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SCIENCE MATTERS by David Suzuki
It might seem like a hip new trend, but various forms of organic agriculture have been around for some 6,000 years. While organic farming almost disappeared in North America during the latter half of the 20th century, it has recently taken off as both consumers and farmers have discovered the benefits of a more holistic approach to agriculture.
Organic farming is rooted in ancient knowledge that has been passed down through generations. Long before science could tell us why certain farming methods produced greater crop yields, organic farmers were learning what worked and what didn’t – the hard way – and sharing their knowledge with others.
With the advent of industrial farming and the Green Revolution*, organic farming was considered quaint or old-fashioned – something practised by hippies on communes, but certainly not by serious farmers. But while the green revolution initially produced higher crop yields, it also created new problems, from fertilizer and pesticide run-off, to soil erosion, to reduced soil fertility. Today, new studies show that organic agriculture can often match, and sometimes exceed, yields from conventional agriculture, while eliminating the need for pesticides and, at the same time, conserving soil quality.
The Rodale farming systems trial is the longest running comparison of organic and conventional farming in the US. For 22 years, researchers have planted crops at the Rodale farm in Pennsylvania, using a mix of conventional agriculture and two organic farming systems: one uses animal manure for fertilizer, and the other is based on utilizing nitrogen-fixing legumes. Recently, the journal Bioscience published a review of the trial. Researchers measured the economic feasibility of each farming system, along with its environmental impacts, energy consumption, and other indicators. They found that for some crops, like corn and soybeans, organic farming systems produced the same yields as conventional systems, but used 30 percent less energy, less water, and no pesticides.
In fact, during drought years, corn yields in the organic systems were 30 percent higher than those in the conventional system. Researchers state that the organic systems were able to perform better in drought conditions because their soils contained much larger amounts of carbon and organic matter. Increased organic matter also led to a more diverse mix of creatures in the organic plots, including twice the number of earthworms. In turn, increased diversity helped reduce damage from insect pests, by introducing a greater number of natural predators.
In addition to the organic systems having numerous beneficial effects upon the environment – as one would expect – the researchers also found that the organic systems could be as profitable, if not more so, than the conventional systems. And although the organic systems were more labour intensive (weeding by hand, for instance, as opposed to spraying with herbicides), because consumers were willing to pay a premium for organics, the profit margins were often higher.
Arguing that certain organic technologies – the use of off-season crops, extended crop rotations, increased organic matter in the soil, and enhanced natural biodiversity – should be more widely adopted, researchers concluded: “Some or all of these technologies have the potential to increase the ecological, energetic, and economic sustainability of all agricultural cropping systems, not only organic systems.”
In other words, many organic practices simply make sense, regardless of which agricultural system is utilized. Far from being a quaint throwback to an earlier time, organic agriculture is proving to be both a serious contender in modern farming practices, and a more environmentally sustainable system over the long term. With consumers expressing a preference for organics, and farmers realizing the benefits, this is one trend that’s likely to stay.
*The Green Revolution, a term coined in 1968 by William Gaud, director of the US Agency for International Development, defined a movement to increase yields by using irrigation, pesticides, fertilizers, mechanization, and new crop cultivars.
Take the Nature Challenge and learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org
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