Can Organic Farming "Feed the World"?

Having lived and worked on a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) which used Biodynamic farming practices I was astonished at how much food was grown on only 2 acres of land using no machinery and only a few hands. This transformative experience led me to question all the disinformation put forth by the Government/Agriculture industry. I believe now that we could indeed feed the world quite well using various organic agricultural practices. I believe we would then see a panoply of health benefits that at this point seem difficult to imagine as we have become so immersed in our carbon based food system. Here is an article I came across recently which was originally published in 2001 by the Univ. of California. It is a constant struggle to combat the disinformation put out by the Agri. lobbyists, this article may be of assistance. Link to the entire article is listed below. A few excerpts:

"Not surprisingly, agribusiness conglomerates and their supporters dismiss organic farming, claiming it produces yields too low to feed a growing world population. Dennis Avery, an economist at the Hudson Institute — funded by Monsanto, Du Pont, Dow, and Novartis among others — had this to say in a recent ABC News' 20/20 broadcast. "If overnight all our food supply were suddenly organic, to feed today's population we'd have plowed down half of the world's land area not under ice to get organic food ... because organic farmers waste so much land. They have to because they lose so much of their crop to weeds and insects." In fact, as a number of studies attest, organic farming methods can produce higher yields than conventional methods. Moreover, a worldwide conversion to organic has the potential to increase food production levels -- not to mention reversing the degradation of agricultural soils and increase soil fertility and health."
<snip>
"One of the criticisms of organic agriculture has been that there is not enough nitrogen available naturally, therefore only chemical fertilizers can provide adequate supplies to sustain current yields. This is clearly not the case as shown by both the Rothamsted and Rodale experiments, where manure-based systems can provide enough nitrogen not only to sustain high crop yields but also to build up the nitrogen storage in the soil. Animal manure is not in short supply by any means. EPA estimates indicate that US livestock operations generate one billion tons of manure per year; most of this is not utilized in agriculture, instead it leaches nitrogen and phosphorus into our waterways, thus threatening wetlands and river systems and in many cases drinking water supplies. Organic agriculture, and especially small diversified farms, could allow us to once again couple livestock production to crop production, thus cycling this valuable byproduct back into the soil and eliminating costly environmental degradation."
<snip>
"Federal commodity programs and subsidies are geared towards large-scale chemically intensive agriculture and artificially inflate figures for industrial agriculture. Furthermore, this type of economic comparison ignores external costs that conventional agriculture creates.A number of European nations have started to factor these expenses into their agricultural support programs. In several European countries, such as Denmark and Sweden, farmers get government support during their conversion to organic and continue to receive support for environmental services that they provide to their communities, such as wildlife corridors and the elimination of toxic runoffs which contaminate underground water sources. These programs helped foster an almost 100-fold increase in organically farmed land in Europe, from 29,000 acres in 1986 to 2.4 million acres in 1996. Similar programs in the U.S. could help the conversion of more farms to organic methods. These price supports do not have to be subsidies, rather a compensation to organic farmers for each of the ecological and social services that they provide."
"Even in the United States, the smallest farms, those 27 acres or less, have more than ten times greater dollar output per acre than larger farms (US Agricultural Census, 1992). Conversion to small organic farms therefore, would lead to sizeable increases of food production worldwide. Only organic methods can help small family farms survive, increase farm productivity, repair decades of environmental damage and knit communities into smaller, more sustainable distribution networks — all leading to improved food security around the world."
http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/~christos/articles/cv_organic_farming.html

I wager the sustainable carrying capacity of planet earth is about 2 bil.

We humans are too many, but I would hope for that soft landing and reduce our lifestyles and numbers ceremoniously. There are all sorts of options such as container gardening, permaculture, biointensive farming, etc. There certainly isn't an abundance of evidence to support my now and then belief that we can bring about these changes.

</sarcasm>

...for development during the past 40 years, we just might be able to get food production to a level where the world hunger could be arrested, but I doubt it. Solent Green may be the next answer for the green revolution of the 1950's and 1960's.

golf courses first!

...toxins golf courses create!!!! (from fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, anti fungus and mold poisons, etc.)

of land. I remember hearing a few years ago how many acres of land were being used for golf, and though I have forgotten, I remember being floored by the amount!

To the contrary, given the appalling WASTE exercised by the mere 250 million (more or less) of people in the United States,...there is great plenty to feed the rest of humanity.

...and consumer expectations.

I probably shouldn't have replied right now because I'm still in my office and have to leave soon, and this response probably needs to be more thoroughly developed. However, one point that I really want to make is that the organic/intensive farming paradigm is not really inconsistant with producing high yields, IMO, but it is inconsistent with the type of agriculture that industrialized nations practice on a scale sufficient to feed large numbers of people. THe difference is between agriculture that's based on intensive cultivation of lots of small farms and agribusiness that cultivates huge tracts of land. Imagine ramping up the practices you experienced to a 1000 acre soybean farm. Organic/intensive growing is labor intensive, while industrial farming is mechanized and energy intensive, and by its nature adapted to farming at those large scales. I think a shift to producing a significant proportion of agricultural output through organic/intensive means would require a major shift in the way we utilize land for food production, even more profound than the shift from non-organic to organic practices. Wholesale conversion of industrial farming to organic/intensive practices would involve a major change in farm labor, for example, at least if organic farms are to produce food at anywhere near the scale that industrial farms produce it. I'm not suggesting that isn't possible, but I do think it's unlikely or, as I said, much more difficult than the change in husbandry itself. Far more likely is an industrial farming collapse to much lower food production levels sustainable by smaller labor requirements, IMO, but that's another matter.

Think too of where much of the agricultural output actually goes. It's one thing to apply organic/intensive practices to truck gardens that supply produce to people, but quite another to apply them to industrial farms that supply cereals and other seeds, soybeans, or silage by the ton for feeding livestock, or pressing oil, etc. Or growing fiber.

OK, I've got to leave, and I haven't even scratched the surface of a full reply to your excellent OP. This is a topic that I've been involved with at least tangentially for several years. I hope this stimulates a lot of discussion-- there are lots of misunderstandings out there on both sides of the debate.

Organic Production Works

In the US, a 20% annual growth rate caused sales of organic produce to reach $8 billion in 2001; and incentives to farmers to go organic are offered in the 2002 Farm Bill, including cost sharing, and direct payments for conservation practices, such as longer crop rotations.

Scientists Kathleen Delate of Iowa State University and Cynthia A. Cambardella of the US Department of Agriculture assessed the agroecosystem performance of farms during the three-year transition it takes to switch from conventional to certified organic grain production. Strategies for lowering the risk of yield loss during this period have been researched, as productivity has been found to decrease initially when fertilizer and pesticide applications are withheld. But productivity generally improves in successive years under organic management to equal that in conventional farms. The study found that organic grain crops can be successfully produced in the third year of transition and that additional economic benefits can be derived from expanded crop rotation.

The experiment, lasting four years (three years transition and first year of organic certification), tested the hypothesis that organic systems relying on locally derived inputs are capable of providing stable yields while maintaining soil quality and plant protection compared with conventional systems with less diverse crop rotations and greater levels of external, fossil-fuel based inputs. The experimental design involved a completely randomized four replications of four different cropping system treatments.

The researchers looked at the effects of organic farming practices, including crop rotation, cover cropping, compost application, and non-chemical weed control on soil fertility, crop yield, and grain quality compared with the conventional system. They assessed pests and plant response under various crop rotations, and determined which certified organic drop rotations reduced the risks from low yield and improved soil properties and economic returns.

Organics performed as well or better

During the four-year period, corn yield in the organic system averaged 91.8% of conventional corn yield and soybean yield in the organic system averaged 99.6% of conventional soybean yield. By year three, there was no significant difference between organic and conventional yields; and both organic corn and soybeans exceeded conventional yields in the fourth year (the first year after certification).

More at: www.i-sis.org.uk/organicproductionworks.php


Food for Thought

Toby Risk visits a small, diverse and self-sufficient farm in Britain that means to set an example for the rest of the country

<snip>

Brian contacted ISIS a short while ago after reading the articles on the system of rice intensification (SRI) techniques developed in Madagascar (see "Fantastic Rice Yields Fact or Fantasy" & "Does SRI Work?" SIS 23) and invited us to visit his farm. He too claims to have increased his potato yield substantially by turning conventional seed planting ideas on their head.

After being regularly disappointed with his potato yield for several years, Brian adopted a new system of planting his seed potatoes, which also involves spacing the plants further apart. Instead of drilling a hole, and spacing each seed potato 15 to 18 inches apart in each direction, he now uses a sub-soiler. The sub-soiler lifts the earth as it cuts through the soil at a depth of 18 to 24 inches. As the main blade churns the earth below the surface, the shaft cuts channels, which are located six feet apart. The seed potatoes are then placed into this channel or row at 18-inch intervals. This method of spacing the plants further apart allows air currents to flow freely around the plants, preventing the likelihood of disease.

Brian claims that his potato yield has been transformed, and he is convinced that this system is far more effective than conventional ways of planting potatoes. He tells us that he gets more weight per potato; for the same weight, his bags are now only two-thirds full. Recently dug potatoes showed all the signs of a strong yield per plant and there was not a bad quality spud anywhere.

His concerns go far beyond that of a desire to increase his own potato yield. Brian believes everybody with a garden or allotment has a responsibility to use them to their potential and grow a portion, if not all, of their own food. In addition to the vegetables and other crops, and the usual animals for meat, milk, eggs and wool, they also have turkeys, and a pond with carp and ducks.

Over forty years, Brian and Jo have witnessed the intensification of large scale farming all around them. They have seen with their own eyes the increasing amounts of pesticides and herbicides being used, with no evidence that this has actually improved crop yield. Brian says that farmers he has met complain of needing increasingly more powerful equipment to plough the compacted soil of their fields. They also tell him that the earth is now so barren of life that birds no longer feed from the freshly ploughed soil. Brian is convinced that current farming methods are unsustainable. As for GM, it’s just taking the intensification one step further, with possibly even worse consequences.

www.i-sis.org.uk/FFT.php

What is ISIS?

The Institute of Science in Society (ISIS) is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1999 by Mae-Wan Ho and Peter Saunders to work for social responsibility and sustainable approaches in science. A major part of our work is to promote critical public understanding of science and to engage both scientists and the public in open debate and discussion. ISIS has been providing inputs into the GM debate that would have been conspicuously lacking otherwise.

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/about.php

More articles on sustainable agriculture from the Institute for Science in Society (ISIS) web site here:

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/susag.php