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Can organic agriculture sustain the world?
- 1. Can organic agriculture sustain the world? { Amelia Martens, AGCM 220 October 11, 2011
- 2. Sustainable?
- 3. Organic agriculture is… (or can be) more efficient. better for the environment. “trendy.” tied to conventional systems.
- 4. NINE BILLION
- 5. Current Production Methods More Fertilizer More Pesticides More Water
- 7. Efficient
- 8. Diverse
- 9. Yields
- 10. Agroecology Natural methods for increasing soil fertility and warding off pests.
- 11. “A lot of the stuff we do has a bigger impact on the environment than just not using Roundup.” Lisa Haynes, Tomahnous Farm
- 12. Sustainable… Conventional? Organic?
- 13. “It all comes down to choice.” DeAnne Bloomberg, Farm Bureau
- 14. Go Organic
- 15. “I want to promote an agricultural system that I value and believe in.” Deborah Cavanaugh- Grant, Extension
- 16. Trendy
- 17. An organic world… cannot be 100% organic.
Notes de l'éditeur
- Can organic agriculture sustain the world? What do you think? [Apple Example-Present an organic apple and a conventionally produced apple.] Here are two apples. Can you tell which of these is organic? Do you think consumers world wide would be “cool” with eating solely organic? Would you?
- Research presented by Badgley et al. proves that organic agriculture can contribute to a more sustainable production system (Badgley et al., 2006). But conventional farmers argue sustaining an entire population on solely organic food is impossible. The majority of production systems in our world are conventional. An increasing number of organic systems are integrating conventional methods (Dantsis et al., 2009).
- Arguments for organic food include that organic agriculture can be more efficient and that it is better for our environment. Arguments against organic production are that the organic movement is just a trendy cause and organic production is tied to conventional production.
- By 2050, the world population will be NINE BILLION. This means that world food production must increase by more than 5O PERCENT (Horlings & Marsden, 2011).
- Under current conventional production methods, we will need more fertilizer, more pesticides, and there will be an increased use of water in the years to come in order to produce enough food for the world. As long as we stick with these production methods, our water use will double by 2050, causing many to question whether this method of production is sustainable (Horlings & Marsden, 2011).
- People want something “more sustainable.” A “greener revolution.” A “greener revolution” could mean more organic farms. According to Horlings and Marsden, 2011 and Lappe, 2010, organic farms can be profitable and are capable of producing more food on less land (Horlings & Marsden, 2011; Lappe, 2010).
- With organic production, producing more food on less land is possible. Michigan farmer Rob MacKercher said that on an acre-and-a-half, he can produce 27 tons of organic food throughout the course of a year. He calculated that this is enough food to provide 150 families with one pound of food every day for a year! (Lappe, 2010).
- Organic production methods involve more diversity than conventional farms. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, “Diversity optimizes the competition for nutrients and space between species, so there is less chance of low production or yield failure in every species simultaneously” (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2011, para. 1).
- Organic production methods can increase yields, especially in traditional rain-fed systems in developing countries. In high environmental stress, organic agriculture has outperformed conventional agriculture systems (FAO, 2011).
- Agroecology is an agricultural production method that utilizes natural methods for increasing soil fertility and warding off pests. It is an alternative to conventional farming (Doyle, 2011).According to U.N. Special Rapporeur Olivier de Schutter, “Sound ecological farming can significantly boost production and in the long term be more effective than conventional farming” (Doyle, 2011, para. 7).The greatest benefits of agroecology can be found in “regions where too few efforts have been put in to agriculture,” de Schuttersaid (Doyle, 2011, Africa section, para. 1). So in places like sub-Saharan Africa, parts of Latin America and Asia (Doyle, 2011).
- Lisa Haynes owner and operator of Tomahnous Farm in Mahomet said that they do a lot more than just refraining from using pesticides. She said they develop buffer zones, work to control drainage, and try to protect the soil from erosion, utilizing agroecologicalpractices (L. Haynes, personal communication, September 29, 2011).
- Which is sustainable? Conventional or organic? Some will tell you both, because both can exist at the same time. The Council for Agricultural Science and Technology compared biotech, conventional, and organic soybean systems in July 2009. They found that all three production methods were environmentally sustainable (Charleston|Orwig, 2010).
- “A farmer in the United States can choose whether he wants to do organic, conventional, or both,” DeAnne Bloomberg said. Ms. Bloomberg, a county Farm Bureau manager, said that we don’t have to produce our crops completely from one method over the other because we can do both. It is ultimately up to the producer (D. Bloomberg, personal communication, October 1, 2011).
- But there is still a large push to go organic. According to Deborah Cavanaugh-Grant of the Illinois Extension, the organic movement started gaining momentum in the 1980s. In the 80s, the USDA began researching organic foods. During the past 15 years, the organic food market has really taken off, she said (D. Cavanaugh-Grant, personal communication, September 29, 2011).
- Many consumers like Deborah Cavanaugh-Grant are turning towards organic because of personal preference for pesticide-free foods (D. Cavanaugh-Grant, personal communication, September 29, 2011).
- More people are going organic because it is the “trendy” thing to do.Robert Paarlberg (NPR) referred to the organic movement as a “trendy cause,” arguing that Americans want their food to be “organic, local, and slow” (Paarlberg, 2010, para. 1). DeAnne Bloomberg, said that going to the local farmers market is like “a walk in the park on a Saturday morning,” calling it more of a tourist destination than anything else (D. Bloomberg, personal communication, October 1, 2011).
- Dantsis, et al. (2009) proved that organic farmers cannot raise their crops 100 percent organically. They rely on industrial inputs almost as much as conventional growers do. The only difference is that they substitute organic inputs for chemical ones (Dantsis et al., 2009). Even organic producer Lisa Haynes agreed saying there is no way the globe can go 100% organic (L. Haynes, personal communication, September 29, 2011).
- [Going back to the apple example, and showing the apples to the class again.] Oneof these apples is organic, and one of them isn’t. We are able to produce both, one organic and one conventional. Presently both systems are in use, sustaining our world’s population. There is evidence for both sides. Unfortunately, only time is the determining factor in whether or not organic agriculture can sustain the world.