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Organic agriculture can feed the world

A large-scale switch to organic agriculture, could in fact, feed a growing world population while decreasing environmental destruction.

Later it became a luxury item for the wealthy. Now it’s about to be recognized as an effective way to tackle the world’s hunger and climate-change problems. A large-scale switch to organic agriculture could, in fact, feed a growing world population while decreasing environmental destruction.

That’s the conclusion of a new report by Danish researchers, presented at a UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) conference in May. If farmers in poverty-stricken areas switched to organic production to feed their own families and the local market, the report states, hunger rates in those regions would drop. The impact of this report could be dramatic, leading global organic production to double or triple.

Critics of organic agriculture (and even many supporters) believe it results in decreased yields. Niels Halberg, professor of agriculture at the University of Aarhus in Denmark and the head researcher on the report, says that is the wrong way of looking at the facts. Crop yields fall only when farmers cultivating fertile land in Western countries suddenly stop using chemicals. It’s a different story when farmers cultivate less-fertile land or use fewer artificial fertilizers and pesticides, especially in the developing world, where they can hardly afford chemicals in the first place.

“When these farmers learn to use organic methods using locally available resources, their crop yields increase,” Halberg says. He also points out that modern agriculture causes soil quality to deteriorate and depletes the land of essential nutrients, which inevitably leads to lower yields in the long run. “Over the next 20 years,” Halberg predicts, “organic agriculture crop yields may be further boosted by new insights and technological innovations, and will ultimately outstrip conventional crop yields.”

According to the report, the benefits of switching to organic would be greatest in sub-Saharan Africa, which, together with parts of southern Asia, is the area where hunger is the greatest and small farmers often grow crops for the global market. “It is an ironic fact,” Halberg explains, “that India exports food while many Indian households go hungry.”

Halberg’s study recommends farmers grow food for local markets, thereby helping decrease the distance food travels from the field to the dinner table. Shorter distances mean lower fuel consumption. “The strongest feature of organic agriculture is its reliance on fossil-fuel-independent and locally available production assets,” UN FAO official Nadia Scialabba writes in another report. At a time when the global spotlight is trained on climate change, this offers another compelling argument for promoting organic agriculture.

The FAO is now looking at organic agriculture as a way to fight hunger. According to Halberg, Western governments should earmark portions of their foreign aid funding to train farmers in developing countires in organic production. “Organic agriculture truly enhances the food security for poor people.”