You’re in the supermarket eyeing a basket of sweet, juicy plums. You reach for the conventionally grown stone fruit, then decide to spring the extra dollar per pound for its organic cousin. You figure you’ve just made the healthier decision by choosing the organic product — but new findings from Stanford University cast some doubt on your thinking.

“There isn’t much difference between organic and conventional foods, if you’re an adult and making a decision based solely on your health,” said Dena M. Bravata, the senior author of a paper comparing the nutrition of organic and non-organic foods, in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

A team led by Bravata, a senior affiliate with Stanford’s Center for Health Policy, and Crystal Smith-Spangler, a Veterans Affairs physician fellow at the center, did the most comprehensive meta-analysis to date of existing studies comparing organic and conventional foods. They did not find strong evidence that organic foods are more nutritious or carry fewer health risks than conventional alternatives, though consumption of organic foods can reduce the risk of pesticide exposure.

The popularity of organic products, which are generally grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers or routine use of antibiotics or growth hormones, is skyrocketing in the United States. Between 1997 and 2011, U.S. sales of organic foods increased from $3.6 billion to $24.4 billion, and many consumers are willing to pay a premium for these products. Organic foods are often twice as expensive as their conventionally grown counterparts.

Although there is a common perception — perhaps based on price alone — that organic foods are better for you than non-organic ones, it remains an open question as to the health benefits. In fact, the Stanford study stemmed from Bravata’s patients asking her again and again about the benefits of organic products. She didn’t know how to advise them.

So Bravata, who is also chief medical officer at the health-care transparency company Castlight Health, did a literature search, uncovering what she called a “confusing body of studies, including some that were not very rigorous, appearing in trade publications.” There wasn’t a comprehensive synthesis of the evidence that included both benefits and harms, she said.

“This was a ripe area in which to do a systematic review,” said first author Smith-Spangler, who jumped on board to conduct the meta-analysis with Bravata and other Stanford colleagues.

For their study, the researchers sifted through thousands of papers and identified 237 of the most relevant to analyze. Those included 17 studies (six of which were randomized clinical trials) of populations consuming organic and conventional diets, and 223 studies that compared either the nutrient levels or the bacterial, fungal or pesticide contamination of various products (fruits, vegetables, grains, meats, milk, poultry, and eggs) grown organically and conventionally. There were no long-term studies of health outcomes of people consuming organic versus conventionally produced food; the duration of the studies involving human subjects ranged from two days to two years.

After analyzing the data, the researchers found little significant difference in health benefits between organic and conventional foods. No consistent differences were seen in the vitamin content of organic products, and only one nutrient — phosphorus — was significantly higher in organic versus conventionally grown produce (and the researchers note that because few people have phosphorous deficiency, this has little clinical significance). There was also no difference in protein or fat content between organic and conventional milk, though evidence from a limited number of studies suggested that organic milk may contain significantly higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids.

The researchers were also unable to identify specific fruits and vegetables for which organic appeared the consistently healthier choice, despite running what Bravata called “tons of analyses.”

“Some believe that organic food is always healthier and more nutritious,” said Smith-Spangler, who is also an instructor of medicine at the School of Medicine. “We were a little surprised that we didn’t find that.”

The review yielded scant evidence that conventional foods posed greater health risks than organic products. While researchers found that organic produce is 30 percent less likely to be contaminated with pesticides than conventional fruits and vegetables, organic foods are not necessarily 100 percent free of pesticides.

What’s more, as the researchers noted, the pesticide levels of all foods fell within the allowable safety limits. Two studies of children consuming organic and conventional diets did find lower levels of pesticide residues in the urine of children on organic diets, though the levels of urinary pesticides in both groups of children were below the allowable safety thresholds. Also, organic chicken and pork appeared to reduce exposure to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, but the clinical significance of this is unclear.

As for what the findings mean for consumers, the researchers said their aim is to educate people, not to discourage them from making organic purchases. “If you look beyond health effects, there are plenty of other reasons to buy organic instead of conventional,” noted Bravata. She listed taste preferences and concerns about the effects of conventional farming practices on the environment and animal welfare as some of the reasons people choose organic products.

“Our goal was to shed light on what the evidence is,” said Smith-Spangler. “This is information that people can use to make their own decisions based on their level of concern about pesticides, their budget and other considerations.”

She also said that people should aim for healthier diets overall. She emphasized the importance of eating of fruits and vegetables, “however they are grown,” noting that most Americans don’t consume the recommended amount.

In discussing limitations of their work, the researchers noted the heterogeneity of the studies they reviewed due to differences in testing methods; physical factors affecting the food, such as weather and soil type; and great variation among organic farming methods. With regard to the latter, there may be specific organic practices (for example, the way that manure fertilizer, a risk for bacterial contamination, is used and handled) that could yield a safer product of higher nutritional quality.

“What I learned is there’s a lot of variation between farming practices,” said Smith-Spangler. “It appears there are a lot of different factors that are important in predicting nutritional quality and harms.”

Other Stanford co-authors are Margaret Brandeau, the Coleman F. Fung Professor in the School of Engineering; medical students Grace Hunter, J. Clay Bavinger and Maren Pearson; research assistant Paul Eschbach; Vandana Sundaram, assistant director for research at CHP/PCOR; Hau Liu, clinical assistant professor of medicine at Stanford and senior director at Castlight Health; Patricia Schirmer, infectious disease physician with the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System; medical librarian Christopher Stave; and Ingram Olkin, professor emeritus of statistics and of education.

The authors received no external funding for the study.

Michelle Brandt is the associate director of digital communications and media relations at the Stanford School of Medicine.

The United States continues to endure the worst drought to hit the country in over 50 years. Although conditions have improved, 53 percent of the US is still experiencing moderate or worse levels of drought. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) projected last week that the drought will reduce the nation’s corn yield by 13 percent and soybean yield by 12 percent. As the world’s largest exporter of corn, soybean and wheat, this major disruption in U.S. supply is already having an impact on global food prices.

Is this summer a glimpse of what our future could look like under a changing climate, and what does that mean for the world’s poor who are disproportionately impacted by volatile food prices? What policy options are available to help avoid a repeat of the 2007-2008 food crisis? I sat down with FSE visiting scholar Thomas Hertel, an agricultural economist from Purdue University, to discuss these questions and related research as he wraps up his sabbatical year here at Stanford.

 

DEAN: The current drought has already had a dramatic impact on US corn prices, exceeding record highs of $8 a bushel. While American consumers are unlikely to feel the impacts until next year, the spike in corn prices has sparked debate over whether to drop or temporarily suspend US ethanol mandates to free up supply and ease the pressure on world food prices. In April, you published a paper in Nature Climate Change with Stanford environmental scientist Noah Diffenbaugh that looked at this very scenario.

How are current biofuel policies affecting the market’s ability to respond to extreme weather events like the current drought?

HERTEL: The remarkable thing about that paper is how timely it was. We predicted a volatile interplay between an extremely hot summer and the Renewable Fuel Standard for corn ethanol, and that is what we are now seeing, with the value of the mandates’ Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs) accruing greater value as the drought deepens. There are increasing calls for a waiver of the mandated 13.2 billion gallons of corn ethanol needed to meet this year’s federal renewable-fuel standards. This new source of demand (about 40 percent of production last year) has absorbed virtually all of the increased output the US has generated over the past eight years. By limiting the ability of commodity markets to adjust to yield fluctuations, biofuel mandates work in exactly the wrong direction. These price spikes are likely to be even larger in the future if these policies are not altered.

 

DEAN: In that same paper you warn that extreme weather events, like the current drought, are likely to become more common and potentially even more intense under a changing climate. To better understand the impacts of climate change on global agricultural production, trade, prices and poverty you have developed a global trade analysis model (GTAP), now used by over 10,000 members. Some of those results were published in a 2010 paper with FSE fellow David Lobell and FSE affiliated researcher Marshall Burke.

What have been some of the most interesting findings to come out of that model?

HERTEL: Prior to the publication of our 2010 paper in Global Environmental Change, most studies of climate change and poverty focused on the likely impact on prices and low income food consumers. Our paper was one of the first to examine the impact on wages and farm incomes. We found that low income farm households in regions of the world that are relatively less hard hit by climate change may actually benefit from the ensuing rise in world prices. Of course, low income consumers worldwide, as well as farmers in the regions hardest hit by climate change, such as Southern Africa and South Asia, will be hurt.

 

DEAN: Poor households in developing countries spend a disproportionately large amount of their disposable income on food. Even small price spikes can have a large impact.

What policies are needed to help protect the world’s poorest from price volatility?

HERTEL: This is an important question. Being a trade economist, I think immediately of trade policies and their role in improving or worsening the situation. From a global perspective, the best thing that can be done is for all regions of the world to share in the needed adjustments to events like the US drought of 2012. If all countries were to adjust their corn use by just a modest  amount, the shortfall could be accommodated more easily. However, the evidence from the 2007-2008 commodity crisis suggests that many countries – most notably India and China – responded to the crisis by adjusting border policies so as to shield domestic consumers from the price rise, thereby failing to share in the adjustment. This, in turn, made the world price rise larger and worsened the situation for low income households in other developing countries.

 

DEAN: In addition to focusing on climate change impacts on agriculture and poverty, you have a long-standing interest in agricultural impacts on the environment, and the role economics can play in mitigating agriculture’s destructive planetary impacts. The latter is particularly important given that agricultural production accounts for 70 percent of global freshwater consumption, 38 percent of total land use, and 14 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

How are economic forces impacting the kind of farming we see today?

HERTEL: One of agriculture’s most important impacts on the environment has been its contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs). Farming accounts for a disproportionate share of GHGs, including nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizer applications, methane emissions from livestock and paddy rice, as well as indirect emissions from the conversion of tropical forests to agricultural uses. There is little doubt that the globalization of agriculture has contributed to an acceleration of land conversion in some regions which had previously been insulated from world markets. New agricultural technologies offer great hope for moderating such GHG emissions – both by reducing the emissions intensity of agricultural production and by reducing the total amount of land required to feed the world. And there is evidence that more rigorous enforcement of restrictions on land conversion in places like the Amazon can have a tangible impact on global emissions. So the answer lies in a combination of investments, regulations and enforcement. We have explored the potential for agriculture and land-based mitigation policies to contribute to reduced GHG emissions – as well as the implications for food security – in a joint project with the UN-Food and Agriculture Organization. These findings are forthcoming in a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

 

DEAN: While at Stanford, you have had the opportunity to work closely with climate and earth system scientists to conduct research on the energy-water-land-agriculture-climate nexus under the umbrella of John Weyant’s Integrated Assessment Modeling (IAM) project and with former Purdue colleague, Noah Diffenbaugh.

How did you enjoy working in such an interdisciplinary environment?

HERTEL: This was the first deeply interdisciplinary experience of my career and it was both challenging and rewarding. Noah is the person who first stimulated my research interest in climate change five years ago. The idea that extreme events could have an important impact on agriculture, food prices and poverty is something that we have been exploring intensively since that time. However, it was only in the context of this sabbatical—with the help of Martin Scherer and Monika Verma—that we were able to really get our teeth into the issue, resulting in the April paper.

 

DEAN: You also taught an interdisciplinary graduate seminar with FSE fellow David Lobell on global agricultural land use change in 2050.

What sort of lessons did you learn from teaching an interdisciplinary seminar?

HERTEL: I really enjoyed the opportunity and the challenge of teaching an interdisciplinary course. I was fortunate to work closely with David Lobell in designing this course, as the structure was different from the typical economics course which I have taught in the past. Teaching the course also changed my perspective on which research questions are most important. Sometimes the points that most intrigue economists are of little broader relevance, while some of those issues which seem obvious to economists are deserving of much greater attention, more thorough investigation and better communication to the broader scientific community. I plan to offer this course when I return to Purdue, and I am also planning to write a textbook based on this course.

 

DEAN: You have also been working on the launch of an open source data program called GEOSHARE (Geospatial, Open-Source Hosting of Agriculture, Resources and Environmental Data).

What does GEOSHARE do and why is it needed?

Hertel: Feeding 9 billion people in 2050 in the face of a changing climate, while preserving the environment and eliminating extreme poverty, is one of the most important challenges facing us today. Yet the data currently available to understand how global and local phenomena affect the agriculture-environment-poverty nexus are insufficient to advance needed discovery and enable effective decision making. In order to address this limitation, we have initiated GEOSHARE. During my time at Stanford I was able to finalize funding for a two-year pilot effort aimed at providing proof of concept. It will prototype this freely available, global, spatially explicit database which will be accompanied by analysis tools and training programs for new scientists, decision makers, and development practitioners.

 

What will you take away with you from your time spent here on the Farm?

HERTEL: I greatly enjoyed my colleagues and conducting research, auditing courses (including a course in Geographical Information Science and David Lobell’s course in Climate and Agriculture) and teaching. But I also had great fun cycling and hiking in the hills around Palo Alto, windsurfing, singing in a local choir, and partaking of all that San Francisco has to offer. This is a lovely place to spend a sabbatical leave!

The University of Tokyo, the National University of Singapore, and numerous other Asian higher education institutions appear in the annual worldwide rankings of top universities.

Education, so closely linked to economics, is an increasingly global competition in the digital information age. Many Asian policymakers are now pushing for higher education reform—and not merely as a matter of academic prestige. They believe strong, innovative higher education systems will pave the way for their countries’ future economic and political strength.

Looking comparatively at situations across Asia and in the United States, the Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogue considered possible solutions to the challenges of reforming higher education today. This annual event, the fourth since Shorenstein APARC established the Dialogue series in 2009, took place September 6 and 7 in Kyoto. It concluded with a public symposium and reception at the Kyoto International Community House.

In an interview before the event, Gi-Wook Shin, director of Shorenstein APARC, spoke about the mission and history of the Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogue, and about the significance of this year’s theme.

From where did the idea for the Dialogue originate, and what makes Kyoto an ideal location for the event?

The Dialogue is dedicated to establishing ongoing policy-oriented conversations between the countries of the Asia-Pacific region. For several years, my Shorenstein APARC colleagues and I envisioned having an annual forum in Asia where scholars and practitioners from the United States and Asia could come together. The Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogue, established in 2009, represents that vision.

Forums on Asia-Pacific regional issues have historically taken place in the United States, but seldom actually in Asia. The Dialogue is about engaging and learning from multiple perspectives—it is not a one-way conversation. Each year, we identify an issue of major significance to the entire Asia-Pacific region, including such themes as: energy and the environment; regional political structures; and demographic change.

Kyoto, the home of the Stanford Japan Center (SJC), offers the perfect setting. Stanford and Kyoto have enjoyed a close relationship since SJC was founded in 1989, and Kyoto is both a beautiful and an international city.

Who are some of the experts who will be participating this year, and why will the issue of reforming higher education become increasingly important in the coming decades?

One of the Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogue’s strongest features is the participation of both academics and practitioners in the conversation. We exchange views with one another, but we also seek to make a positive policy impact in our respective countries.

This year, we have several top-level academic administrators involved in the Dialogue, including current or former university presidents, vice presidents, and provosts. We also have officials who are involved in government-level higher education reform. These are some of the key people who are helping to shape the future of higher education in the United States and Asia.

Reforming higher education has become a major issue in many countries in Asia, especially Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Japan. This is related in part to global economic competition, and also to academic prestige. These countries often look to American colleges for a model, but there are many lessons to be found within Asia itself. The Asia-Pacific region abounds with higher education institutions, from those that are only a few decades old to those that are a century or older.

How does the Dialogue help Shorenstein APARC stay connected with its friends and alumni in Asia? 

Former visiting scholars and fellows to Shorenstein APARC take part each year in the Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogue. Some of our donors even attend. We are fortunate to have a large network of alumni and friends throughout Asia, including scholars, researchers, government officials, business executives, non-profit leaders, lawyers, and journalists.

We conclude each Dialogue with a public symposium and reception at the Kyoto International Community House, which a number of our Corporate Affiliates Program alumni always attend. This year, in conjunction with the Dialogue, we are also holding a reception in Tokyo. We are looking forward to reconnecting with a large number of our Shorenstein APARC friends and alumni living in Japan.  

The annual Stanford Kyoto Trans-Asian Dialogue is made possible through the generosity of the City of Kyoto, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, and Yumi and Yasunori Kaneko.

In a piece for the Stanford Daily, Nadejda Marques, manager of the Program on Human Rights at the CDDRL, writes about Canada’s new anti-immigration rules targeting temporary foreign workers in sex trade-related jobs said to address the problem of sex trafficking. According to the author, the measures fail to address the root causes of human trafficking and practices that facilitate and tolerate gender-based discrimination and violence. Canada’s humanitarian tradition should instead focus on a combination of prevention, criminal prosecution, victim protection and financial compensation for the trafficking crimes committed against them.

Canada’s new anti-immigration measure and human trafficking On Wednesday, July 4, Canada’s immigration minister, Jason Kenney, announced new immigration rules targeting temporary foreign workers in sex trade-related jobs. The measures target strip clubs, escort services and massage parlors, which will no longer have access to temporary foreign workers. This might be an important and timely step toward preventing human trafficking, and through measures viewed favorably by most governments: legislation and policy that tightens immigration.

But critics of the measure believe it discriminates against sex workers and pushes foreign dancers and potential victims into a more vulnerable situation.

Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) was created to fill immediate skills and labor shortages when Canadians and permanent residents are not available. The TFWP supports economic growth by recruiting foreign workers into lawful occupations and regulating employer and worker compliance. The program also monitors working conditions and salaries. But according to the findings of the joint program of two Canadian agencies — the Criminal Intelligence Unit of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Human Trafficking National Coordination Center — organized crime networks have been exploiting these temporary visas to facilitate the illegal entry of foreign women to work in escort services, exotic dance clubs, massage parlors and even residential brothels that may operate as legitimate businesses. As such, according to the Canadian authorities, restricting visas for work in these fields will address the problem of sex trafficking in Canada.

If these women face the risk of sexual exploitation, and if denying them visas will keep them away from unscrupulous employers, then the new regulations should be cause to celebrate. Unfortunately, there is reason to doubt their efficacy. The main issue that needs to be confronted is not immigration status but rather the problem of differentiating between workers who are exploited and those who are not. While the identification of human-trafficking victims among sex workers may be difficult for law enforcement authorities, identifying control tactics employed by traffickers to retain victims in exploitative situations is not. Such tactics include isolation from workers’ social networks, forcible confinement, withholding of identification documents, imposition of strict rules, limitation of movement, threats, force, coercion, deceit and violence. All these practices committed against any individual are unacceptable. While they may strike many as useful (while scoring points with those opposed to liberal immigration policies), the new measures also fail to address the root causes of human trafficking and dodge a painful reality that most Canadians, and elected authorities as well, would like to avoid: the fact that Canada, like many other countries, is rife with structures and practices that facilitate and tolerate gender-based discrimination and violence. Effective measures to curb human trafficking must address the attitudes and actions of the public, civil society organizations, state authorities and businesses. In addition, it is also a mistake to think that Canada can solve the problem of human trafficking on its own. Human trafficking is a problem that requires international coordination and cooperation. Among its causes, human trafficking is fueled by poverty, income inequality and marginalization within and among nations.

Government responses to human trafficking should include a combination of prevention, criminal prosecution and victim protection. For instance, governments should promote initiatives to enhance economic and educational opportunities for potential victims of trafficking. Governments should provide victims services for their protection, reintegration and rehabilitation, and they should allow for effective investigation and prosecution. Very often, trafficked persons do not report abuse to authorities because they fear detention or deportation. Governments can also ensure that victims have access to the legal redress necessary to obtain financial compensation for the trafficking crimes committed against them, a cutting-edge approach worthy of Canada’s humanitarian tradition. In sum, anti-trafficking action requires more than partial measures that, conveniently, promote anti-immigration discourse.

Nadejda Marques is the manager of the Program on Human Rights at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University. She coordinates the program’s research and activities on human trafficking that focus on policy recommendations to better address the multiple dimensions of human trafficking.

From Shanghai to São Paulo, people around the world are living longer than ever, challenging long-held ideas about retirement and well-established national retirement systems. Stanford health economists Karen Eggleston and Victor R. Fuchs offer an innovative view of the global aging phenomenon in an article published recently in the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

Drawing on a century of demographic data from 17 countries, Eggleston and Fuchs show that the share of increases in life expectancy realized after age 65 was only about 20 percent at the beginning of the 20th century but close to 80 percent by the dawn of the 21st century. Expected lifetime labor force participation as a percent of life expectancy is now declining. Eggleston and Fuchs share four interrelated responses to the economic and social challenges posed by this “new demographic transition:”

• Increase the retirement age.
• Encourage savings.
• Strengthen education.
• Emphasize healthy lifestyles early to ensure productivity in old age.

Eggleston is director of the Asia Health Policy Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. Fuchs is Henry J. Kaiser, Jr., Professor Emeritus, in Stanford’s Department of Economics and Department of Health Research and Policy, and a senior fellow at FSI and SIEPR.

Of the four policy responses the article proposes, is one especially critical?

Fuchs: The most important solution in terms of its potential impact would be people changing their attitudes toward retirement. This would mean people postponing retirement and saving more during their working years. If you work five years longer, for example, you would have greater savings and a shorter period of time when you would need the money.

Eggleston: We tend to think of the solutions as being interrelated. To address this longstanding and inevitable global demographic transition, organizations and policy structures need to support changes in individual behavior. In the case of the retirement age in the United States and European countries, policymakers need to change the many incentives that encourage people to retire younger.

What do you most hope policymakers will take away from the article?

Fuchs: We hope they will recognize the absolute need for individuals and organizations to plan for later retirement.

What are the special challenges faced by China and India, the world’s largest populations?

Eggleston: Longer lives in China and India contribute to improved human development, yet population aging also brings special challenges. China’s population is aging more rapidly than India’s and both countries need to invest more in the education and health of their young people, especially in poor rural areas.

In India, nutrition and education will help to reap a one-time boost to economic growth if the large cohorts of the working age population can be productively employed, while building a foundation for sustained improvement of living standards. China’s youth need to be as productive as possible to support the elderly while continuing to improve the national living standard.

The coming decade will be crucial in China, as the country transitions into a new economic phase and expands its fledging social protection system. The goal should be to ameliorate disparities and protect the vulnerable, while maintaining a financially sustainable and culturally appropriate balance of government and family responsibility for old-age support.