Category Archives: sustainable food

This post originally appeared on CSRWire’s TalkBack blog…..

Can organic farming really feed the world’s billions?

Earlier this summer, United Nations expert Olivier De Schutter held a special meeting in Brussels that concluded agroecology (or sustainable farming) outperforms industrial agriculture and could be scaled up to feed the world while also protecting the environment and reducing pollution that’s contributing to climate change.

The widest study ever undertaken on agroecological approaches (Jules Pretty, Essex University, UK) concluded that this type of farming increased crop yields by 79 percent in developing countries.  Successes from this type of farming can be found around Africa as well as in Cuba and Brazil.

In addition, a 2008 United Nations report, commonly referred to as the World Agriculture Report, concluded that the world must move away from chemical-dependent industrial agriculture toward sustainable farming.

Why are an increasing number of studies and reports concluding that sustainable farming is the best method to feed the world and ourselves? Here are five of a multitude of reasons:

1.     Higher yield. 286 projects in 57 developing countries, representing 37 million hectares, were studied, and the average crop yield gain was 79%.  In the United States and UK, studies have shown that organic crop yields equal industrial yields and are sometimes even higher.

2.     Less chemicals used. Farmers use manure from their animals to fertilize the soil, as well as crop rotation systems, thus minimizing or eliminating the need for chemical fertilizers.  In addition, through planting specific crops next to each other and introducing certain types of insects and birds, chemical pesticides are not used.

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