Low-Chem Agricultural Products Will Help Produce More and Healthier Foods in an Environmentally Friendly Way

My Mission and My Passion are yours too

As a campaigning journalist with strong views and interests in healthier, cleaner and more natural food I have been surprised to discover a kindred spirit.

I interviewed the CEO of a US-based biopesticides and low-chem yield enhancing products R & D company, currently the largest such organisation in the world , Marcus Meadows-Smith.

His stated aim is “to help farmers provide safer, healthier foods to consumers without compromising the quality of their land and ultimately the environment on which we all depend”.  Here he shares the passion that has driven him for more than 20 years.

A Very Personal Vision

The pressure on the environment and the growing concern about food scarcity and food security, particularly since the onset of the global economic downturn, are issues that affect us all.  The claim to “a passionate belief that everyone has the right to clean, quality food”, by which he means low or no residue foodstuff, appears to drive Marcus Meadows-Smith’s entire business strategy.

He has a 20-year track record working in the Crop Protection, Consumer Products, Crop Protection Products and the Public Health Pesticides industry Marcus Meadows-Smith believes in the precautionary principle.

“That means we need quality, organic or no residue, food and growers need the quality resources to achieve that.”

Meadows-Smith has seen malnutrition during his travels in Africa, has helped in the control of locusts in the 1980s and 90s. He has seen poor agricultural practice in the Soviet Union and the resultant devastated land. He once owned organic and conventional family farms in England so understands the economics of farming and food production.

As human knowledge of science has developed, he says, it’s become clear that some of the earlier chemical based fertilizers have been harmful to the land, the environment and to human health. Growers need cleaner, safer alternatives.

Increasingly regulators are delisting some of these older products, thanks to the pressure from consumers, and therefore retailers, to meet lower residue standards. The big agricultural companies now believe in and need alternatives like biopesticides and those companies are now the partners of the biopesticide innovators.

Their investment in this new technology will, he believes, lead to a revolution in the way food is produced.

Why biopesticides are a better alternative than growing organic

Meadows-Smith firmly believes that “biopesticides will replace older more toxic pesticides to help farmers increase their productivity/yield, control disease & deliver clean low/no residue food for everyone”. He goes on to assert that, “they’re better than organic because they have all the benefits of organic, such as no/low residue, clean, healthy food, but none of the disadvantages because they bring high yields, are more affordable and have a better environmental profile.”

These new products require a sound basis in good science, he argues. Today R&D scientists working in various disciplines, discover, develop, register and launch only those products that work.

His arguments are persuasive, “organic is a good lifestyle choice for those that can afford it, but because it is lower yielding it cannot feed the world’s growing population. Everyone should have the right and access to affordable clean, low/no residue food and that’s what I believe the new innovative biopesticides can deliver.”

About the Author

We’re told that the new biopesticides and other low-chem agricultural products will help produce more and healthier foods in an environmentally friendly way. In a world where environmental campaigning groups and commercial organisations alike have an interest in “selling” their message consumer journalist Ali Withers asks where can consumers and farmers get objective information?

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