But the end result is a healthier soil, which may prove vital in efforts to make it more resilient in the face of climate change as well as conserve it. Organic soils, for example, retain water better than those farms that employ conventional methods. "You use a lot more water [in irrigation] because the soil doesn't have the capacity to retrain the water you use," noted farmer Fred Kirschenmann, president of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture at the "Feeding the World While the Earth Cooks" event at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C., on April 12.
At the same time, a still-growing human population requires more food, which has led some to propose further intensifying conventional methods of applying fertilizer and pesticides to specially bred crops, enabling either a second Green Revolution or improved yields from farmlands currently under cultivation. Crops genetically modified to endure drought may also play a role as well as efforts to develop perennial versions of annual staple crops, such as wheat, which could help reduce environmental impacts and improve soil. "Increasing salt, drought or heat tolerance of our existing crops can move them a little but not a lot," said biologist Nina Fedoroff of Pennsylvania State University at the New America event. "That won't be enough."
And breeding new perennial versions of staple crops would require compressing millennia of crop improvements that resulted in the high-yielding wheat varieties of today, such as the dwarf wheat created by breeder Norman Borlaug and his colleagues in the 1950s, into a span of years while changing the fundamental character of wheat from an annual crop to a perennial one. Then there is the profit motive. "The private sector is not likely to embrace an idea like perennial crop seeds, which do not require the continued purchase of seeds and thus do not provide a very good source of profit," Seufert notes.
Regardless, the world already produces 22 trillion calories annually via agriculture, enough to provide more than 3,000 calories to every person on the planet. The food problem is one of distribution and waste—whether the latter is food spoilage during harvest, in storage or even after purchase. According to the Grocery Manufacturers Association, in the U.S. alone, 215 meals per person go to waste annually.
"Since the world already produces more than enough food to feed everyone well, there are other important considerations" besides yield, argues ecologist Catherine Badgley of the University of Michigan, who also compared yields from organic and conventional methods in a 2006 study (pdf) that found similar results. Those range from environmental impacts of various practices to the number of people employed in farming. As it stands, conventional agriculture relies on cheap energy, cheap labor and other unsustainable practices. "Anyone who thinks we will be using Roundup [a herbicide] in eight [thousand] to 10,000 years is foolish," argued organic evangelist Jeff Moyer, farm director the Rodale Institute, at the New America Foundation event.
But there is unlikely to be a simple solution. Instead the best farming practices will vary from crop to crop and place to place. Building healthier soils, however, will be key everywhere. "Current conventional agriculture is one of the major threats to the environment and degrades the very natural resources it depends on. We thus need to change the way we produce our food," Seufert argues. "Given the current precarious situation of agriculture, we should assess many alternative management systems, including conventional, organic, other agro-ecological and possibly hybrid systems to identify the best options to improve the way we produce our food."
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29 Comments
Add CommentIt's so sad that Greenpeace mowed down that nitrogen-efficient wheat. That's a plant that really needs to get into farmer's hands.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm a vegetarian and try to eat organioc. However, the percent of organic food produced is irrelevent to the world's population. Folks eat crap and manage to reproduce just fine. Lots of food to eat...just stuff I wouldn't feed my kids.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"It's so sad that Greenpeace mowed down that nitrogen-efficient wheat"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat kind of nitrogent-efficient wheat? Classic breading , GMO, etc ?
I'm guessing this kind :
http://www.csiro.au/Organisation-Structure/Divisions/Plant-Industry/NueBarley.aspx
"This high-yield wheat - made especially for noodles - grew faster, taller and had more seeds than non-GM controls. Yet in July 2011, Greenpeace mowed down this and other GM wheat varieties at a CSIRO experimental facility in Canberra, sparking outrage in scientific communities"
http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/features/print/5079/brave-new-wheat?page=0%2C4
Even considering their promotion of this wheat variety is a profit based enterprise, it might still be a sustainable product in the long term, so I don't think Green peace mowing it down will stop its use if it really turns out to be a good thing.
"At the same time, a still-growing human population requires more food" ... Until we are even more, needing even more food etc... until life becomes so horrible on earth that we'll be all half sick and death toll starts to balance the births! Then we will be really happy just because we will be 11-20+ billions! Do we rally want to reach that stage? Is it impossible for a democracy to control their population numbers? Instead of building weapons should we give free contraception for all? What rights do we have to reproduce to the limits and drive other species to extinction? Why shall we reproduce to the limit if the limit is bad? Is alcohol and drugs correlated with bad contraception? What about having a culture where people feel guilty to have children? "Oh no you had a 2nd one aren't you not caring about the environment, about the future of the other children?" Of course it's bad! So how to accept joyfully the children already there and try hard not having more? What do so many people think children first and relationship second? What's wrong with having no kids? Let's imagine a birth rate of only 1 child per couple and such every 36-40+ years, quickly more space, less pollution, more jobs (especially around cemeteries :-) ), more flats to rent, less violence etc. And at the time slower reproduction rate and better environment would increase the people life expectancy. Does actual contraception just select people who don't know how to use it well? From tiny penis no condom fit well to psychological disability to think okay during these time. Shall we wait until most people are unfertile because of pesticides? Is having children a right for women? Notice by the way that it's not a right for men because they need to be accepted by a women when a women may ask a sperm gift either from a friend or a bank anonymous donor! Is it right than women have more rights than men on that matter ... obviously an almost ridiculous question, but may be not so? etc... Shall we slow the birth rate with strong political incitations? How could we do it? Should rich countries help poor countries ? Obviously yes? Why is it not happening? FREE FAMILY PLANING FOR ALL.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy do we still hear politicians from left to right talk about brute growths when we know that sort of growths means mainly more pollution? ... will have a few more ? but it becomes hard! Hopefully I did not offend anybody and raised some more questions! This is may be not the best article for that sort of comment, but nobody is perfect :-)
Pests are mostly controlled with pesticides in conventional agriculture. Organic currently cover a far smaller part of agricultural surface than conventional. Therefore, it could be that organic farming is currently beneficing from the pest control performed by conventional agriculture. What would happen to organic farming productivity if its share of land was far larger than it is today and it could not take the indirect advantage of pest control performed by conventional agriculture? Is organic (I mean, the set of rules that define "organic") scalable?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShoshin -
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisperhaps fortunately, I've no idea what you're getting at.
This research is highly relevant, and as other commenters about highlighted, is further evidence that the biggest danger to life-and-limb and the environment are the greenies and those who pooh-pooh the population question.
Most comments have been very much to the point.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBriefly, continued reliance on largely petrochemical pesticides and fertilizers (not to mention fuel for production mechanization and distribution) and irrigation using non-replinished fossil water aquifers and glacial water sources is not sustainable, especially when the still growing human population directly demands the same diminishing resources.
We may be on the path to increasing conflict - apparently the only reliable cure for a human population projected by the U.S. Census Bureau to increase by another 2.4 billion people by 2050. Even the U.S. population is expected to increase by >33% during the same period. Interestingly, the global population was 1 billion people 200 years ago - certainly the increased availability of food has been a critical factor in that growth.
What about controlled agriculture? Isn't it possible to grow our food indoors, with filtered air and water, using LED lighting?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis would not only enable us to grow in urban areas, reducing transport costs, but also allow our farmland to regenerate and return back to its natural state.
How about the following approach: governments of the planet mandate eating much more vegetable based diet and put high taxes on meat and other cary foods. The impact could be massive and relatively quick, with the following advantages:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. Vegetable based diet can feed many more people.
2. Vegetable based diet is healthier, helps people being healthier, and reduces overall healthcare costs.
3. Vegetable diet would reduce pressure on agri business, which in turn would reduce requirement to use fertiliser and other highly dangerous chemical compounds.
4. Removal of meat business would dramatically reduce the amount of energy required to sustain this business. Based on what static one reads, ca. 15% of global Greenhouse emissions relate to that business.
5. Governments could save billions of tax payer money spend on direct and indirect subsidies for the meat business, another couple of billions for measures to take out part of the greenhouse gases that the meat business has generated.
6. Governments could save even more billions in healthcare if they stopped meat as well as other rather unhealthy food products, by keeping people healthier and happier.
In addition, all of the above isn't counting the suffering that people are currently exposed to through either meat and other crappy food producers, and, when they are sick, through the avalanche of medication that is supposed to help them, but actually doesn't due to side-effects and looming kidney weakening. A vicious cycle, where big business makes money at the expense of public health, courtesy of governments supported by business driven lobbyists.
I wonder when we humans wake up to what needs to be done.
We probably couldn't afford the real estate. Consider an experiment - what would it take for you to grow all of your (family's) food requirements indoors?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder what % of the worlds poor eat commercially grown food crops? I wonder what % of the worlds rural poor grow some and buy local grown and traditional foods?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI live in a city of close to 4 million people in Mexico and the poor I know buy a lot of food that's trucked in locally from food growers who can't afford chemical inputs.It's not officially organic but it is mostly chemical free.
Does anyone know what % of the world's food is grown without chemical inputs as opposed to "Organic" which is a first world concept.
The question is not whether to use organic agriculture; it is rather how to organize organic agriculture to produce enough food for the world. Commercial agriculture, as it is now practiced, produces foods with inadequate nutrition, limited by the nutrition of the fertilizer. It uses herbicides which both threaten humans with birth irregularities, and which produce super, herbicide tolerant weeds. It uses pesticides which are threatening our national bee colonies, and which are unhealthy for humans also. We, therefore, simply cannot afford to continue our commercial agricultural practices much longer. But rotating our crops, and using nutritious natural fertilizer will will be the way to feed the world.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWarehouse space is relatively inexpensive and plants can be stacked vertically to reduce costs. We could also go underground to reduce costs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAgriculture does not have to take place in a flat field, think outside the box!
The secret behind the effect of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer is water. The fertilizer makes the plants cells increase their volume by taking up water much faster. So the effect of the fertilizer is one of adding weight, but not substance. Thus when you weigh a synthetic fertilized tomato and an organic tomato you must take into account that the fertilized one is full of water. This can easily be tasted as well. So it is an error to assume that you get less yield from growing organic, you just get less water. And when you buy organic vegetables in your grocery store, be sure that they contain more of the good stuff you really need. Not that you don`t need water, but to pay for it in the form of a vegetable is getting double crossed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt all comes down to what is sustainable (both in human population and agriculture). Is there a combination of conventional and organic that is sustainable? I somehow doubt it. Aside from sustainable, it also needs to be resilient as climate change starts to wreak havoc with our weather (and climate zones).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this9 billion people is not some magic figure - the most recent UN estimate was for 10 billion by the end of the century but still growing, though slowly. So population is a crucial factor, here. How long can we keep producing food to support growing populations of humans? That, in itself is unsustainable.
Permaculture techniques are key, I think, along with more local food and fewer manicured lawns, so most of us grow some of our own food in ways that mimic nature, as closely as possible.
This article's opening paragraph is in error. It's the seventh. The Holocene Mass Extinction of large mammils is now accepted normal science and that makes it the sixth. This time period is now designated the Anthropocene Epoch and the current in-progress mass extinction will be designated the Seventh Anthropocene Mass Extinction.
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Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome, about 50% of the increase of GM crops is volume, not food value material. Organic or better, living soil farming, can easily out produce once established chemical farms in profit because the costs are less.
As vegetables get more pricey most will be grown locally and in greenhouses and many homes will have gardens.
I see a business model where a gardener takes care of 20-30 home gardens for money or part of the crop. This makes sense even now. Need a job? Make one.
Facts are healthy soils in raised beds can outproduce any other kind of flat land farming in the most expensive crops. Or at least no till.
I'd switch to raising deer, bison, goats, sheep and grass fed cattle alone would increse grain/food supply 50%.
I'd treet the whole US coast, lakes and waterways as fish farms and just gently help nature not only provide protein but clean the water by taking the protein out, reducing the nutrient loading.
Cattails are good food or for making fuels. Let's use them. They grow back rather fast.
Interestingly ethanol takes little from the food supply because the mash left is a higher quaity animal and better human feed than raw corn was because of the added protien, etc from the yeast. All the fiber cattle need is still there as is the corn oil. Only the starch is used and replaced with yeast. So in effect the sales of these corn byproducts makes the feedstock almost free.
I think the world will settle out around 8Billion people and with a few adjustments easily able to feed them all. The US alone can feed 1B itself if done as above at 50% of present energy, chemical use.
My friend was in the peacecorp teaching in CA how to make their own fertilizer and was bit--ed at for not teaching chemical intensive which the farmers had no money for. And he knew as he grew up as a farmer.
Worse thing for farming is big Ag like Monsanto, AGM who'll do anything for a tiny profit. Their trying to corner the market on various areas and restricting seed, herbicides that are starting to kill the land are making use vernerable to big problems if a couple crops fail because not enough variation in the DNA.
"Regardless, the world already produces 22 trillion calories annually via agriculture, enough to provide more than 3,000 calories to every person on the planet."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShould that be 22 trillion calories daily? Three thousand calories is not enough to sustain a person for a year.
More than just organic is needed. We also require better distribution of locally and regionally produced food. Big Ag's centralization has been efficient in terms of absolute yield, but it destroyed local food systems.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFood hubs are helping address this issue, and deep planning between hubs and growers are needed to make supply truly transparent for efficient distribution.
Here in Charleston, SC, <a href="http://www.growfoodcarolina.com">Growfood Carolina</a> is SC's first food hub, but there are more than a hundred across the country. Growfood and several other hubs are using <a href="http://www.foodhubpro.com">FoodHub Pro</a> to collaboratively plan with growers and enable easy traceability through the distribution chain.
We need, though, to integrate more with the traditional food system to succeed. Sysco, for example, needs to see the planning data and be able to purchase from food hub wholesalers so they can distribute to other buyers in the region. Better trucking and routing to allow shipping and backhauling of product will help ease the distribution burden and hopefully reduce the amount of fuel needed to move food.
Changing the food system will be challenging, but I think the seeds are being sown now and we'll reap rewards in the not-too-distant future.
I have no idea what I was getting at either. SCIAM keeps censoring my posts. You'll have to ask the editors to stop censoring everything that they disagree with.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs I recall, though, this one merely pointed out that organic farming is unsustainable from the point of view of feeding the world's population.
I have farmed organic for years. I bought more seed corn than I could use.I gave some to the chemical farmer next door. And some to my neighbor, who never had a garden. He turned over a section of his lawn and planted the corn. The chemical farmer had corn that grew to 4 feet tall, my neighbors was 6 feet tall. Mine was 8 feet tall. My yield was the highest. This article must have been written on information provided by Monsanto.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBrunner in one of his SF books from the 60s or 70s proposed a situation when people were trying to get organic foods due to a problem with other foods. So lots of organic food was being sold. However, someone did an analysis and determined that the available farm land could not produce those quantities.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGuess what? All organic food was not actually organic. How do we avoid that situation today?
The book was either The Sheep Look Up or Stand on Zanzibar. Both are dystopic novels and it appears that both have been released again recently with high price tags and some other person listed as a co-author. Originals just said John Brunner. (I have both but am too lazy to determine which is which).
I'd be interested to hear a response from the Rodale Institute, whose research found that over a 30-year study, organic yields either matched or outperformed conventional - while using 45% less energy and producing 40% fewer greenhouse gases.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'd also like to hear how this compares with studies on agro-ecological farming, on which the widest study ever conducted on the subject found that agroecological approaches resulted in an average crop yield gain of 79 per cent. The study covered 286 projects in 57 developing countries, representing a total surface of 37 million hectares.
Can the authors weigh in, to offer their comments?
http://www.rodaleinstitute.org/files/FSTpressrelease.pdf
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=35105&Cr=food+production&Cr1
Yes, organic can feed the earth's population, that is, after the 6 mile-long big one slams into the Pacific and wipes out 90% of the population who live in the ocean littorals. The rest of humanity will fall back on organic methods used for most of mankind's history.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are alternative methods of growing the food we need. Vertical farming for one. Architectural designs for green walls and roofs exist to say nothing of Bottle gardens and The Venus Project. Man can and will have to adapt.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisConventional ag imposes tremendous costs to organic methods
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this1. pesticides disproportionately kill natural predators due to biomagnification
2. Conventional ag consumes university support for breeding programs that could otherwise go to developing better crops for organic farmers.
3. High tillage and chemical fertilizers destroy the soil needed by any subsequent organic farming efforts.
4. Mega-ag cheapens low nutrient processed food, which has poisoned Western cuisine, thus placing nutritious foods in the novelty section for too many of us. This hurts growers of unusual fruit and vegetable varieties, yet such varieties enable farmers to dodge pest outbreaks.
Calories are a simple but strongly misleading metric.
"Sure, organic agriculture is sustainable; it sustains poverty and malnutrition." - Prof C S Prakash
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo the key thing that is lacking in organic agriculture is nitrogen. This can be resolved by given the urine of those 9 billion people back to the soil in a safe and orderly way, via Urine-diverting Dry Toilets and Waterless Toilets. Urine holds 90% of the nutrients plants need to make the person's food again, with abundant nitrogen in the form of urea.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee www.ecosanres.org of the Stockholm Environment Institute and www.susana.org of the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance.
Urine dispersed in the soil transmits essentially no disease. If there is risk of fecal contamination from someone using their toitet wrong, the urine just needs to be stored for a number of mongh
At no point in the foreseeable future will LED light be cheaper than sunlight. Indoor gardening is profitable in places like Alaska, and in the production of high-profit organics like marijuana, but the cost of production of LEDs and the cost of operation far outweighs transportation costs except in extreme circumstances.
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