{"id":72593,"date":"2017-12-08T16:21:29","date_gmt":"2017-12-08T23:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=72593"},"modified":"2017-12-08T16:21:29","modified_gmt":"2017-12-08T23:21:29","slug":"can-organic-farming-feed-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2017\/12\/08\/can-organic-farming-feed-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Organic farming feed the world?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Chandre Dharmawardana, Canada.<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

The blazing banner\u00a0 of a media release (14-Nov-2017)\u00a0 by the Swiss-based\u00a0 Research Institute of Organic agriculture\u201d\u00a0 caught\u00a0 headlines all over the world as it made the claim that organic farming can feed the world after all\u201d (see also the scientific paper in Nature communications\u201d).\u00a0 In Strategies for feeding the world more sustainably with organic agriculture\u201d, agronomists\u00a0 led\u00a0 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\u201d.<\/p>\n

Public disenchantment over conventional agriculture.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u201d 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\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Even the completely innocuous N, K, P fertilizer is unpopular\u00a0 with the public because of news about excess phosphate run off producing algae blooms which convert lakes to oxygen depleted dead bodies of water.<\/p>\n

Glyphosate controversy and Russia.<\/strong>
\nEven very safe herbicides like glyphosate have come under the gun because of public suspicion that these chemicals\u201d 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\u201d to demand the ban of glyphosate. They ignore\u00a0 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\u00a0 risk level. An excellent discussion of glyphosate by knowledgeable scientists may be found in the debate on “Roundup”\u00a0 (a commercial form of diluted glyphosate containing some additives like tallowamine), hosted by Steve Paikin on TV-Ontario (https:\/\/tvo.org\/video\/programs\/the-agenda-with-steve-paikin\/the-last-roundup-debate<\/a>). Interestingly, while Russia is a major producer of glyphosate, internationally it opposes gyphosate as a means of crippling European agriculture\u00a0 as a part of its global anti-NATO political strategy (see https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cItuOUp15Yw<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The\u00a0 existing excellent safety and harvest records of conventional agriculture are ignored by the frightened but ipoorly informed members of public public who look for a safe environmental alternative\u201d. 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?<\/p>\n

Organic agriculture.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today only about 1% of the world’s food is organic\u201d. The huge claim by the Swiss research group is based on computer simulations projected to 2050. Although many of us\u00a0 ignore projections of complex systems that go beyond a few years,\u00a0 such studies reveal the assumptions\u00a0\u00a0 made\u00a0 by scientifically well-informed but naive\u00a0 optimists.\u00a0 They can guide us to launch better, more practicable environmentally friendly approaches\u00a0 which are not inflexibly bound to irrational ideologies.<\/p>\n

The ideology of organic agriculture is a close kin of belief systems that reject vaccinations etc.,\u00a0 and insist on `natural cures’ and prayer for treating disease. The origins of organic farming in the West go back to\u00a0 biodynamics\u201d\u00a0 claims of\u00a0 Rudolf Steiner (1920s) in Austria.\u00a0 He claimed that agriculture must use\u00a0 cosmic and telluric forces,\u201d and\u00a0 established\u00a0 the lucrative certification of\u00a0 bio-dynamic\u201d products.\u00a0 The British Soil Association\u2019s organic agriculture\u201d (e.g., Sir Albert Howard, 1940) advocates composting and a return to a yeoman-farmer-based agriculture\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Certain agricultural practices distinguish organic\u201d from conventional farming:
\n1.\u00a0 a prohibition on chemical fertilizers and pesticides, plant and animal growth regulators,
\nhormones, antibiotics, preservatives, etc.;
\n2. a prohibition on genetically modified organisms (GMO) and\u00a0 biotechnology;
\n3. a prohibition on soil-less culture (hydroponics etc.) while allowing greenhouse growing;
\n4.\u00a0 in animal production, to allow free-range practices, use organic feed,\u00a0 and limit animal density;
\n5. require farm conversion periods before any produce can be\u00a0 marketed as organic\u201d.
\nMany supporters of organic farming include social taboos and ethical aspects (e.g., humane treatment of animals) to the definition of organic farming.
\n6.\u00a0 Hence some organic farmers prohibit human excreta and urine in producing organic fertilizers.<\/p>\n

The French aristocrat had his Chateau, private vineyard, orangerie, pommier and farm managed by his peasant subjects,\u00a0 together with his private forest for him to hunt gibier\u201d; this\u00a0 exemplified the highest manifestation\u00a0 of the organic farm in practice. In medieval times, a small handful of aristocrats all over the world lived the organic life\u201d while the others starved. Nevertheless, a strong driving force behind organic agriculture\u201d is the opposition to big agro-business\u201d 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 \u201d (water-source, farm, community) concept.<\/p>\n

When organic\u201d farming methods are coupled with quasi-religious,\u00a0 astrology and folklore-based practices, we obtain traditional agriculture\u201d where a return to\u00a0 the use of traditional seeds\u201d is a must. The Vasha-Visha Naethi Ratak\u201d (toxin-free nation) program with catastrophic consequences to Sri Lanka’s agriculture is\u00a0 a result of such an ideology.<\/p>\n

The Swiss agronomists’ proposals for an organic future.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Swiss-based\u00a0 agronomists\u00a0 (Mueller et al.)\u00a0 are serious scientists who use\u00a0 computer simulations to assess the\u00a0 environmental impact of a theoretical conversion of world agriculture to 100 percent organic. Their study itself shows that global organic conversion would lead to a 16-33 percent increase in land use, a corresponding 8-15 percent increase in deforestation, corresponding additional water resources and increased emissions (from composting). They propose to solve the increased land and water use, deforestation etc., by two strategies. (i) The world to go heroically 100 per cent vegetarian!\u00a0 (ii) Cutting\u00a0 food waste by 50 per cent.<\/p>\n

In a 100 % vegetarian world, in optimistic cases,\u00a0 a 100 % reduction in land-area for animal production is possible. However, how does one provide nitrogen to the organic farmer? Animal manure will be as expensive\u00a0 as black truffles in such a world!<\/p>\n

Currently, the organic farmer uses cattle manure from cattle grazed on land fertilized conventionally. He\u00a0 is piggy-backing on Haber-Bosch Nitrogen fertilizer! In the book\u00a0 Enriching the Earth\u201d, the Canadian writer Vaclav Smil discusses\u00a0 nitrogen’s unique status in\u00a0 agriculture, and traditional means of supplying the nutrient; then he shows that only about half the world’s population can be supported (with great effort) without synthetic urea.<\/p>\n

Vaclav Smil overlooks\u00a0 the organic practice of farming\u00a0 a grain crop one year, and\u00a0 a legume crop the following year to enrich the soil with nitrogen via the legume crop. So the actual organic harvest, taken over several years is less than estimated by Vaclav Smil. So the world population must be reduced even more than by \u00bd to account for the organic harvest\u00a0 short fall\u201d.<\/p>\n

The burden falls on the poor nations.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Given that the Swiss program for a sustainable organic and healthy world\u201d\u00a0 implies reducing the world population by half or\u00a0 more,\u00a0 the burden of famine will fall on the poor nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America. Reducing food waste by 50% will also weigh mostly on the poor countries where food waste is huge. Due to strong social prejudices and traditional beliefs, seeds are not irradiated. Poor tropical granaries are notorious for their weevils, bugs and fungal decay of farm produce in hot\u00a0 humid climates.<\/p>\n

Technology is strong on food preservation while the elitist organic consumer wants it all natural\u201d,\u00a0 no chemicals\u201d and\u00a0 no pasteurized milk!\u00a0\u00a0 Individuals object to even an innocuous layer of protective wax on apples because they want it all fresh\u201d. In fact, the untreated organic\u201d apple looses its aroma and rots much faster than the wax-treated industrial\u201d apple.<\/p>\n

The organic farmer relies\u00a0 on inter-cropping, crop rotation and natural methods\u201d for the control of\u00a0 pests and weeds.\u00a0\u00a0 A major threat to global harvests\u00a0 is\u00a0 wheat rust\u201d, a deadly fungal disease of wheat, controlled with fungicides. Without these fungicides, wheat rust epidemics occur and spores spread globally via\u00a0 winds and modern mass transport, quickly creating a global famine. Wheat\u00a0 feeds even rice-eating developing\u201d countries when the rice crop fails. Sri Lanka,\u00a0\u00a0 recently wedded to a toxin-free agriculture\u201d\u00a0 has just recently (very quietly and unknown to God Natha?) tripled its imports of industrial GMO wheat flour to feed its people.<\/p>\n

Heavy-metal toxins, organic and mineral fertilizers.<\/strong>
\nThe organic farmer faces\u00a0 not only the nitrogen crunch\u201d, but\u00a0 difficulties in providing\u00a0 phosphate (and potassium) to\u00a0 crops.\u00a0 Organic fertilizers do not overcome\u00a0 heavy-metal contamination linked to mineral fertilizers, but actually add\u00a0 new\u00a0 problems. Even if we start with soils containing a mere 3 parts per billion of cadmium, most plants (e.g., rice) accumulate cadmium from the soil during its growth. The seeds and the leaves (straw) may now contain a 100 parts per billion of toxic cadmium. Using this in compost\u00a0 may be 300% as bad as using the worst TSP\u00a0 from Morocco.<\/p>\n

One salutary aspect of organic agriculture is its emphasis on soil health\u201d. The soil is a microcosm of many organisms, most of which are beneficial to crops and to our health in reducing toxicity and in making nutrients (e.g., phosphates) more bio-available.\u00a0 But the organisms also need optimal amounts of N, K, and P for their survival as well. It is this balance between organic and inorganic components that the scientific farmer needs to search for. The flocks of egrets (see photo in Maha Illuppallama by Dr. Chamila Perera, courtesy Dr. Sarath Amarasiri) that collect around the plough to eat worms\u00a0 when fields are tilled is testimony to the fact that Sri Lanka’s fields are significantly free of metal toxins, a fact confirmed by several researchers who did chemically analyzed\u00a0 the soil and water (e.g., by Nanayakkara et al. 2014).<\/p>\n

However, unlike the organic farmer, the scientific farmer\u00a0 can opt for\u00a0 soil-free\u201d\u00a0 hydroponic and aerophonic agriculture. One can envisage a future world where we return our agricultural fields back to forests, and use grow towers and DNA-based vats for the production of many\u00a0 types of food.\u00a0\u00a0 Here GM technology and plant cultivation are joined into one activity.<\/p>\n

Progress in conventional agriculture.<\/strong>
\nThe Swiss agronomists forget that conventional\u201d agriculture is moving ahead in leaps and bounds.\u00a0 The energy-intensive Haber-Bosch process can be\u00a0 run on solar energy, reducing climate damaging emissions. The nitrogen needed for a\u00a0 100% vegetarian population is feasible when solar urea is used. Farm emissions, the need for pesticides etc.,\u00a0 can be reduced with GM technology. For instance, blight resistant GM potatoes and similar corps (used in the USA and Canada) that require no pesticides can be used globally when prejudices are eradicated. Non-legume crops can be genetically modified to make nitrogen.<\/p>\n

We cannot halve the world’s population by 2050, or\u00a0 even stabilize it and change\u00a0 life styles to\u00a0 more modest, ecologically sustainable forms. An organic world\u201d feeding the elite rich with their all-natural, chemicals free\u201d food is a plan for genocide. A world where every one can be fed, while\u00a0 ensuring a healthy environment can be achieved using our very best scientific knowledge, and not by rejecting its recent advances. We need to take what ever is good from any system, without being enslaved by rigid doctrines divorced from empirical science.<\/p>\n

[The author was instrumental in setting up the first food technology\u00a0 and environmental science courses in Sri Lanka at the SJP university in the mid 1970s when it was known as the Vidyodaya University where he was the Professor of Chemistry and Vice-Chancellor. He is currently a Professor of Physics at the University of Montreal,\u00a0 and a Principal Research Scientist at the National Research Council of Canada. ]<\/p>\n

(chandre.dharma@yahoo.ca<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Chandre Dharmawardana, Canada. The blazing banner\u00a0 of a media release (14-Nov-2017)\u00a0 by the Swiss-based\u00a0 Research Institute of Organic agriculture\u201d\u00a0 caught\u00a0 headlines all over the world as it made the claim that organic farming can feed the world after all\u201d (see also the scientific paper in Nature communications\u201d).\u00a0 In Strategies for feeding the world more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chandre-dharmawardana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72593\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}