Organic Farming a viable option for the global food supply and livelihood sustainability

Abstract

The key obstacles to the proposition that organic farming will make a substantial difference to the global food supply are poor yields and inadequate organically appropriate fertilizer amounts. We evaluated the universality of both statements. Regarding the first argument, we compared the yields of organic versus conventional or low-intensive food production for a global dataset of 293 examples and calculated the average yield ratio (organic: non-organic) for developed and developing worlds of various food categories. The average yield ratio for most food categories was marginally < 1.0 for developed world studies, and > 1.0 for developing world studies.

With the average yield ratios, we were modelling the global supply of food that could be organically produced on the existing agricultural land base. Model projections suggest that organic methods could generate enough food per capita worldwide to support the current human population, and probably even a greater population, without growing the agricultural land base. We also measured the amount of nitrogen likely available from leguminous cover crops used as fertilizer from fixation. Evidence from temperate and tropical agroe-cosystem show that leguminous cover crops will fix enough nitrogen to offset the amount of currently used synthetic fertilizer.

Evidence from temperate and tropical agro ecosystems show that leguminous cover crops will fix enough nitrogen to offset the amount of currently used synthetic fertilizer. Such findings suggest that organic farming has the potential to make a significant contribution to global food supply, while reducing traditional agriculture's negative environmental impacts. Evaluation and analysis of this paper addressed important concerns about crop rotations in organic versus traditional agriculture and the reliability of sources of grey-literature. A continuing discussion on these issues can be found in this issue's Forum editorial.