pesticides and herbicides to help them do so. As a result, agricultural production more or less keeps up with a growing population, averting a Malthusian famine.

This relentless pursuit of efficiency, though, has repercussions that humans are only beginning to understand. Researchers have found that typical honeybee colonies contain trace residues from more than 120 pesticides, which can interfere with the bees' immune systems, making them more susceptible to diseases. Bees also lack the nutrients they would normally get from flowering plants, which have been eradicated from single-crop fields. This may help explain why bee colonies, which can be crucial to crop yields, have been collapsing.

Fewer bees might also mean fewer birds. A recent study in the journal Nature reported that populations of insect-eating birds in the Netherlands fell faster during the 1990s in places with more pesticide pollution. It's likely an effect of the depletion of the insects, bees included, on which the birds feed.

Sometimes the conflict between efficiency and its unintended effects borders on the absurd, as in the case of a plant called Palmer amaranth or pigweed. The invasive "superweed" threatens U.S. agriculture, especially soybeans, corn and cotton. It grows fast and has developed resistance to herbicides, including Monsanto's Roundup, the most important herbicide in global agriculture.

The deeper irony is that the weed is edible and was once widely cultivated by Native Americans. It's very nutritious, containing more protein and other nutrients than common grains such as corn.

In other words, U.S. agriculture is killing off a valuable food source in its efforts to produce more raw material for the fast foods and sodas behind the country's obesity problem. The myopic focus on certain crops means that many farmers and businesses see no option but to use increasingly powerful and toxic chemicals, even though this will only further increase weed resistance.

Stories like these make lots of people angry and typically draw accusations of scaremongering. A climate-skeptic friend once told me that a big factor in his doubting of the science was that ultimately, it all made him feel guilty. It's painful to think that we are responsible, but guilt isn't a helpful focus.

Ecological disasters often have roots in ordinary human attempts to solve problems. Absolutely no one, I'm sure, wants to see bees or birds disappear, but we do have a limited ability to imagine or foresee how different facets of our world may depend on or influence one another.

I doubt we'll ever learn how to solve one problem without creating another. So we need a different approach that demotes efficiency as the only goal and pursues greater flexibility. If we can't know what will happen in the long term, we need to maintain a diversity of approaches and avoid getting locked in to any one crop or industry.

In farming, for example, lots of inspiring people are working to develop polyculture farms that grow a diversity of crops, including amaranth. The biologist Mark Winston has argued that allowing some land to go wild, which provides bees with a place to nest and forage, can actually boost productivity and profitability.

Better environmental stewardship won't always improve a farmer's bottom line. Sometimes the benefit will go to society as a whole. Which is why, despite Adam Smith's insights, we can't always count on self-interest to realize socially desirable ends.