Can Organic Farming Feed The World?
The blazing banner of a media release (14-Nov-2017) by the Swiss-based “Research Institute of Organic agriculture” caught headlines all over the world as it made the claim that “organic farming can feed the world after all” (see also the scientific paper in “Nature communications”). In “Strategies for feeding the world more sustainably with organic agriculture”, agronomists led by Dr. Adrian Mueller claim that “a world conversion to organic farming can contribute to a comprehensive and sustainable food system, if combined with further measures”.
Public disenchantment over conventional agriculture.
The ordinary public sees conventional agriculture with a suspicious eye even though quite happy to demand the lowest prices for food and shop at box stores like Wall Mart and Costco. Everyone has heard of how the over use of DDT led to the famous “silent spring” documented by Rachel Carson in the 1970s. DDT killed the bad bugs as well as the good bugs! Richard Nixon, no friend of ecology loved the votes of the green movement and banned DDT in 1975. However, the public doesn’t know that after extensive study, the WHO approved the use of DDT for domestic use (e.g., against mosquitoes) while it remains banned for agricultural use. Nevertheless, many countries like India, Russia and China use DDT even in the agricultural sector. Tea imported from India contains surprisingly high amounts of DDT. Even the completely innocuous N, K, P fertilizer is unpopular with the public because of news about excess phosphate run off producing algae blooms which convert lakes to oxygen depleted dead bodies of water.
Glyphosate controversy and Russia.
Even very safe herbicides like glyphosate have come under the gun because of public suspicion that these “chemicals” are the cause of various chronic diseases including cancer. A recent (2014) classification of glyphosate as a class-II carcinogen by the International Agency for Research in Cancer (IARC) has been used by the “green-lobby” to demand the ban of glyphosate. They ignore that according to IARC classifications, motor-vehicle exhaust, red meat and sausages are more dangerous class-I carcinogens! The IARC merely indicates the health hazard level and not the health risk level. An excellent discussion of glyphosate by knowledgeable scientists may be found in the debate on “Roundup” (a commercial form of diluted glyphosate containing some additives like tallowamine), hosted by Steve Paikin on TV-Ontario. Interestingly, while Russia is a major producer of glyphosate, internationally it opposes gyphosate as a means of crippling European agriculture as a part of its globalanti-NATO political strategy.
The existing excellent safety and harvest records of conventional agriculture are ignored by the frightened by poorly informed members of public public who look for a “safe environmental alternative”. Hence the increasing interest on organic farming as an environmentally friendly alternative. But is it actually environmentally friendly, and is it practicable to feed the world using organic farming exclusively?
Organic agriculture.
Today only about 1% of the world’s food is “organic”. The huge claim by the Swiss research group is based on computer simulations projected to 2050. Although many of us ignore projections of complex systems that go beyond a few years, such studies reveal the assumptions made by scientifically well-informed but naive optimists. They can guide us to launch better, more practicable environmentally friendly approaches which are not inflexibly bound to irrational ideologies.
The ideology of organic agriculture is a close kin of belief systems that reject vaccinations etc., and insist on `natural cures’ and prayer for treating disease. The origins of organic farming in the West go back to “biodynamics” claims of Rudolf Steiner (1920s) in Austria. He claimed that agriculture must use “cosmic and telluric forces,” and established the lucrative certification of “bio-dynamic” products. The British Soil Association’s “organic agriculture” (e.g., Sir Albert Howard, 1940) advocates composting and a return to a “yeoman-farmer-based agriculture”. Certain agricultural practices distinguish “organic” from conventional farming:
1. a prohibition on chemical fertilizers and pesticides, plant and animal growth regulators, hormones, antibiotics, preservatives, etc.;
2. a prohibition on genetically modified organisms (GMO) and biotechnology;
3. a prohibition on soil-less culture (hydroponics etc.) while allowing greenhouse growing;
4. in animal production, to allow free-range practices, use organic feed, and limit animal density;
5. require farm conversion periods before any produce can be marketed as “organic”.
Many supporters of organic farming include social taboos and ethical aspects (e.g., humane treatment of animals) to the definition of organic farming.
6. Hence some organic farmers prohibit human excreta and urine in producing organic fertilizers.
The French aristocrat had his Chateau, private vineyard, orangerie, pommier and farm managed by his peasant subjects, together with his private forest for him to hunt “gibier”; this exemplified the highest manifestation of the organic farm in practice. In medieval times, a small handful of aristocrats all over the world lived the “organic life” while the others starved. Nevertheless, a strong driving force behind “organic agriculture” is the opposition to “big agro-business” latent in socialist activism, and a misplaced nostalgia for the small-farming communities of the pre-industrial world, often exemplified by the “weva-kumbura-gama ” (water-source, farm, community) concept.
