Organic Iceland ZR
Post on: 2011-09-05 By: admin
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Physicist and environmental activist Vandana Shiva, who was last in Iceland in late 2008 to receive the LennonOno Peace Prize for her work towards peace and environmental protection, argued that a transformation to “a green Iceland” could be realized with relatively little work.
However, she emphasized that errors of the past would need to be prevented from reoccurring. Though she didn’t specify which errors, she also voiced her opinion on the aluminum smelting industry in Iceland.
Shiva echoed others in highlighting the importance of Iceland not focusing on a sole industry, and not to “allow greenwash for a dirty industry,” referring to the aluminum industry’s use of green energy in Iceland.
While in Iceland, Shiva met with local politicians, scientists, academics and farmers. During her speech in Háskólabíó in Reykjavík on Monday, she also spoke about the possibility of an organic and GMO (genetically modified organisms) free Iceland and that Iceland could set an example for Northern Europe.
But is Iceland on the right path to fulfilling these aims?
Earlier this year, Oddný Anna Björnsdóttir of the Green April campaign explained that it was a mistake to assume Icelandic agriculture was without its faults.
“Icelanders have fallen into the same trap with agriculture as they did with many other environmental issues in the past: the assumption that a small nation of people living in a large and unpolluted country automatically means that serious environmental/agricultural problems do not exist in Iceland,” she argued.
And this is something that I’ve thought a lot about. I’ve often heard people speak about the purity of the food in Iceland and wondered how much truth there is to this statement.
I am yet to visit a farm (organic or otherwise) in Iceland so I can’t say I’ve seen agricultural production in the country first hand.
I have interviewed vegetable growers about their cultivation methods, though, and been told that they don’t use pesticides, and while not certified claim that they are “almost organic.”
But, according to Bíóbú, an Icelandic company specializing in organic dairy products, Iceland imports 60,000 tons of artificial fertilizer each year.
Although, even at their worst, conditions are unlikely to resemble the type and scale of industrial farming in the United States highlighted in documentaries like Food Inc., it seems there is still a lot of room for improvement.
With only 0.9 percent of farmers in Iceland practicing organic farming, many more would need to convert to a more chemical-free and sustainable way of agriculture if the country is to become the “Organic Iceland” Shiva proposed.
By Zoë Robert – zoe_robert3@hotmail.com
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