{"id":200,"date":"2011-11-24T11:30:36","date_gmt":"2011-11-24T16:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/organic-farming-as-productive-as-pesticiding-proven-yet-again.html"},"modified":"2011-11-24T11:30:36","modified_gmt":"2011-11-24T16:30:36","slug":"organic-farming-as-productive-as-pesticiding-proven-yet-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/organic-farming-as-productive-as-pesticiding-proven-yet-again.html","title":{"rendered":"Organic farming as productive as pesticiding (proven yet again)"},"content":{"rendered":"Rodale Institute has been running a side-by-side comparison of organic\nand chemical agriculture since 1981.\nThey\n\nreport:<\/a>\n
\nAfter an initial decline in yields during the first few years of\ntransition, the organic system soon rebounded to match or surpass the\nconventional system. Over time, FST became a comparison between the long\nterm potential of the two systems.\n<\/blockquote>\nYear after year, Rodale found:\n
\nOrganic yields match conventional yields.\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nAs Tom Philpott reported for Mother Jones 17 November 2011,\n\nYet Again, Organic Ag Proves Just as Productive as Chemical Ag<\/a>,\n

\n\n<\/a>\nAnd now comes evidence from the very heart of Big Ag: rural Iowa, where\nIowa State University’s Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture runs\nthe Long-Term Agroecological Research Experiment (LTAR), which began in\n1998, which has just released its latest results.\n

\nAt the LTAR fields in Adair County, the (LTAR) runs four fields: one\nmanaged with the Midwest-standard two-year corn-soy rotation featuring\nthe full range of agrochemicals; and the other ones organically managed\nwith three different crop-rotation systems. The chart below records the\nyield averages of all the systems, comparing them to the average yields\nachieved by actual conventional growers in Adair County:\n<\/blockquote>\nNorman Borlaug, instigator of the “green revolution”\nof no-till and pesticides, when asked in 2000\nwhether organic agriculture could feed the world, said:\n\n\n

\nThat’s ridiculous. This shouldn’t even be a debate. Even if you could use\nall the organic material that you have—the animal manures, the human\nwaste, the plant residues—and get them back on the soil, you couldn’t\nfeed more than 4 billion people. In addition, if all agriculture were\norganic, you would have to increase cropland area dramatically, spreading\nout into marginal areas and cutting down millions of acres of forests.\n<\/blockquote>\nAnd pesticiders have parrotted those same arguments all along.\nYet Norman Borlaug was wrong, and so are they.\n
\nIn short, Borlaug’s claim of huge yield advantages for the\nchemical-intensive agriculture he championed just don’t pan out in\nthe field.\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n\n<\/a>\nAnd organic is far more profitable to the farmer:\n

\nOrganic crops draw a higher price in the market and don’t require\nexpenditures for pricy inputs like synthetic fertilizer and pesticides.\n<\/blockquote>\nSure, it’s a bit more complicated to plow up weeds and plant cover crops\nthan to just spray everything and hope you can stay ahead of the mutant weeds\nyou’re creating.\nBut if you like health and profit more than the great god efficiency,\nyou’ll go organic and you’ll never go back.\n

\nWe not only can feed the world with organic agriculture,\nwe need to, so we can have healthy food and a healthy environment.\nRodale also reports:\n

\n\n<\/a>\nOrganic outperforms conventional in years of drought.\n
\nOrganic farming systems build rather than deplete soil organic matter, making it a more sustainable system.\n
\nOrganic farming uses 45% less energy and is more efficient.\n
\nConventional systems produce 40% more greenhouse gases.\n
\nOrganic farming systems are more profitable than conventional.\n<\/blockquote>\nAll that and you don’t get pesticides in your food.\n

\nFor health and profit, grow organic, and buy organic.\n

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