More and more people want to buy organic produce for a number of reasons. There are valid concerns about pesticides, chemical fertilizers, GMO crops, and even the nutritional content in conventional agriculture. Organic farming offers an environmentally sustainable alternative to chemically intensive agriculture. On the other hand, there is a pervasive perception that organic farming simply cannot produce enough food to satisfy the world’s growing appetite.
Recently, there has been a comprehensive and systematic review by UC Berkeley researchers of 115 studies comparing organic and conventional farming. It focused in particular on the crop yields of farming methods.
The results were that the crop yields of organic agriculture are higher than previously thought and that there are a number of ways that the productivity gap between organic and conventional farming could be reduced further.
Overall, the yield difference came to about 19%, which is smaller than in previous estimates. In addition, if techniques such as multi-cropping (growing several crops together on the same field) and crop rotation are used, the organic-to-conventional yield gap could be reduced to as low as 8%.
It is important to realize that we already produce more food than we need. Eradicating world hunger primarily requires providing better access to the food that we grow. Furthermore, there are many other strategies that could be employed to make organic farming even more competitive. Given that conventional agriculture represents a growing threat to soils, water and biodiversity, this is an approach that should be pursued.
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Can organic crops compete with industrial agriculture?
Photo, posted September 30, 2006, courtesy of ILoveButter via Flickr.
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Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.