Regenerative Agriculture: A Better Way to Farm?

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Twelve years ago, Ryan Boyd faced a wreck that changed the way he farms today.

“I had big plans,” said Boyd, who farms with his wife and parents north of Brandon, Man. “We had a nice crop coming, and then the weather went against us and the markets dropped.

“The long and short of it was we had a bad year, and I figured we needed to make some changes if I was going to carve a living out on the farm.”

Photo credit: Unsplash

For Boyd, that meant shifting some of the practices on their 2,000-acre mixed farm to be more sustainable.

“We’re trying to practise what we would call regenerative agriculture — trying to build a profitable, resilient system that’s maintaining a good level of production while reducing the amount of inputs we’re relying on,” Boyd said while hosting a group of visiting farm journalists last month.

KEEP READING ON ALBERTA FARMER EXPRESS

Look after the Soil, save the Earth: Farming in Australia’s Unrelenting Climate

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From the red soil of his hometown in the Western Australian outback town of Wiluna, Michael Jeffery very nearly became a farmer.

He opted for being a soldier instead, serving in Malaya, Borneo and Vietnam, where he was awarded the Military Cross and the South Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. After a distinguished military career, he served as governor of his home state of Western Australia and governor general of Australia – who represents the Queen, Australia’s head of state.

Photo credit: Unsplash

So he doesn’t enter public debate lightly. But he is highly exercised by his latest topic: restoring Australia’s ancient soils.

It was a world first when he was appointed by Julia Gillard’s Labor government as the first national soil advocate in 2012 and his term was extended under the former National party leader and agriculture minister, Barnaby Joyce.

KEEP READING ON THE GUARDIAN

How a Regenerative Revolution Could Reverse Climate Change

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Earlier this month the world’s leading climate scientists released the most urgent warning on climate change to date. It describes the implications of our current warming trajectory, including dire food shortages, large-scale human migration and crises ranging from a mass die-off of coral reefs to increasingly extreme weather events. To reverse course, the report calls for a global transformation of historically unprecedented speed and scale. As one of the IPCC study’s co-chairs emphasized, “The next few years are probably the most important in our history.”

Photo credit: Pixabay

Among the ambitious ideas to meet this challenge is to enable a regenerative revolution, one that supplants our extractive economic model and goes beyond “sustainability” to draw down carbon and reverse course on climate change. Marc Barasch is among the leaders striving to galvanize such a transformation.

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We’re Altering the Climate So Severely That We’ll Soon Face Apocalyptic Repercussions. Sucking Carbon Dioxide Out of the Air Could Save Us.

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Deadly hurricanes seem to be becoming more frequent, 12 of the 15 largest wildfires in California history have occurred in the last two decades, and cities like Cape Town, South Africa are facing severe water shortages.

This isn’t a coincidence.

These kinds of dangerous weather events are linked to carbon-dioxide emissions. In human history, the atmosphere has never had as much CO2 in it as it does today. Burning fossil fuels for energy, clearing forests, and demolishing wetlands all contribute to the problem.

CO2 stops heat from leaving the planet, which is why Earth’s average temperature is a degree Celsius higher than it used to be. Now we’re on track to see so much warming over the next several decades that apocalyptic repercussions could result.

A recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that just another half-degree temperature rise — which is predicted to happen by the year 2040.

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Creating a Carbon-based Local Economy

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How can local economies value carbon farming practices in finished consumer goods? Fibershed represents a 160-member producer community, spanning from the Oregon border to San Luis Obispo and from the Pacific Ocean to the Sierra foothills, that is managing working landscapes strategically to sequester carbon. Burgess gave this talk, transcribed and edited below, as part of the Bioneers Carbon Farming Series.

Photo credit: Pexels

How do basic human needs – food, fuel, flora, fiber – get met within an economically and ecologically strategic geography?

There are 25 million hectares of rangelands in California and a key question is whether we can manage them to help lower Earth’s temperature. Most rangeland systems have very low amounts of carbon. California has lost around 40% of its carbon in its rangelands due to the loss of perennials. These soils are in a massive carbon debt.

Fibershed is organizing place-based economies around carbon.

 

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The Chicken and the Egg: Stop Linear Farming and Embrace Circular Agriculture

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Agronomist Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin wants to transform the food system from the ground up by introducing poultry-powered, planet-cooling, regenerative agriculture. Ashoka’s Simon Stumpf caught up with Haslett-Marroquin to hear more about his approach, what his Tree-Range™ system is all about, and what’s on the horizon for the smallholder farmers in his network.

Photo credit: Regeneration International

Simon Stumpf: You’re championing what you call a “non-linear” approach to farming. What do you mean by that?

Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin: As farmers we don’t produce anything. Nature does. We simply manage the process, a non-linear process, by which inedible energy is transformed into edible energy — from soil to carrots, from grain to eggs and chickens. When we understand this, a whole world of possibility opens up because we are no longer constrained by linear, input-and-output based methods that waste energy and pollute our soil, waterways and air.

KEEP READING ON FORBES

Healthy Soils for a Healthy Life — Increasing Soil Organic Matter Through Organic Agriculture

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This year has been declared the International Year of Soils by the 68th UN General Assembly with the theme “Healthy Soils for a Healthy Life.” I am particularly pleased with the theme because this is a message that we in the organic sector have been spreading for more than 70 years, and at first we were ridiculed. Now there is a huge body of science showing that what we observed in our farming systems is indeed correct.

“Organic farming” became the dominant name in English-speaking countries for farming systems that eschew toxic, synthetic pesticides and fertilizers through J.I. Rodale’s global magazine Organic Farming and Gardening, first published in the United States in the 1940s. Rodale promoted this term based on building soil health by the recycling of organic matter through composts, green manures, mulches and cover crops to increase the levels of soil organic matter (SOM) as one of the primary management techniques.

Photo credit: Pexels

Numerous scientific studies show that SOM provides many benefits for building soil health such as improving the number and biodiversity of beneficial microorganisms that provide nutrients for plants, including fixing nitrogen, as well as controlling soilborne plant diseases. The decomposition of plant and animal residues into SOM can provide all the nutrients needed by plants and negate the need for synthetic chemical fertilizers, especially nitrogen fertilizers that are responsible for numerous environmental problems.

SOM improves soil structure so that it is more resistant to erosion and is easier to till, resulting in lower energy use and less greenhouse gas output. Soils with good SOM levels are more efficient at absorbing rainwater and storing it for plants to use in dry periods. Studies show that organic systems get around 30 percent higher yields in periods of drought than conventional systems due to the increase of SOM and its ability to capture and store water for crops.

SOM is composed largely of carbon that is captured as CO2 from the air by plants through photosynthesis. Published, peer-reviewed meta-studies show that organic farming systems are superior to conventional systems in capturing CO2 from the atmosphere (the primary greenhouse gas responsible for climate change) and sequestering it into the ground as SOM.

SOM & CLIMATE CHANGE

Worldwide, agriculture is responsible for between 11 and 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, depending on the boundaries and methodologies used to determine its emissions. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, the estimates of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2010 were 50.1 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent (Gt CO2e) per year. To keep global mean temperature increases below 2°C compared to preindustrial levels, GHG emissions will have to be reduced to a median level of 44 Gt CO2e in 2020.

This means that the world will have to reduce the current level of emissions by 6.1 Gt CO2e by 2020 and reduce it every subsequent year. According to the latest World Meteorological Organization figures, the levels of GHG pollution in the atmosphere and the oceans are the highest in history and are still increasing.

Keeping the rise in temperature below 2°C will not only involve reducing emissions through energy efficiency, renewable energy and cleaner energy sources; sequestering GHGs already present in the atmosphere will also be necessary to reduce the current levels. Currently most sequestration is based on growing biomass as carbon sinks and capturing it as wood-based products.

Soils are the greatest carbon sink after the oceans. According to Professor Rattan Lal of Ohio State University, there are over 2,700 Gt of carbon stored in soils worldwide. This is considerably more than the combined total of 780 Gt in the atmosphere and the 575 Gt in biomass.

The amount of CO2 in the oceans is already causing problems, particularly for species with calcium exoskeletons such as coral. Scientists are concerned that the increase in acidity caused by higher levels of CO2 is damaging these species and threatens the future of marine ecosystems such as the Great Barrier Reef.

MITIGATION THROUGH ABOVEGROUND BIOMASS

Currently the major push for carbon sequestration is through above-ground biomass, despite that fact that its potential as a carbon sink is significantly less than that of soil. The other issue is the need to take land out of food production to grow trees. There is some potential with agroforestry and trees as shade cover for some cash crops like coffee and cacao, however this will deliver considerably less than research has shown can be sequestered into soils with good agricultural practices.

SEQUESTRATION THROUGH AGRICULTURE

The ability of soils to absorb enough CO2 in order to stabilize current atmospheric CO2levels is a critical issue, and there is a major debate over whether this can be achieved through farming practices. Reviews of conventional farming systems have found that most are losing soil carbon and at best they can only slow the rate of loss. On the other hand, farming systems that recycle organic matter and use crop rotations can increase the levels of soil organic carbon (SOC).

A preliminary study by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture, Switzerland, published by FAO, collated 45 comparison trials between organic and conventional systems that included 280 data sets. These studies included data from grasslands, arable crops and permanent crops in several continents. A simple analysis of the data shows that on average the organic systems had higher levels of soil carbon sequestration.

Dr. Andreas Gattinger and colleagues wrote, “In soils under organic management, the SOC stocks averaged 37.4 tons C ha-1, in comparison to 26.7 tons C ha-1 under non-organic management.”

This means that the average difference between the two management systems (organic and conventional) was 10.7 tons of C. Using the accepted formula that SOC x 3.67 = CO2, this means an average of more than 39.269 tons of CO2 was sequestered in the organic system than in the conventional system.

The average duration of management of all included studies was 16.7 years. This means that an average of 2,351 kg of CO2 was sequestered per hectare every year in the organic systems compared to the conventional systems.

In a later peer-reviewed meta-analysis, published in PNAS, that used 41 comparison trials and removed the outliers in the data sets in order not to overestimate the data and to obtain a conservative estimate, researchers reported that organic systems sequestered 550 kg C per hectare per year. This equates to 2018.5 kg CO2 per hectare per year.

Based on these figures, the widespread adoption of current organic practices has the potential to sequester around 10 Gt of CO2, which is the range of the emissions gap in 2020 of 8-12 Gt CO2e per year.

Amount of Organic Nitrogen Held in the Soil

1% SOC      2,400 kg of organic N per hectare      1.72% SOM

2% SOC      4,800 kg of organic N per hectare      3.44% SOM

3% SOC      7,200 kg of organic N per hectare      5.16% SOM

4% SOC      9,600 kg of organic N per hectare      6.88% SOM

5% SOC      12,000 kg of organic N per hectare    8.50% SOM

The potential exists for higher levels of CO2 sequestration. All data sets that use averaging have outlying data. These are examples that are significantly higher or significantly lower than the average.

There are several examples of higher levels of carbon sequestration than the averages quoted in the studies above. The Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania has been conducting long-running comparisons of organic and conventional cropping systems for more than 30 years that confirm organic methods are effective at removing CO2 from the atmosphere and fixing it as organic matter in the soil. Tim LaSalle and Paul Hepperly wrote, “In the FST (Rodale Institute farm systems trial) organic plots, carbon was sequestered into the soil at the rate of 875 lbs/ac/year in a crop rotation utilizing raw manure, and at a rate of about 500 lbs/ac/year in a rotation using legume cover crops.

During the 1990s, results from the Compost Utilization Trial (CUT) at Rodale Institute — a 10-year study comparing the use of composts, manures and synthetic chemical fertilizer — show that the use of composted manure with crop rotations in organic systems can result in carbon sequestration of up to 2,000 lbs/ac/year. By contrast, fields under standard tillage relying on chemical fertilizers lost almost 300 pounds of carbon per acre per year.”

Converting these figures into kilograms of CO2 sequestered per hectare using the accepted conversion rate of 1 pound per acre = 1.12085116 kg/ ha and SOC x 3.67= CO2, gives the following results: The FST legume-based organic plots showed that carbon was sequestered into the soil at the rate of about 500 lbs/ac/year. This is equivalent to a sequestration rate of 2,055.2kg of CO2/ha/yr, which is close to the average found in the Gattinger meta-study.

However, other organic systems produced much higher rates of sequestration. The FST manured organic plots showed that carbon was sequestered into the soil at the rate of 875 lbs/ac/year. This is equivalent to a sequestration rate of 3,596.6 kg of CO2/ha/year and if extrapolated globally would sequester 17.5 Gt of CO2.

The CUT showed that carbon was sequestered into the soil at the rate of 2,000 lbs/ac/year. This is equivalent to a sequestration rate of 8,220.8 kg of CO2/ha/year and if extrapolated globally, would sequester 40 Gt of CO2.

A meta-analysis by Eduardo Aguilera et al. published in the peer-reviewed journal, Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment, of 24 comparison trials in Mediterranean climates between organic systems and non-organic systems without organic supplements found that the organic systems sequestered 970 kg of C/ha/year more than the non-organic systems. This equates to 3559.9 kg of CO2/ha/year. The data came from comparison trials from Mediterranean climates in Europe, the United States and Australia, and if extrapolated globally, would sequester 17.4 Gt of CO2.

The Louis Bolk Institute conducted a study to calculate soil carbon sequestration at SEKEM, the oldest organic farm in Egypt. Their results show that on average SEKEM’s management practices resulted in 900 kg of carbon being stored in the soil per hectare per year in the fields that were 30 years old. Using the accepted formula of SOC x 3.67 = CO2, this means that SEKEM has sequestered 3,303 kg of CO2 per hectare per year for 30 years.

Based on these figures, the adoption of SEKEM’s practices globally has the potential to sequester 16 Gt of CO2, which is around 30 percent of the world’s current GHG emission into soils.

It is not the intention of this paper to use the above types of generic exercises of globally extrapolating data as scientific proof of what can be achieved by scaling up organic systems. These types of very simple analyses are useful for providing a conceptual idea of the considerable potential of organic farming to reduce GHG emissions on a landscape scale. The critical issue here is that urgent peer-reviewed research is needed to understand how and why — and for the skeptics, if — these systems sequester significant levels of CO2 and then look at how to apply the findings for scaling up on a global level in order to achieve GHG mitigation.

GREATER RESILIENCE IN ADVERSE CONDITIONS

According to research by the UNFCCC IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC 2007) and others, the world is seeing increases in the frequency of extreme weather events such as droughts and heavy rainfall. Even if the world stopped polluting the planet with greenhouse gases tomorrow, it would take many decades to reverse climate change. This means that farmers have to adapt to the increasing intensity and frequency of adverse and extreme weather events.

Published studies show that organic farming systems are more resilient to predicted weather extremes and can produce higher yields than conventional farming systems in such conditions. For instance, the Wisconsin Integrated Cropping Systems Trials found that organic yields were higher in drought years and the same as conventional in normal weather years.

IMPROVED EFFICIENCY OF WATER USE

Research shows that organic systems use water more efficiently due to better soil structure and higher levels of humus and other organic matter compounds. D.W. Lotter and colleagues collected data over 10 years during the Rodale Farm Systems Trial. Their research showed that the organic manure system and organic legume system (LEG) treatments improve the soils’ water-holding capacity, infiltration rate and water capture efficiency. The LEG maize soils averaged 13 percent higher water content than conventional system (CNV) soils at the same crop stage and 7 percent higher than CNV soils in soybean plots. The more porous structure of organically treated soil allows rainwater to quickly penetrate the soil, resulting in less water loss from runoff and higher levels of water capture. This was particularly evident during the two days of torrential downpours from hurricane Floyd in September 1999, when the organic systems captured around double the water as the conventional systems.

Long-term scientific trials conducted by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture in Switzerland comparing organic, biodynamic and conventional systems had similar results showing that organic systems were more resistant to erosion and better at capturing water.

“We compare the long-term effects (since 1948) of organic and conventional farming on selected properties of the same soil. The organically farmed soil had significantly higher organic matter content, thicker topsoil depth, higher polysaccharide content, lower modulus of rupture and less soil erosion than the conventionally farmed soil. This study indicates that, in the long term, the organic farming system was more effective than the conventional farming system in reducing soil erosion and, therefore, in maintaining soil productivity (Reganold et al. 1987).”

Humus, a key component of SOM, allows for the ability of organic soils to be more stable and to hold more water. This is due to its ability to hold up to 30 times its own weight in water, and being a ‘sticky’ polymer, glues the soil particles together, giving greater resistance to water and wind erosion.

There is a strong relationship between SOM levels and the amount of water that can be stored in the root zone. The table below should be taken as a rule of thumb, rather than as a precise set of measurements. Different soil types will hold different volumes of water when they have the same levels of organic matter due to pore spaces, specific soil density and a range of other variables. Sandy soils generally hold less water than clay soils.

The table above gives an understanding of the potential amount of water that can be captured from rain and stored at the root zone in relation to the percentage of SOM.

There is a large difference in the amount of rainfall that can be captured and stored between the current SOM level in most traditional farms in Asia and Africa and a good organic farm with reasonable SOM levels. This is one of the reasons why organic farms do better in times of low rainfall and drought.

The Rodale Farming Systems Trial showed that the organic systems produced more corn than the conventional system in drought years. The average corn yields during the drought years were 28 to 34 percent higher in the two organic systems. The yields were 6,938 and 7,235 kg per ha in the organic animal and organic legume systems, respectively, compared with 5,333 kg per ha in the conventional system. The researchers attributed the higher yields in the dry years to the ability of the soils on organic farms to better absorb rainfall. This is due to the higher levels of organic carbon in those soils, which makes them more friable and better able to capture and store rainwater which can then be used for crops.

This is very significant information as the majority of the world’s farming systems are rain-fed. The world does not have the resources to irrigate all of the agricultural lands, nor should such a project be undertaken. Improving the efficiency of rain-fed agricultural systems through organic practices is the most efficient, cost-effective, environmentally sustainable and practical solution to ensure reliable food production in the face of increasing weather extremes.

SYNTHETIC NITROGEN FERTILIZERS

One of the main reasons for the differences in soil carbon between organic and conventional systems is that synthetic nitrogen fertilizers degrade soil carbon. Research shows a direct link between the application of synthetic nitrogenous fertilizers and decline in soil carbon.

Volume of Water Retained/ha (to 30 cm) in Relation to Soil Organic Matter (SOM)

0.5% SOM = 80,000 liters

1% SOM = 160,000 liters (common farm level in much of Africa, Asia and parts of Latin America)

2% SOM = 320,000 liters

3% SOM = 480,000 liters

4% SOM = 640,000 liters

5% SOM = 800,000 liters (pre-settlement/farming levels in many countries)

6% SOM = 960,000 liters

This table gives an understanding of the potential amount of water that can be captured from rain and stored at the root zone in relation to the percentage of SOM.

Scientists from the University of Illinois analyzed the results of a 50-year agricultural trial and found that synthetic nitrogen fertilizer resulted in all the carbon residues from the crop disappearing as well as an average loss of around 10,000 kg of carbon per hectare per year. This is around 36,700 kg of CO2 per hectare on top of the many thousands of kilograms of crop residue that is converted into CO2 every year.

Researchers found that the higher the application of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer the greater the amount of soil carbon lost as CO2. This is one of the major reasons why most conventional agricultural systems have a decline in soil carbon while most organic systems increase soil carbon.

PLANT-AVAILABLE NITROGEN LEVELS

One of the main concerns about organic agriculture is how to get sufficient plant-available nitrogen without using synthetic nitrogen fertilizers such as urea.

SOM, particularly the humus fractions, tend to have a carbon nitrogen ratio of 9:1 to 11:1. As the carbon levels increase, the amount of soil nitrogen increases in order to maintain the carbon-nitrogen ratios. Adding organic matter into the soil to increase carbon, results in the nitrogen levels increasing.

Much of this soil nitrogen is fixed by free-living soil microorganisms such as azobacters and cyanobacterias. The use of DNA sequencing is revealing that cohorts of numerous thousands of species of free-living microorganisms are involved in fixing nitrogen from the air into plant available forms. There are many studies that show that there is a strong relationship between higher levels of SOM and higher levels of soil biological activity.

This biological activity includes free-living nitrogen-fixers, and they turn the atmospheric nitrogen, the gas that makes up 78 percent of the air, into the forms that are needed by plants. They do this at no cost and are a major source of plant-available nitrogen that is continuously overlooked in most agronomy texts.

New research has found a new group of nitrogen-fixing organisms called endophytic microorganisms. These microbes can colonize the roots of numerous plant species including rice, grain crops and sugar cane.

SOIL CARBON, NITROGEN RATIOS

It is important to get an understanding of the potential for how much nitrogen can be stored in SOM for the crop to use. SOM contains nitrogen expressed in a Carbon to Nitrogen Ratio. This is usually in ratios from 11:1 to 9:1; however, there can be further variations. The only way to firmly establish the ratio for any soil is to do a soil test and measure the amounts.

For the sake of explaining the amount of organic nitrogen in the soil we will use a ratio of 10:1 to make the calculations easier.

The amount of carbon in SOM is expressed as SOC and is usually measured as the number of grams Formulated of carbon per kilogram of soil. Most texts will express this as a percentage of the soil to a certain depth. There is an accepted approximation ratio for the amount of soil organic carbon in soil organic matter: SOC × 1.72 = SOM.

The issue of working out the amount of SOC as a percentage of the soil by weight is complex as the specific density of the soil has to be factored in because some types of soils are denser and therefore heavier than other soils. This will change the weight of carbon as a percentage of the soil.

To make these concepts readily understandable we will use an average estimation developed by Dr. Christine Jones, one of Australia’s leading soil scientists and soil carbon specialists. According to Dr. Jones: “… a 1 percent increase in organic carbon in the top 20 cm of soil represents a 24 t/ha (24,000 kg) increase in SOC …”

This means that a soil with 1 percent SOC would contain 24,000 kg of carbon per hectare. With a 10:1 carbon to nitrogen ratio this soil would contain 2,400 kg of organic nitrogen per hectare in the top 20 centimeters, the primary root zone.

The conventional dogma around nitrogen is that it can only be used by plants if it is in the form of nitrate or ammonium and that organic nitrogen is mostly not available to the crop until it has been converted into these two forms of N.

There are hundreds of peer-reviewed scientific studies that show that this assumption is incorrect and that in natural systems plants take up nitrogen in numerous organic forms such as amino acids, amino acid precursors and DNA.

The fact is that the significant proportion of the organic nitrogen in the soil is readily available to the crop. The key to get an adequate level of N is to increase SOM levels rather than adding synthetic nitrogen fertilizers.

Given that synthetic nitrogen destroys organic matter, the use of these fertilizers should be avoided as they lock farmers into a perpetual dependence on these costly inputs once the organic matter levels have been run down and most of the organic nitrogen forms in the soil have been depleted. Farmers should be encouraged to obtain all their nitrogen from organic sources such as composts, manures, green manures and legumes and build up their organic matter levels.

André Leu is international director of Regeneration International. He is a longtime farmer in Australia and past president of the International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements. He is the author of The Myths of Safe Pesticides and Poisoning Our Children, published by Acres U.S.A.

Reposted with permission from Eco-Farming Daily

 

Organic Agriculture Can Feed the World

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Organic agriculture practices are often blamed for being unsustainable and not able to feed the world. In fact, several high-profile advocates of conventional agricultural production have stated that the world would starve if we all converted to organic agriculture. They have written articles for science journals and other publications saying that organic agriculture is not sustainable and produces yields that are significantly lower than conventional agriculture.

Thus, the push for genetically modified organisms, growth hormones, animal- feed antibiotics, food irradiation and toxic synthetic chemicals is being justified, in part, by the rationale that without these products the world will not be able to feed itself.

Photo credit: Pexels

Ever since Thomas Malthus wrote An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798 and first raised the specter of overpopulation, various experts have been predicting the end of human civilization because of mass starvation.

The theme was popularized again by Paul Ehrlich in his 1968 book, The Population Bomb. According to Ehrlich’s logic, we should all be starving now that the 21st century has arrived: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s the world will undergo famines; hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now.”

The only famines that have occurred since 1968 have been in African countries saddled with corrupt governments, political turmoil, civil wars and periodic droughts. The world had enough food for these people — it was political and logistical events that prevented them from producing adequate food or stopped aid from reaching them. Hundreds of millions of people did not starve to death.

The specter of mass starvation is being pushed again as the motive for justifying GMOs. In June 2003, President Bush stated at a biotechnology conference, “We should encourage the spread of safe, effective biotechnology to win the fight against global hunger.”

We must now ask ourselves: Is global hunger due to a shortage of food production?

In this first decade of the 21st century, many farmers around the world are facing a great economic crisis of low commodity prices. These low prices are due to oversupply.

Current economic theories hold that prices decrease when supply is greater than demand.

Most of our current production systems are price driven, with the need for economies of scale to reduce unit costs. The small profit margins of this economic environment favor enterprises working in terms of large volume, and as a result the family farm is declining. Many areas of the United States and Australia have fewer farmers now than 100 years ago, and the small rural centers they support are disappearing. Hundreds of thousands of farmers have had to leave their farms in Argentina due to higher production costs and lower commodity prices. The sugar industry in Australia is on the verge of collapse for the same reason. Australian dairy farmers continue to leave the industry since deregulation forced down the prices they receive. Most of the major industrial countries are subsidizing their farmers so that their agricultural sectors do not collapse.

Europe, North America, Australia and Brazil are in the process of converting a large percentage of their arable land from food production to biofuels such as ethanol in an effort to establish viable markets for their farmers. The latest push in GMO development is BioPharm, in which plants such as corn, sugarcane and tobacco are modified to produce new compounds such as hormones, vaccines, plastics, polymers and other nonfood compounds. All of these developments will mean that less food is grown on some of the world’s most productive farmland.

Grain farmers in India have protested about cheap imports that are sending them deeper into poverty. Countries such as India and China, once considered as overpopulated basket cases, export large quantities of food. In fact, India, one of the world’s most populated countries, is a net food exporter in most years.

South American rainforests are cleared for pasture that is grazed with beef destined for the hamburger chains of North America. Once the soil is depleted, new areas are cleared for pasture and old, degraded areas are abandoned to weeds. In Asia, most of the forests are cleared for timber that is exported to the developed industrial economies. One of the saddest things about this massive, wasteful destruction of biodiversity is that very little of the newly cleared land is used to feed the poor. Most of this production of timber and beef is exported to the world’s richest economies.

The reality is that the world produces more than enough food to feed everyone and has more than enough suitable agricultural land to do it. Unfortunately, due to inefficient, unfair distribution systems and poor farming methods, millions of people do not receive adequate nutrition.

Can Organic Agriculture Feed the World?

Organic agriculture needs to be able to answer two major questions:

  1. Can organic agriculture produce high yields?
  2. Can organic agriculture get the food to the people who need it?

An editorial in New Scientist for February 3, 2001, stated that low-tech, sustainable agriculture is increasing crop yields on poor farms across the world, often by 70 percent or more. This has been achieved by replacing synthetic chemicals with natural pest control and natural fertilizers.

Professor Jules Pretty, director of the Centre for Environment and Society at the University of Essex, wrote, “Recent evidence from 20 countries has found more than 2 million families farming sustainably on more than 4-5 million hectares. This is no longer marginal. It cannot be ignored. What is remarkable is not so much the numbers, but that most of this has happened in the past 5-10 years. Moreover, many of the improvements are occurring in remote and resource-poor areas that had been assumed to be incapable of producing food surpluses.”

An excellent example of this type of agricultural extension has been published in the January 2003 World Vision News. Working in conjunction AusAID, World Vision linked farmers from the impoverished Makuyu community in Kenya with the Kenya Institute of Organic Farming (KIOF).

They arranged workshops where KIOF members taught the principles of organic farming, including compost making, preparing safe organic pesticides, organic vegetable gardening and organic care of livestock.

Maize yields increased by four to nine times. The organically grown crops produced yields that were 60 percent higher than crops grown with expensive chemical fertilizers.

The wonderful thing is that many of these farmers now have a surplus of food to sell, whereas previously they did not even have enough to eat. They are organizing marketing co-ops to sell this surplus.

The profits are going back to the community. They have distributed dairy goats, rabbits, hives and poultry to community members and have planted 20,000 trees, including 2,000 mangos. Several of the organic farmers are training many other farmers in the district and helping them to apply organic farming techniques to their farms.

The mood of the community has changed. They are now confident and empowered with the knowledge that they can overcome the problems in their community. These types of simple, community based organic agricultural models are what is needed around the world to end rural poverty and starvation, not GMOs and expensive toxic chemicals.

The Makuyu community in Kenya is not an isolated example. Professor Pretty gives other examples from around the world of increases in yield when farmers have replaced synthetic chemicals and shifted to sustainable/organic methods:

  • 223,000 farmers in southern Brazil using green manures and cover crops of legumes and livestock integration have doubled yields of maize and wheat to 4-5 tons/hectare.
  • 45,000 farmers in Guatemala and Honduras used regenerative technologies to triple maize yields to 2-2.5 tons/ha and diversify their upland farms, which has led to local economic growth that has in turn encouraged remigration back from the cities.
  • 200,000 farmers across Kenya as part of sustainable agriculture programs have more than doubled their maize yields to about 2.5 to 3.3 tons/ha and substantially improved vegetable production through the dry seasons.
  • 100,000 small coffee farmers in Mexico have adopted fully organic production methods and increased yields by half.
  • A million wetland rice farmers in Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam have shifted to sustainable agriculture, where group-based farmer field schools have enabled farmers to learn alternatives to pesticides and increase their yields by about 10 percent.

Nicolas Parrott of Cardiff University, U.K., authored a report entitled The Real Green Revolution. He gives case studies that confirm the success of organic and agroecological farming techniques in the developing world:

  • In Madhya Pradesh, India, average cotton yields on farms participating in the Maikaal Bio-Cotton Project are 20 percent higher than on neighboring conventional farms.
  • In Madagascar, SRI (System of Rice Intensification) has increased yields from the usual 2-3 tons per hectare to yields of 6, 8 or 10 tons per hectare.
  • In Tigray, Ethiopia, a move away from intensive agrochemical usage in favor of composting has produced an increase in yields and in the range of crops it is possible to grow.
  • In the highlands of Bolivia, the use of bonemeal and phosphate rock and intercropping with nitrogen-fixing lupin species have significantly contributed to increases in potato yields.

One of the most important aspects of the teaching farmers in these regions to increase yields with sustainable/organic methods is that the food and fiber is produced close to where it is needed and in many cases by the people who need it. It is not produced halfway around the world, transported, and then sold to them.

Another important aspect is the low input costs. Growers do not need to buy expensive imported fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides. The increase in yields also comes with lower production costs, allowing a greater profit to these farmers.

Third, the substitution of more labor intensive activities such as cultural weeding, composting and intercropping for expensive imported chemical inputs provides more employment for local and regional communities. This employment allows landless laborers to pay for their food and other needs.

As in the example of the Makuyu community in Kenya, these benefits lead to a positive change in the wealth and the mood of the community. These communities are revitalized, proactive and empowered to improve their future.

Can Organic Agriculture Achieve High Yields in Developed Nations?

Since 1946, the advent of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, improved crop varieties and industrial paradigms are credited with producing the high yields of the “green revolution.” Because organic agriculture avoids many of these new inputs, it is assumed that it always results in lower yields.

Organic carrots.

The assumption that greater inputs of synthetic chemical fertilizers and pesticides are required to increase food yields is not accurate. In a study published in The Living Land, Professor Pretty looked at projects in seven industrialized countries of Europe and North America. He reported, “Farmers are finding that they can cut their inputs of costly pesticides and fertilizers substantially, varying from 20 to 80 percent, and be financially better off. Yields do fall to begin with (by 10 to 15 percent, typically), but there is compelling evidence that they soon rise and go on increasing. In the USA, for example, the top quarter of sustainable agriculture farmers now have higher yields than conventional farmers, as well as a much lower negative impact on the environment.”

Professor George Monbiot, in an article in the Guardian (August 24, 2000), wrote that wheat grown with manure has produced consistently higher yields for the past 150 years than wheat grown with chemical nutrients, in U.K. trials.

A study of apple production conducted by Washington State University compared the economic and environmental sustainability of conventional, organic and integrated growing systems in apple production. The organic system had equivalent yields to the other systems. The study also showed that the break-even point was nine years after planting for the organic system and 15 and 16 years, respectively, for conventional and integrated farming systems.

In an article published in the peer review scientific journal Nature, Laurie Drinkwater and colleagues from the Rodale Institute showed that organic farming had better environmental outcomes as well as similar yields of both products and profits when compared to conventional, intensive agriculture.

Gary Zimmer, one of the American pioneers of biological farming, runs an organic dairy farm with his son in Wisconsin. In 2000 one of his remineralized alfalfa (lucerne) fields produced a yield four times greater than the average for the district. He has increased the nutrient value of pasture by 300 percent and currently calves 150 cows every year without a single health problem.

Dick Thompson, a founding member of the Progressive Farmers of Iowa, engages in organic farm research in conjunction with the University of Iowa, the Rodale Institute and the Wallace Institute. He obtains some of the highest yields in his district using composts, ridge-tilling and crop rotations.

The innovative system of rotationally grazing several species of animals developed by Joel and Theresa Salatin of Polyface Farm in Virginia is one of the best examples of a high-yield organic system. They use 100 acres of dryland pasture to cell-graze cattle, sheep, pigs, meat chickens, laying hens, turkeys, pheasants and rabbits.

Their system is based on native pastures, without cultivation or new, “improved” pasture species. The only input has been the feed for the poultry.

This multi-species rotational grazing system builds one inch of soil a year and returns the family 15 times the income per acre than is received by neighboring farms using a set stocking of cattle.

Steve Bartolo, president of the Australian Organic Sugar Producers Association, produced similar yields of commercial sugar per hectare from his organic Q124 cane and his conventional cane in 2002. The average yield of sugar for his best organic cane “achieved higher tonnes per hectare compared to the average of all conventionally grown Q124.”

Greg Paynter, an organic farmer who works for the Queensland Department of Primary Industries, conducted the organic section of grain comparison trials at Dalby Agricultural College in 2002. The organic wheat produced 3.23 tonnes to the hectare compared to the conventional wheat yield of 2.22 tonnes. This trial was conducted during one of the worst droughts on record.

Graham McNally of Kialla Farms, one of Australia’s significant organic pioneers, consistently achieves yields comparable to those of the conventional farms in his region.

Dr. Rick Welsh of the Henry A. Wallace Institute reviewed numerous academic publications comparing organic and conventional production systems in the United States. The data showed that the organic systems were more profitable. This profit was not always due to premiums, but was instead a result of lower production and input costs as well as more consistent yields. Dr. Welsh’s study also showed that organic agriculture produces better yields than conventional agriculture in adverse weather events, such as droughts or higher-than-average rainfall.

Will GMOs Feed the World?

Argentina is a good example of what happens when a country pursues the policies of market deregulation and GMO crops. It is the third-largest producer of GMO crops, with 28 percent of the world’s production. By the 1999-2000 season, more than 80 percent of the total soybean acreage, or 6.6 million hectares, had been converted to GMOs. These are some of the results according to a study published by Lehmann and Pengue in theBiotechnology and Development Monitor:

  • Declining profit margins — prices for soybeans declined 28 percent between 1993 and 1999.
  • Farmers’ profit margins fell by half between 1992 and 1999, making it difficult for many to pay off bank loans for machinery, chemical inputs and seeds.
  • A 32 percent decrease in producers — between 1992 and 1997, the number of producers dropped from 170,000 to 116,000, meaning 54,000 farmers were forced to leave the industry.
  • At least 50 percent of the acreage is now managed by corporate agriculture.
  • There is an increasing role of transnational companies in the agricultural sector.
  • Industrialization of grain and soybean production has boosted dependence on foreign agricultural inputs and increased foreign debt.
  • Removal of import tariffs led to the bankruptcy of domestic farm machinery manufacturers and a loss of employment.
  • The commercial seed sector has become increasingly controlled by subsidiaries of transnational corporations.

Since the above data was published, the Argentinean economy collapsed, causing riots and the resignations of several governments. The country is now currently in deep debt, with its economy under the control of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Its standard of living has declined, and thousands more farmers have been forced off their farms. Rural and urban poverty and hunger has increased.

According to Caritas Argentina, the social services agency of the Catholic Church in that country, over 40 percent of all Argentinean children are now undernourished: “World Health Organization standards for daily caloric intake are unmet for nearly 40 percent of Argentinean children under 18, and for up to half in the poorer northeast region of the country. Even in the comparatively wealthy capital city Buenos Aires, at least 19 children have died of malnutrition in recent months.”

If GMOs cannot feed the children in the country that is the world’s third largest producer of GMO crops, how will they feed the rest of the world?

Conclusion: Organic Agriculture Can Feed the World

The data thus shows that it is possible to obtain very good yields using organic systems. This is not uniform at the moment, with many organic growers not yet producing at the levels that are achievable.

Education on the best practices in organic agriculture is a cost-effective and simple method of ensuring high levels of economically, environmentally and socially sustainable production where it is needed.

Organic agriculture is a viable solution to preventing global hunger because:

  • It can achieve high yields.
  • It can achieve these yields in the areas where it is needed most.
  • It has low inputs.
  • It is cost-effective and affordable.
  • It provides more employment so that the impoverished can purchase their own needs.
  • It does not require any expensive technical investment.

It costs tens of millions of dollars and takes many years to develop one genetically modified plant variety. This money would be spent far more productively on organic agricultural education, research and extension in the areas where we need to overcome hunger and poverty.

Organic agriculture is the quickest, most efficient, most cost-effective and fairest way to feed the world.

André Leu is international director of Regeneration International. He is a longtime farmer in Australia and past president of the International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements. He is the author of The Myths of Safe Pesticides and Poisoning Our Children, published by Acres U.S.A.

Reposted with permission from Eco-Farming Daily

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