Can organic farming “Feed the World”

Abstract

The legacy of Industrial Agriculture With the world population passing the 6 billion mark last October, the debate over our ability to sustain a fast growing population is heating up. Biotechnology advocates in particular are becoming very vocal in their claim that there is no alternative to using genetically modified crops in agriculture if "we want to feed the world". Actually, that quote might be true. It depends what they mean by "we." It's true if the "we can feed the world" refers to the agribusiness industry, which has brought the world to the brink of food disaster and is looking for a way out. Biotech just may be their desperation move. "We'll starve without biotech," is the title of an opinion piece by Martina McGloughlin, Director of the Biotechnology program at the University of California, Davis. Could be. Modern industrial agricultural – which forms the foundation for biotech – ranks as such a dismal failure that even Monsanto holds them up as the evil alternative. "The commercial industrial technologies that are used in agriculture today to feed the world... are not inherently sustainable," Monsanto CEO Robert Shapiro told the Greenpeace Business Conference recently. "They have not worked well to promote either self-sufficiency or food security in developing countries." Feeding the world sustainably "is out of the question with current agricultural practice," Shapiro told the Society of Environmental Journalists in 1995. "Loss of topsoil, of salinity of soil as a result of irrigation, and ultimate reliance on petrochemicals ... are, obviously, not renewable. That clearly isn't sustainable." Shapiro is referring to the 30-year-old "Green Revolution" which has featured an industrial farming system that biotech would build on: the breeding of new crop varieties that could effectively use massive inputs of chemical fertilizers, and the use of toxic pesticides. As Shapiro has hinted, it has led to some severe environmental consequences, including loss of topsoil, decrease in soil fertility, surface and ground water contamination, and loss of genetic diversity.

Full text

November 2000
1
Can Organic Farming “Feed the World”?
Christos Vasilikiotis, Ph.D.
University of California, Berkeley
ESPM-Division of Insect Biology
201 Wellman-3112
Berkeley, CA 94720-3112
christos@uclink4.berkeley.edu
The
legacy
of
Industrial
Agriculture
With the world
population
passing the 6
billion
mark last October, the
debate
over our
ability
to
sustain a fast growing
population
is
heating
up.
Biotechnology
advocates
in
particular
are
becoming
very vocal in their
claim
that there is no
alternative
to using
genetically
modified
crops in
agriculture
if “we want to feed the world”.
Actually,
that quote
might
be true. It depends what they
mean by
"we."
It's
true if the "we can feed the world" refers to the agribusiness industry, which
has brought the world to the brink of food disaster and is looking for a way out.
Biotech
just may
be their
desperation
move. "We'll starve without biotech," is the
title
of an opinion
piece
by
Martina
McGloughlin,
Director
of the B
iotechnology
program at the University of California,
Davis. Could be. Modern
industrial
agricultural
– which forms the foundation for
biotech
– ranks
as such a
dismal
failure
that even Monsanto holds them up as the evil
alternative.
"The
commercial
indus
trial
technologies
that are used in
agriculture
today to feed the
world...
are
not
inherently
sustainable," Monsanto CEO Robert Shapiro told the
Greenpeace
Business
Conference
recently. "They have not worked well to promote
either
self-sufficiency
or food
security in
developing
countries." Feeding the world sustainably "is out of the question with
current
agricultural
practice," Shapiro told the Society of
Environmental
Journalists in 1995. "Loss
of topsoil, of
salinity
of soil as a result of irrigation, and
ultimate
reliance
on
petrochemicals
...
are,
obviously, not renewable. That
clearly
isn't
sustainable."
Shapiro is referring to the 30-year-old "Green
Revolution"
which has
featured
an
industrial
farming system that
biotech
would build on: the breeding of new crop
varieties
that could
effectively
use massive inputs of
chemical
fertilizers, and the use of toxic pesticides. As Shapiro
has hinted, it has led to some severe
environmental
consequences,
including
loss of topsoil,
decrease
in soil fertility, surface and ground water
contamination,
and loss of
genetic
diversity.
Do we
really
need to embark upon another risky
technological
fix to solve the mistakes of a
previous one? Instead, we should be looking for solutions that are based on
ecological
and
biological
principles
and have
significantly
fewer
environmental
costs. There is such an
alternative
that has been
pioneered
by organic farmers. In contrast to the
industrial/monoculture
approach
advocated
by the
biotech
industry, organic
agriculture
is described by the United Nations Food &
Agriculture
Organization
(FAO) as "a
holistic
production
management
system which promotes and
enhances
agro-ecosystem
health,
including
biodiversity,
biological
cycles, and soil
biological
activity."
Despite
the lack of support from
government
and university extension services in the
US,
consumer demand for organic products is driving the organic
movement
ahead at a 20% annual rate
of
market
growth,
primarily
with the help of an
increasing
consumer demand for organic products.
The amount of
certified
organic
agricultural
land
increased
from 914,800 acres in 1995 to 1.5
million
in 1997, a jump of more than 60% in just two years.

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Not surprisingly, agribusiness
conglomerates
and their supporters dismiss organic farming,
claiming
it produces yields too low to feed a growing world population. Dennis Avery, an
economist
at the Hudson
Institute
– funded by Monsanto, Du Pont, Dow, and Novartis among
others – had this to say in a
recent
ABC
News'
20/20 broadcast. "If overnight all our food supply
were suddenly organic, to feed
today's
population
we'd
have plowed down half of the
world's
land area not under ice to get organic food
...
because organic farmers waste so much land. They
have to because they lose so much of their crop to weeds and insects." In fact, as a number of
studies attest, organic farming methods can produce higher yields than
conventional
methods.
Moreover, a worldwide conversion to organic has the
potential
to
increase
food production levels -
- not to
mention
reversing the
degradation
of
agricultural
soils and
increase
soil
fertility
and health.
Comparisons
of
organic
and
conventional
chemical
farming
systems
A survey of
recent
studies
comparing
the
productivity
of organic
practices
to
conventional
agriculture
provides an
excellent
example
of the wide range of benefits we can
expect
from a
conversion to
sustainable
agricultural
methods. The results
clearly
show that organic farming
accomplishes
many of the FAO’s
sustainability
aims, as well as showing promise in increasing
food production ability.
•
Sustainable
Agriculture
Farming Systems
project
(SFAS) at
UC,
Davis.
An ongoing
long-term
comparison study, SFAS is an
interdisciplinary
project
that compares
conventional
farming systems with
alternative
production systems that promote
sustainable
agriculture.
The study
examines
four farming systems that differ in crop
rotation
design and
material
input use:
a 2-year and a 4-year
rotation
conventional
system, an organic and a low-input system.
Results from the first 8 years of the
project
show that the organic and low-input systems had yields
comparable
to the
conventional
systems in all crops which were tested - tomato, safflower, corn
and bean, and in some instances
yielding
higher than
conventional
systems (Clark, 1999a).
Tomato
yields in the organic system were lower in the first three years, but
reached
the levels of
the
conventional
tomatoes
in the subsequent years and had a higher yield during the last year of the
experiment
(80 t/ha in the organic
compared
to 68 t/ha in the
conventional
in
1996).
Corn
production in the organic system had a higher
variability
than
conventional
systems, with lower
yields in some years and higher in others.
Both organic and low-input systems resulted in increases in the organic carbon
content
of the soil
and larger pools of stored nutrients, each of which are
critical
for
long-term
fertility
maintenance
(Clark,
1998).
The most
important
limiting
factor in the organic system
appeared
to be nitrogen
availability
(Clark
1999b).
The organic system
relied
mainly
on cover crops and composted poultry
manure for
fertilization.
One possible
explanation
for a lower
availability
in the organic system, is
that high carbon inputs
associated
with nitrogen to build soil organic matter, thus reducing nitrogen
availability
for the organic
crops.
During the
latter
2 years of the experiment, soil organic
matter
levels
appeared
to be
stabilized
resulting in more nitrogen
availability.
This was in
agreement
with
the higher yields of organic crops that were observed during those last two years. The organic
systems were found to be more
profitable
in both corn and
tomato
among the 4-year rotations
mainly
due to the higher price premiums (Clark,
1999b).
• Farming Systems
Trial
at the Rodale
Institute
– Soybean study.
Initiated
in 1981, the Farming Systems
Trial
compares
intensive
soybean and
maize
production
under a
conventional
and two organic
management
farming systems.
The first organic cropping system
simulates
a
traditional
integrated
farming system. Leguminous
cover crops are fed to
cattle
and the resulting manure is
applied
to the fields as the main source of

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3
nitrogen. In the second organic system, the
leguminous
cover crops were
incorporated
in to the
soil as the source for nitrogen before corn or soybean planting.
Corn yields were
comparable
in all three cropping systems (less than 1%
difference)
(Drinkwater,
1998).
However,
a comparison of soil
characteristics
during a 15-year period found that soil
fertility
was
enhanced
in the organic systems, while it
decreased
considerably
in the
conventional
system. Nitrogen
content
and organic
matter
levels in the soil
increased
markedly
in the
manure–fertilized
organic system and
declined
in the
conventional
system. Moreover, the
conventional
system had the highest
environmental
impact, where 60% more
nitrate
was
leached
into the groundwater over a 5 year period than in the organic systems (Drinkwater,
1998).
Soybean production systems were also highly productive,
achieving
40 bushels/acre. In 1999
however, during one of the worst droughts on record, yields of organic soybeans were 30 bushels
/acre,
compared
to only 16
bushels/acre
from
conventionally-
grown soybeans (Rodale Institute,
1999).
“Our trials show that
improving
the
quality
of the soil through organic
practices
can mean
the
difference
between a harvest or hardship in
times
of drought” writes Jeff Moyer, farm
manager
at The Rodale
Institute
in Kutztown, Pennsylvania (Rodale Institute,
1999).
He continues, “over
time, organic
practices
encourage
the soil to hold on to moisture more
efficiently
than
conventionally
managed
soil.” The higher
content
of organic
matter
also makes organic soil less
compact
so that root systems can
penetrate
more deeply to find moisture. These results
highlight
the
importanc
e of organic farming methods and their
potential
to avert future crop failures both in
the US and in the rest of the
world.
• Broadbalk
experiment
at the
Rothamsted
Experimental
Station, UK
One of the longest running
agricultural
trials on record (more than 150 years) is the Broadbalk
experiment
at the
Rothamsted
Experimental
Station
in the United Kingdom. The trials
compare
a
manure based
fertilizer
farming system (but not
certified
organic) to a
synthetic
chemical
fertilizer
farming system.
Wheat
yields are shown to be on
average
slightly
higher in the
organically
fertilized
plots
(3.45
tones/hectare)
than the plots
receiving
chemical
fertilizers
(3.40
tones/hectare).
More
importantly
though, soil fertility, measured as soil organic
matter
and nitrogen levels,
increased
by 120% over 150 years in the organic plots,
compared
with only 20%
increase
in
chemically
fertilized
plots (Jenkinson,
1994).
•
Organic
grain and soybean production in the
Midwestern
United States
A
comprehensive
review of a large number of comparison studies of grain and soybean production
conduct by six
Midwestern
universities
since 1978 found that in all of these studies organic
production was
equivalent
to, and in many cases
better
than,
conventional
(Welsh,
1999).
Organic
systems had higher yields than
conventional
systems which
featured
continuous crop production
(no rotations) and equal or lower yields in
conventional
systems that
included
crop rotations. In the
drier
climates
such as the Great Plains, organic systems had higher yields, as they tend to be
better
during droughts than
conventional
systems. In one such study in South
Dakota
for the period
1986-1992,
the
average
yields of soybeans were 29.6
bushels/acre
and 28.6
bushels/acre
in the
organic and
conventional
systems
respectiv
ely. In the same study,
average
spring wheat yields
were 41.5
bushels/acre
and 39.5
bushels/acre
in the organic and
conventional
systems
respectively.
When
comparing
the
profitability
of farming systems, the study found that organic cropping
systems were always more
profitable
than the most common
conventional
cropping systems if the
higher premiums that organic crops enjoy were
factored
in. When the higher premiums were not
factored
in, the organic systems were
still
more
productive
and
profitable
in three of the six
studies. This was
attributed
to lower production costs and the
ability
of organic systems to
outperform
conventional
in drier areas, or during drier periods.
The author of the report
remarked:
“What
is most surprising is how well the organic systems
performed despite the
minimal
amount of research that
traditional
agricultural
research
institutions
have devoted to them.” (Welsh,
1999).

November 2000
4
• Comparison of
conventional
and organic farms in California.
Lastly, a study which
compared
ecological
charact
eristics and
productivity
of 20
commercial
farms
in the
Central
Valley
of
California
gives us a
better
understanding of how a conversion to organic
would fare in a
commercial
farm setting.
The farms
compared
had a fresh
market
tomato
production.
Tomato
yields were shown to be quite
similar
in organic and
conventional
farms (Drinkwater,
1995).
Insect pest
damage
was also
comparable
in both cases of organic and
conventional
farms.
However,
significant
differences
were found in soil
health
indicators
such as nitrogen
mineralization
potential
and
microbial
abundance
and diversity which were higher in the organic farms. Nitrogen
mineralization
potential
was three
times
greater
in organic
compared
to
conventional
fields. The organic fields also had
28% more organic carbon. The
increased
soil
health
in the organic farms resulted in
considerably
lower disease incidence. Severity of the most
prevalent
disease in the study,
tomato
corky root
disease, was found to be
significantly
lower in the organic farms (Drinkwater,
1995).
Can
we
afford
not
to
go
Organic?
From the studies
mentioned
above and from an
increasing
body of case studies, it is
becoming
evident
that organic farming does not result in
neither
catastrophic
crop losses due to pests nor in
dramatically
reduced yields as many
critics
from agribusiness and in
academia
would have us
believe. A report from UC Davis
predicted
a 36%
reduction
in
tomato
yields in
California
if
conventional
insecticides
and fungicides were
eliminated
(Agricultural
Issues Center 1988
).
On the contrary, organic farming systems have proven that they can prevent crop loss to pests
without any
synthetic
pesticides. They are able to
maintain
high yields,
comparable
to
conventional
agriculture
without any of the
associated
external
costs to society. Furthermore, organic and
agroecological
farming methods
continually
increase
soil
fertility
and prevent loss of topsoil to

November 2000
5
erosion, while
conventional
methods have the opposite effect. In the end, only a conversion to
organic farming will allow us to
maintain
and even
increase
current crop yields.
The
ability
of organic
agriculture
to produce
comparable
yields is
particularly
significant,
considering that
limited
research has been
conducted
in
land-grant
universities
to
optimize
cultural
practices
or
select
for
suitable
crop
genetic
traits in organic farming systems. It is
becoming
imperative
that we move away from organic versus
conventional
systems comparisons, to research
into ways of
improving
organic farming methods.
One of the
criticisms
of organic
agriculture
has been that there is not enough nitrogen
available
naturally,
therefore
only
chemical
fertilizers
can provide
adequate
supplies to sustain current yields.
This is
clearly
not the case as shown by both the
Rothamsted
and Rodale experiments, where
manure-based
systems can provide enough nitrogen not only to sustain high crop yields but also to
build up the nitrogen storage in the soil.
Animal
manure is not in short supply by any means. EPA
estimates
indicate
that US
livestock
operati
ons
generate
one
billion
tons of manure per year; most
of this is not
utilized
in agriculture, instead it
leaches
nitrogen and phosphorus into our waterways,
thus
threatening
wetlands and river systems and in many cases drinking water supplies.
Organic
agriculture, and
especially
small
diversified
farms, could allow us to once again couple
livestock
production to crop production, thus
cycling
this
valuable
byproduct back into the soil and
eliminating
costly
environmental
degradation.
Another
argument
that
critics
are making is that organic food is more expensive, therefore, low-
income
families
and people in the third world would not be able to afford it.
While
it is true that
organic food has a price premium, this price
difference
is the result of higher demand for organic
products, and does not
necessarily
reflect
a higher cost of production.
According
to the
Wallace
Institute
report
mentioned
earlier, organic production of grains and soybeans in the mid-west was
more
profitable
than
conventional
in at least half the cases studied, even without
factoring
the
higher prices that organic soybeans bring in the
market
(sometimes
more than twice as much as
conventional
soybeans).
There are
still
situations
though in which organic systems appear to
depend on price premiums to
remain
profitable, such as the case of
high-value
tomato
crops in
California. The higher cost of production that was found in the SFAS
project
is
attributed
mainly
to
the
increased
labor
requirements
for weed control in organic systems.
Even these studies
overestimate
the
relative
costs of organic production. Federal
commodity
programs and subsidies are geared towards
large-scale
chemically
intensive
agriculture
and
artificially
inflate
figures for
industrial
agriculture. Furthermore, this type of
economic
comparison
ignores
external
costs that
conventional
agriculture
creates. The World Resources Institute, an
environmental
policy think tank, reports that when measured with
traditional
cost analysis methods
the
average
farm shows an
$80/acre
profit.
After
accounting
for all the
external
costs of soil
loss,
water
contamination
and
environmental
degradation
caused by farming
practices
however, the
average
farm shows a
$29/acre
loss instead!
A number of European nations have started to factor these expenses into their
agricultural
support
programs. In several European countries, such as
Denmark
and
Sweden,
farmers get
government
support during their conversion to organic and
continue
to
receive
support for
environmental
services that they provide to their
communities,
such as
wildlife
corridors and the
elimination
of
toxic runoffs which
contaminate
underground water
sources.
These programs helped foster an
almost
100-fold
increase
in
organically
farmed land in Europe, from 29,000 acres in 1986 to 2.4
million
acres in 1996.
Similar
programs in the
U.S.
could help the conversion of more farms to
organic methods. These price supports do not have to be subsidies, rather a
compensation
to
organic farmers for each of the
ecological
and social services that they provide.
Despite
claims
from the
biotech
industry and
academic
researches, there is no
indication
that
biotechnology
will solve the shortcomings of
industrial
agriculture. Compared to the novel and

November 2000
6
untested crop systems that
biotech
corporation
s are
pushing as the only solution to food security problems,
organic farming has many advantages. The
majority
of
genetically
engineered
crops
currently
in
cultivation
do not
appear to show higher yields. For example, contrary to
claims
by Monsanto, a recent study by Dr. Charles
Bendrook, the former
director
of the Board on
Agriculture
at the
National
Academy
of Sciences,
indicates
that
genetically
engineered
Roundup Ready soybeans do not
increase
yields (Bendrook,
1999).
The report reviewed
over 8,200 university trials in 1998 and found that
Roundup Ready soybeans
yielded
7-10% less than
similar
natural
varieties. In addition, the same study found that
farmers used 5-10
times
more
herbicide
(Roundup) on
Roundup Ready soybeans than on
conventional
ones.
The
only reason farmers seem to prefer Roundup Ready
soybeans is because they
simplify
management
of large
chemically-intensive
farms, by allowing them, for
example, to spray larger doses of
herbicides
from planes
on
crops,
engineered
to be resistant to the p
articular
herbicide.
Applications
of
biotechnology
continue
the
legacy
of
industrial
agricultural
with
monocultures
and
high energy and
chemical
inputs.
Our current world food production is more than
sufficient
to provide an
adequate
diet to all humans, yet more than
840
million
people are suffering from hunger. Hunger is a
problem of poverty, distribution, and access to
food.
The
question then, is not “how to feed the world”, but rather,
how can we develop
sustainable
farming methods that
have the
potenti
al to help the world feed and sustain itself.
Organic
management practices
promote soil health, water
conservation
and can reverse
environmental
degradation.
The emphasis on
small-scale
family
farms has the
potential
to
revitalize
rural areas and their economies. Counter to the
widely held
belief
that
industrial
agriculture
is more
efficient
and productive,
small
farms produce far more per
acre than large farms. Industrial
agriculture
relies
heavily
on monocultures, the
planting
of a single crop throughout
the farm, because they
simplify
management
and allow the
use of heavy machinery. Larger farms in the third world
also tend to grow export luxury crops instead of providing
staple foods to their growing population.
Small
farmers,
especially
in the Third World have
integrated
farming systems where they
plant
a
variety
of crops
maximizing
the use of their land.
They are also more
likely
to have
livestock
on their farm, which provides a
variety
of
animal
products to the
local
economy and manure for
improving
soil fertility. In such farms, though the
yield per acre of a single crop
might
be lower than a large farm,
total
production per acre of all the
crops and various
animal
products is much higher than large
conventional
farms (Rosset,
1999).
Figure 1 shows the
relationship
between
total
production per unit area to farm size in 15 countries.
In all cases, the
smaller
farms are much more
productive
per unit area– 200 to 1000
percent
higher
– than larger ones (Rosset,
1999).
Even in the United States, the
smallest
farms, those 27 acres or
less, have more than ten
times
greater
dollar output per acre than larger farms (US
Agricultural
Census,
1992).
Conversion to
small
organic farms therefore, would lead to
sizeable
increases of
food production worldwide. Only organic methods can help
small
family
farms survive,
increase

November 2000
7
farm productivity, repair decades of
environmental
damage
and knit
communities
into smaller,
more
sustainable
distribution
networks – all
leading
to improved food security around the
world.
References
1.
Agricultural
Issues Center, 1988.
Agricultural
chemicals
in
California
plant
production:
are
there
alternatives?
University of California, Davis, California, USA.
2. Bendrook, 1999. Evidence of the
Magnitude
and Consequences of the Roundup Ready
Soybean Yield
Drag
from University Based
Varietal
Trials
in 1998. Ag
Biotech
InfoNet
Technical
Paper: (
http://www.biotech-info.net/RR_yield_drag_98.pdf
)
3. Clark
S.,
et al 1999a. Crop-yield and economic
comparisons
of
organic,
low-input, and
conventional
farming
systems
in
California’s
Sacramento
Valley.
American
Journal of
Alternative
Agriculture
v. 14 (3) p. 109-121
4. Clark, M.
S.
et al 1998 Changes in Soil
Chemical
Properties
Resulting from
Organic
and
Low-
Input
Farming
Practices
, Agronomy Journal, v. 90 p. 662-671
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