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.
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