Study: Organic Can Feed the World

MONDAY, MAY 14VANCOUVER, BC7:30 -
9 pmTalk of the Town Lecture Series
UBC Robson Square, Downtown

MAY 13, 2007 — For years, grumbling opponents of environmentalism dismissed organic farming as a practice that was good for growing overpriced tomatoes to feed the rich, but could never feed the world. The naysayers repeated their argument often enough that it solidified into a “fact.”

Last weekend, though, a U.N. Food and Agriculture conference heard that organic farming can feed the world - and may be a better way forward for the world’s poorest than industrial agriculture.

The presentation by Niels Halberg of the Danish Research Center for Organic Food and Farming was based on a study first published in 2005. A team of researchers, led by Halberg, found that a large-scale shift to organic agriculture worldwide by 2020 would likely reduce the number of food calories produced every year, but the number would still be enough to feed every person on Earth. (There is also a chance that food production could increase.) As importantly, most of the lost production would occur in the rich world, which has a calorie surplus. The planet’s poorest farmers, meanwhile, could expect to see their food security improve.
The conclusions are based on limited existing studies and abstract computer modeling, and Halberg’s team acknowledges the need for deeper research. Still, the study does suggest that an organic revolution in global agriculture should be firmly placed on the table as an option. Industrial agriculture - with its costs ranging from chemical runoff dead zones to plummeting crop diversity to crushing debt among small-scale farmers - can no longer claim to be the only way to feed the world.

In this alternative future, local food systems play a critical role. In fact, the organics study points to local adaptation of “agro-ecological” methods as a key variable that could boost food production. Focusing on increased local production and regional self-sufficiency, the researchers note, could be a better way to alleviate hunger in areas with food shortages than to leave such areas dependent on surplus exports from industrial agriculture in other nations.

Once again science is beginning to prove an idea that has the ring of common sense. We suspect the research will continue to show that organic farming, crop diversity, local sustainability, and a stronger relationship between agriculture and the natural landscape are not only good for the environment, but are also the best ways to feed us all. We may even one day hear a world leader say - and really believe - that long-term economic health cannot exist outside a healthy ecology.

Simple “organic food” is not enough. Among the report’s cautions is this: “Certified [organic agriculture] faces a pressure from the globalization of food systems, which threatens to dilute the specific characteristics of organic food by increased specialization and reduction in diversity, standardization, long distance trade and lack of transparency.”