2. What is Organic Farming ?
Organic Farming is the production of crops and live stock without
the use of synthetic chemicals and inorganic fertilizers .
3. Aims for Organic Farming ?
✘ To maintain the long term fertility of the soil .
✘ To reduce the input cost .
✘ To effectively utilize the Natural Resources .
✘ To avoid all forms of pollution caused by agriculture techniques .
✘ To provide quality food stuff .
4. How Organic Farming Benefits the
Environment ?
✘ Organic farming can be profitable, and organic food
appeals to consumers as both a healthy and ethical
choice. Beyond money and ethics, though, organic
farming practices result in numerous environmental
benefits.
6. Reduced Exposure to
Pesticides and Chemicals
The Organic Trade Association notes that if every farmer in the U.S.
converted to organic production, we could eliminate 500 million
pounds of persistent and harmful pesticides from entering the
environment annually. Pesticide and chemical use results in many
negative environmental issues:
✘ Pesticides allow disease resistance to build up in plants, weeds, plant-eating-
insects, fungi, and bacteria.
✘ Pesticides and chemicals sprayed on plants contaminate the soil, water supply,
and air. Sometimes these harmful pesticides stick around for decades (maybe
longer).
✘ Synthetic chemicals also discourage smart farming practices such as cover crops
and crop rotation, which in turn, may cause other harmful environmental problems
like erosion.
7. Organic Farming Builds Healthy Soil
✘ To grow healthy food, you must start with healthy soil. If you treat the
soil with harmful pesticides and chemicals, you may end up with soil
that cannot thrive on its own. Natural cultivation practices are far better
than chemical soil management.
✘ A large nine-year study by USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS),
shows that organic farming builds up organic soil matter better than
conventional no-till farming.
✘ According to Dr. Elaine Ingham, just one teaspoon of compost-rich
organic soil may host as many as 600 million to 1 billion helpful bacteria
from 15,000 species. Ingham notes that on the flip side, one teaspoon
of soil treated with chemicals may carry as few as 100 helpful bacteria.
8. Combatting Erosion
✘ Not only does organic farming build healthy soil, but it helps combat
serious soil and land issues, such as erosion. A major study comparing
adjoining organic and chemically treated wheat fields showed that the
organic field featured eight more inches of topsoil than the chemically
treated field and also had only one-third the erosion loss. If you aren't
concerned about erosion; you should be. Erosion issues are extremely
serious, affecting the land, food supply, and humans. However, organic
farming practices do help discourage erosion from occurring.
9. Fighting the Effects of
Global Warming
✘ Rodale Institute Farming Systems Trial is America’s longest
running, side-by-side comparison of conventional and organic
agriculture. The trial, running since 1981, has shown that a
healthy organic agriculture system can actually reduce carbon
dioxide and help slow climate change. In fact, the Rodale
research shows that:
"If only 10,000 medium sized farms in the U.S. converted to
organic production, they would store so much carbon in the
soil that it would be equivalent to taking 1,174,400 cars off the
road, or reducing car miles driven by 14.62 billion miles.
10. Organic Farming Supports Water
Conservation and Water Health
✘ Dwindling water supplies and poor water health are very real threats.
When our water supply is at risk, people and the planet end up
suffering.
✘ American Rivers notes that a major water pollution threat to U.S rivers
is runoff from nonorganic farms, such as harmful pesticides, toxic
fertilizers, and animal waste.
✘ Organic farming helps keep our water supplies clean by stopping that
polluted runoff. Organic farming also helps conserve water. Organic
farmers, in general, tend to spend time amending soil correctly and
using mulch - both of which help conserve water. Cotton, an indemand
crop, requires a lot of irrigation and excess water when grown
conventionally. However, organic cotton farming needs less irrigation
and thus conserves water.
11. Discouraging Algal Blooms
✘ Algal blooms (HABs) result in adverse effects on the health of
people and marine animals and organisms. Algal blooms also
negatively affect recreation, tourism and thus, local and
regional economies. While there is more than one cause of
algal blooms, a primary human-based cause of algae blooms is
runoff from the petroleum-based fertilizers often used in
conventional farming.
12. Organic Farming Encourages Biodiversity
✘ In general, the more biodiversity there is on a farm, the more
stable the farm is. Organic farming encourages healthy
biodiversity, which plays a critical role in how resilient, or not, a
farm is to issues like bad weather, disease, and pests.
✘ Additionally, reduced biodiversity may directly correlate with a
rise in infectious diseases, which of course, isn't good for
people or the planet.
13. Supporting Animal Health and
Welfare
✘ Insects, birds, fish and all sorts of other critters experience
problems when humans swoop in and destroy their natural
habitat.
✘ Organic farming not only helps preserve more natural habitat
areas but also encourages birds and other natural predators to
live happily on farmland, which assists in natural pest control.
✘ Additionally, animals who live on organic farms are exposed to
clean, chemical-free grazing that helps keep them naturally
healthy and resistant to illness. As a perk for organic farmers,
happy and healthy organic animals are productive organic
animals.