Organic farming can feed the world, U-Michigan study shows

[jpak]

http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=5936

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Organic farming can yield up to three times as much food on individual farms in developing countries, as low-intensive methods on the same land—according to new findings which refute the long-standing claim that organic farming methods cannot produce enough food to feed the global population.

Researchers from the University of Michigan found that in developed countries, yields were almost equal on organic and conventional farms. In developing countries, food production could double or triple using organic methods, said Ivette Perfecto, professor at U-M's School of Natural Resources and Environment, and one the study's principal investigators. Catherine Badgley, research scientist in the Museum of Paleontology, is a co-author of the paper along with several current and former graduate and undergraduate students from U-M.

"My hope is that we can finally put a nail in the coffin of the idea that you can’t produce enough food through organic agriculture," Perfecto said.

In addition to equal or greater yields, the authors found that those yields could be accomplished using existing quantities of organic fertilizers, without putting more farmland into production.

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[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Samuel L. Lewis was promoting this back in the 1950s

in his tour of countries in the Middle East. See "Meetings With Remarkable People" (think I've got the title right).

[Gregorian]

2. Thanks. I was a nonbeliever.

So I angrily know that petroleum products are not the solution we needed. Bastards. They pushed us to use chemicals after ww2. And it turns out we don't need them.
But I'll guarantee one thing- it'll be much more effort without chemicals. But well worth it.

[kestrel91316]

3. And far fewer farmers and farm workers sickened and killed by

toxics.......imagine the cost savings to society.

[NMDemDist2]

4. and fewer dead zones in our oceans from pesticide run off

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x104012

[kestrel91316]

6. The dead zones aren't so much from pesticide runoff. They are from

FERTILIZER runoff that causes eutrophication.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutrophication

[NMDemDist2]

7. organic gardening will help with that too won't it? n/t

[kestrel91316]

8. YES

[Gregorian]

5. And one of the ways in which we can wean ourselves from petroleum.

I hate to paraphrase, but it's hard work without petroleum.

Anyone who remembers what REAL tomatoes taste like will welcome the return to real farming practices.

[Dogmudgeon]

9. Hopeful, but ...

... nearly every similar report, and there have been many of them in the last year or so, have been entirely theoretical. Dr. Perfecto's work appears to be theoretical, too, but I have not found her original work. (Can whoever finds it first, post the link? And please be mindful that most papers are embargoed to prevent non-academics from reading them.)

On the other hand, it should take only 2-3 years to prove that intensive organic agriculture can outperform factory farming. We have at least a dozen world-class ag universities in North America and thousands of scientists, students, and individual farmers who still work their own land.

The next step will be the most difficult -- to implement these techniques throughout the world. I am not so concerned with the corporations as with the problems that led to low yields before the Green Revolution. Organic farming showed only scant potential in the 1960s. If we were wrong, or if there have been innovations in the last 40 years, this is the best time to make them.

Whether from universal poverty caused by a world-wide power-down or from the demands made by widespread famine, there will probably be many people who want to grow food in the coming several generations. The sooner we can prove it works, the better off we will be. And if we find that it doesn't work, we will have a few extra years to develop methods that do.

--p!

[jpak]

10. The Rodale Institute's org/con study is 23 years old and counting

http://www.newfarm.org/columns/research_paul/2007/0207/fst.shtml

Da fat lady done sang...

[IrateCitizen]

11. The Green Revolution has plenty of problems of its own...

One of the things about the green revolution is that it allows people to grow crops on extremely marginal land. And anytime in history that food production has gone up, population has always gone up in concert. That being said, if people living on marginal lands try to grow crops without significant chemical inputs, not to mention large scale dam-for-irrigation projects, chances are they will see a significant downtrend in agricultural output.

However, if we are indeed heading toward a fossil fuel peak soon (and I for one believe we are), then they won't have much choice. It sucks, but famine was always a spectre close at hand for all but the last 50-80 years for pretty much all of the world. Those areas that have experienced incredible population growth in marginal lands (I'm thinking of much of the Middle East right now) will be hit the hardest.

Then, when it comes to organic agriculture, we'd better be clear what we're talking about. I don't think it means simply growing vegetables without chemical inputs but still using the same monoculture on 200,000+ acre farms. It's more in line with the idea of permaculture, where food production is diffused throughout much more of society, and farms are much smaller and produce a wider variety of produce. In short, it is much more local and human than the current system.

Hoping for a world without hunger after petroleum-based agriculture is pie-in-the-sky thinking, IMHO. However, as Cuba has shown, it can be done in many areas without massive die-off or starvation.

[Trillo]

12. Perhaps this will add to the organic conversation

ran across it the other day...

As previously mentioned, the pit was fifty by one hundred feet, excavated to a depth of two feet, and it was especially designed to provide a great breeding bed for earthworms. Literally millions of earthworms inhabited the pit and compost heap. Each morning the barn was cleaned, the droppings for the previous twenty-four hours were transported to the heap by the dump baskets on the overhead trolley, and evenly spread over the surface. The building of the compost heap was an invariable daily routine of the farm work. A flock of chickens everlastingly scratched and worked in the barnyard, assisted by the ducks, gleaning every bit of undigested grain that found its way into the manure, and incidentally adding about twenty tons of droppings per year to the material which eventually found its way into the compost heap. The cattle and sheep grazed around the four straw stacks and bedded under the shelter of the stacks, adding their droppings to the surface and treading them into the bedding material. From time to time the entire barnyard was raked and scraped, the combined manure and litter being harrowed to the compost heap and distributed in an even layer over the entire surface. As the compost reached a depth of twelve to fourteen inches, several tons of the red clay from the border of the ice pond would be hauled in and spread in an even layer over the surface of the compost. Thus the variety of animal manures from horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, and fowl alternated in the heap with layers of the fine-textured clay, rich in mineral elements. Meantime, beneath the surface the earthworms multiplied in untold millions, gorging ceaselessly upon the manures and decomposing vegetable matter, as well as the mineral clay soil, and depositing their excreta in the form of castings -- a completely broken down, deodorized soil, rich in all the elements of plant life. From time to time as necessary (the necessity being determined by careful inspection on the part of my grandfather), the compost would be watered through the flume leading from the creek, thus being provided with the moisture needed to permit the earthworms to function to the greatest advantage in their life-work of converting compost to humus.
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