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Organic push won′t hurt world food supply
8 May 2007 www.freshplaza.com
Organic food has long been considered a niche market and a luxury for wealthy consumers. But researchers told a U.N. conference Saturday that a large-scale shift to organic agriculture could actually help fight world hunger while improving the environment.
Crop yields initially can drop as much as 50% when industrialized, conventional agriculture using chemical fertilizers and pesticides is converted to organic. While such decreases often even out over time and promote other benefits, the figures have kept the organic movement largely on the sidelines of discussions about feeding the hungry.
Researchers in Denmark found, however, that there would not be any serious negative effect on food security for sub-Saharan Africa if 50% of agricultural land in the food exporting regions of Europe and North America were converted to organic by 2020.
While total food production would drop, the amount per crop would be much less than previously assumed, and the drop in world food prices that resulted could be mitigated by improvements in the land and other benefits, the study found.
· A similar conversion to organic farming in sub-Saharan Africa could help the region's hungry because it could reduce their need to import food, Niels Halberg, a senior scientist at the Danish Research Center for Organic Food and Farming, told the U.N. conference on "Organic Agriculture and Food Security."
- Farmers who go back to using traditional agricultural methods would not have to spend money on expensive chemicals and would grow more diverse crops that are more sustainable, the report said. In addition, if their food is certified organic, farmers could export any surpluses, bringing in cash since organic food has such premium prices.
Alexander Mueller, assistant director-general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO, praised the report and noted that projections indicated that the number of hungry people in sub-Saharan Africa was only expected to grow. Considering that the impact of climate change will target the world's poor and most vulnerable, "a shift to organic agriculture could be beneficial," he said.
The Rome-based FAO's Nadia El-Hage Scialabba, who organized the conference, pointed to other studies of a hypothetical food supply that she said indicated that organic agriculture could produce enough food per capita to feed the current world's population.
One such study, by the University of Michigan, found that a global shift to organic agriculture would yield at least 2,641 kilocalories per person per day, just under the world's current production of 2,786, and as many as 4,381 kilocalories per person per day, researchers reported.
"These models suggest that organic agriculture has the potential to secure a global food supply, just as conventional agriculture today, but with reduced environmental impacts," Scialabba said in a paper presented to the conference. However, she stressed that the studies were only that — economic models.
The United Nations defines organic agriculture as a "holistic" food system that avoids the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, minimizes pollution and optimizes the health of plants, animals and people. It is commercially practiced in 120 countries and represented a $40 billion market last year, Scialabba said.
Copyright 2007. Source: The Associated Press.
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