Anyway, sitting at the IFAOM Booth at the COP15 (H-017F) I have been approached by many people who want to hear about yields and argue about the merits of a high input conventional system for the necessary yield increase for a growing world population.
My response, thus far, has been to report the fact that the world is already producing more than enough food to feed everyone - the problem is giving access to that food to the people who need it. Another argument has been to point out that the yield potentials of high input systems is based on the additions of resource inefficient and biologically hazardous chemicals. The pesticides and herbicides remove the potential for the farmer to harvest nutritionally important non-crop food sources. This is a big problem in a world where 1 in 3 people is a farmer and most of these farmers are marginalized people on degraded land and a tradition of gathering food in nature as well as from cropping systems.
After a short chat with Australian Water Lilly farmer and IFOAM World
Board member Andre Leu I have learned that the yield potential in organic systems in no lower than in conventional. Having a quick cruise around the web and a read of his 2005 work on the subject I can see that he has strong scientific support for his arguments.Have a look:
Andre Leu 'Organic Can Feed the World'
Science Daily 'Organic Farming Can Feed The World'
Christos Vasilikiotis, Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley 'Can Organic Farming "Feed the World"?'
Catherine Badgley, University of Michigan 'Scientists Find Organic Agriculture Can Feed the World & More '
Slow Milli Vanille http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQYwZdioa5o&feature=related
ReplyDeleteA quick repsonse would be a roaring YES. There is already a substantial research literature pointing to this, as well as saying that organic agriculture will be a neccessary contribution to the worlds food supply (Badgley et al 2007; Halberg et al, 2006; UNCTAD-UNEP, 2008).
ReplyDeleteA quick and simple answer to the consequences of a global conversion to organic production methods would be (FAO, 2011):
- In the industrialized countries organic production systems would lead to declining yields depending on the intensity of the conventional agricultures' use of external inputs such as pesticides and chemical fertilizers
- In developing countries, where the Greeen revolution' is dominating (access to irrigation and external inputs like in the industrialized countries) a conversion to organic would lead to yields almost the same as in the industrialized countries
- In developing countries, where the agriculture is depending on rain and a low input of external inputs modern organic agricultural production methods has led to increasing yields
However, organic agriculture can as little as conventional agriculture garantie a solution to world hunger. This is first an almost a question of accessibility to food, and this depends on income distribution and political actions directed towards abolition of poverty.
A discussion on world food production and the fast growing population is not a question about organic contra conventioanal agriculture. It is an oldfashioned and mistaken approach. In the years to come the question on sufficient food supplies will be related to how food is provided meaning:
What type of food systems can in the same provide healthy food under growing constraints in the energy supply and CO2 emissions as well as provide food under growing climatic extremes
The food system that will be fossil free and provide more food energy than the energy put into its system is the type of agriculture that shall prevail. In Denmark the Organic agriculture movement is working to be a fossil free food sector in 2025.
Likewise, there is tremendous amount of food that is being wasted along the food chains. UNEP (2009) has estimated that if the world waste is collected and utilized in a new green agro food industry the waste could be transformed and support the energy feed for 3 billion people and make the aqualture production increase with 50 percent.
Forget the classical supply side focus. It is for people who do not want to address the other issues demanding a more collective and political action