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Organics Can't Match Conventional Farm Yields
scibri writes "A comprehensive analysis published in Nature (abstract) suggests that organic farming could supply needs in some circumstances. But yields are lower than in conventional farming, so producing the bulk of the globe's diet will still require chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The meta-analysis reviewed 66 studies comparing the yields of 34 different crop species in organic and conventional farming systems. The researchers included only studies that assessed the total land area used, allowing them to compare crop yields per unit area. Many previous studies that have showed large yields for organic farming ignore the size of the area planted — which is often bigger than in conventional farming. Crop yields from organic farming are as much as 34% lower than those from comparable conventional farming practices, though in some cases, notably with strawberries and soybeans, the gap is as small as 3%."
No shit.
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
Did they take into account the costs that go into production of fertilizers and pesticides? I imagine that they take up non-zero space and that transporting them costs resources as well. Though it's hard to say how much oil a bushel of wheat is worth...
I was under the assumption that organic farms yielded more crops, and that we use pesticides / non-organic grown methods because they are just more fun.
Which will we run out of first, oil or dirt?
I find the rhetorical twist here interesting: "conventional farming" is now the artificially accelerated, yield raising variant of farming. The very things that those techniques were supposed to address were increased yields, pest resistance, etc. "Organic" farming as we know it now was previously largely known as "farming". Obviously the results are not at all surprising, but there is a very sinister underlying rhetoric here. Fill in the blank: Study sponsored by: ________
I believe the point of organic farming is to minimize the negative externalities of "conventional" (I would say "industrial") farming, such as water pollution. If you have to plant 34% more acres to avoid poisoning a major river, I and many others would call that a win.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
We could stop throwing away over 1/3 of our food, grow less beef cattle, and reduce our use of non-food agriculture like tobacco and ethanol (as a side note, we could stop using so much high fructose corn syrup too) and then maybe we'd actually be able to produce a decent amount of healthy organic food for the world. Personal and community gardens could lighten the load, as well as urban farming. It seems to me that its not the yield that we should worry about, rather the efficiency of use.
Proving once again that organics will be outclassed by synthetics? What, wrong game?
(The label "organics" always amused me.)
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
"Organic" farming is not good in and of itself. It's better at preventing the consumption of toxic chemicals, it's more environmentally sound, and it's also more economically just (because "organic" foods are not copyrighted).
Since we can't feed the planet on organics, but we want all the benefits of organics, we need to change the way do make, use, and "protect" conventional crops. That means federal funding to develop non-copyrighted crops and promote biodiversity regardless of within organic and modified foods.
The lesson: instead of replacing modern modified foods with organics, bring modified foods up to the ethical and environmental standards of organic foods.
Yes, it's sad that children in economically depressed regions are starving so please avoid predicating an argument from that premise alone.
That isn't enough?
"Here Lies Philip J. Fry, named for his uncle, to carry on his spirit"
I wonder if the authors of the study get the point of Organic Farming?
It's not about yield, it's about removing the potentially allergenic and toxic substances in our food chain that modern farming uses from the land, air and water around us.
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
The Rodale Institute did a 30 year side-by-side study. They found that,
- initially, organic farms created less, as fertilizers and pesticide initially gave a conventional farms a boost. This disappeared over time, as conventional farming damages and degrades the soil, reducing yeilds.
- organic outperforms conventional in years of drought.
- organic farming systems build rather than deplete soil organic matter, making it a more sustainable system.
- organic farming uses 45% less energy and is more efficient.
- conventional systems produce 40% more greenhouse gases.
- organic farming systems are more profitable than conventional.
I am not sure where that last one came from (I haven't read the final report)
I can't agree that GMO's are "conventional" agriculture.
"Conventional" agriculture seeds the fields with part of the last harvest, the seeds of the plants which survived in the local conditions. After about 20 generations or so, you have "land race" genetics -- plants whose genomes have self-tuned to the pests and weather of the local environment. Provided the environment remains stable and isn't affected by imported pests, such crops are far more productive than genetics imported from outside the region.
GMO's on the other hand, have one purpose and one purpose only: To allow the use of herbicides and pesticides that would kill the "natural" plant. I can guarantee you that if landrace genetics were resistant to those same herbicides and pesticides that they'd out-produce the imported GMOs.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
of cost reduction are what are required to meet a population growing at a geometric rate, in theory.
if you want to argue that somehow the 'resources required' to grow organics wont meet population growth, you have to prove that somehow conventional produce can meet the geometric rate increase while organics cant.
but if you go into the store, organics are not 'orders of magnitude' more expensive than conventional produce. they are usually 1 to 3 times more in cost. thats not an order of magnitude. its a pretty simple scalar multiple.
and alot of the difference in cost is because of subsidies for various industries, like the oil industry where the petroleum precursor of most fertilizers and insecticides comes from.
now, go into any supermarket, and look on the shelves. you see a huge amount of processed food, repackaged, precooked, pre-stuffed, etc etc etc. all of that 'added value' is, well, basically its waste. nobody "needs" frozen apple turnovers with chocolate icing in the pattern of a heart shape, but you can go buy it if you want. the idea that somehow organic food would be 'wasted productivity' in the food system is absolutely ridiculous when you look at all the crap in the various 'value added' isles of the supermarket. all of those are, essentially, lowering the efficiency of transporting the calories from the farm to the belly. you could simply sell 5 pound bags of flour for 2 dollars each, and get rid of the entire cereal and cracker aisle, and the people would get the same nutritional value approximately, but they would save a huge amount of money. money = resources. those resources saved could then be put back into growing 'extra food' and meeting the 'growing population'.
but that argument is fucking stupid because the 2-3 times price markup for a bag of crackers vs a bag of raw flour (which you could use to make your own goddamn crackers) is not going to cause mass starvation simply because its less efficient. all it does is make people smile because crackers taste good, and make food companies and retailers money because they can 'value add' to the raw flour and build a profit into the increased price.
now if you see organics, instead of some hippy 'impediment to growth and optimization of food supply', and, instead simply view it as another way to deliver calories or raw food products, then the arguments against them from an efficiency standpoint are just as stupid.
you cant say that organic flour is going to cause mass starvation because it costs 5 bucks a pound instead of 3 bucks a pound, when you have just repackaged that conventional flour into cheerios on the next aisle and are selling it for 6 bucks a pound.
these people are fucking idiots and should be embarassed to call themselves thinkers.
Production costs for so-called "conventional" farming have high negative externalities--costs that are simply not captured in a yield-per-acre formula, or even a yield-per-dollar forumula.
Which makes this metastudy not particularly useful or meaningful, because without some way of assessing those costs, we don't have enough information to know what is better.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!