Organic Pipe Dreams

Photo by Paula

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Organic Pipe Dreams

Forget for a moment the health claims controversy. Assuming organic is better, is it a feasible option for all? Craig Meinser in Cosmos explains why the price to pay for “whole foods” is too high for people in the developing world (via 3QD).

Why organic food can't feed the world

Craig Meisner in Cosmos Online

Recent studies have re-visited the idea that organic methods of agriculture would be sufficient to feed the world – but they are flawed because of naïveté about agriculture in developing nations.

CAN ORGANIC FOOD feed the world? A recent study, published in the journal Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems provides new data that suggests it can. However, I have some grave reservations about this prospect that are based on my experience as a scientist and my time living and working with real farmers in developing nations.

The authors of this study assume the major stumbling blocks to organic farming feeding the world are low crop yields and insufficient quantities of approved organic fertilisers. However, I have lived and worked in Bangladesh – as a professor of Cornell University, covering agricultural research and development – for the last 25 years, and I believe that even if these problems could be surmounted, using organic farming to feed the developing world remains a pipe dream.

Green Revolution

Bangladesh is the size of England and Wales together, but with a larger population of about 140 million people. It has achieved remarkable progress in its food productivity, even achieving self-sufficiency in flood-free years (currently we are experiencing a particularly devastating flood). The basis of the Green Revolution that saved South Asia was not organics, but the use of a dwarfing gene to stop rice and wheat collapsing when they flourished, coupled with chemical fertilisers and irrigation systems.

Despite the burgeoning population, the Green Revolution of the 1960s is continuing today in South Asia with an increase in the use of hybrid rice and maize, conservation agriculture, deep placement of nitrogen in rice paddies, and many other exciting technologies.

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