Organic Farming: Can It Feed Us (Part 1)

VVH-TV News Special
Organic Farming: Can It Feed Us? Part 1

Karl Grossman Chief Investigative Reporter examines Organic Farming on Eastern Long Island.

What is organic farming?
Organic farming can be defined as an approach to agriculture where the aim is to create integrated, humane, environmentally and economically sustainable agricultural production systems. Maximum reliance is placed on locally or farm-derived renewable resources and the management of self-regulating ecological and biological processes and interactions in order to provide acceptable levels of crop, livestock and human nutrition, protection from pests and diseases, and an appropriate return to the human and other resources employed. Reliance on external inputs, whether chemical or organic, is reduced as far as possible. In many European countries, organic agriculture is known as ecological agriculture, reflecting this reliance on ecosystem management rather than external inputs.

The objective of sustainability lies at the heart of organic farming and is one of the major factors determining the acceptability or otherwise of specific production practices. The term 'sustainable' is used in its widest sense, to encompass not just conservation of non-renewable resources (soil, energy, minerals) but also issues of environmental, economic and social sustainability. The term 'organic' is best thought of as referring to the concept of the farm as an organism, in which all the component parts - the soil minerals, organic matter, micro-organisms, insects, plants, animals and humans - interact to create a coherent and stable whole.

The key characteristics of organic farming include:

protecting the long term fertility of soils by maintaining organic matter levels, encouraging soil biological activity, and careful mechanical intervention;

providing crop nutrients indirectly using relatively insoluble nutrient sources which are made available to the plant by the action of soil micro-organisms;

nitrogen self-sufficiency through the use of legumes and biological nitrogen fixation, as well as effective recycling of organic materials including crop residues and livestock manures;

weed, disease and pest control relying primarily on crop rotations, natural predators, diversity, organic manuring, resistant varieties and limited (preferably minimal) thermal, biological and chemical intervention;

the extensive management of livestock, paying full regard to their evolutionary adaptations, behavioural needs and animal welfare issues with respect to nutrition, housing, health, breeding and rearing;

careful attention to the impact of the farming system on the wider environment and the conservation of wildlife and natural habitats.

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• Category

  News & Politics

[Girish96681]

Here at Mumbai (India) too, its the consumers who have been encouraging organic farming.  At the farmer's market, its direct interaction between the farmer and the consumer. May this tribe increase.

[Jason Neal]

I LIKE ORGANIC PRODUCTS THEY TASTE BETTER......

[masterpalladin]

GMO broccoli?..........But I love broccoli

[masterpalladin]

We relly don't have the enzymes for GMO's so they might poke holes in the intestinal track, causing leaky gut and if not fully digested food proteins leak through the intestines into the blood and your body releases antibodies to attack the food particles that might cause allergies to foods like apples or grapes even. The actual cost of a pound or single tomato without subsidies is like $374 in America, the cost of a pound of corn fed puke(beef) is like $815, what a waste, 90-99% is subsidized!!

[robbb661]

Africans need to damn up thier water and irrigate on a massive scale. but they have about 200 years of catching up to do.

[pjb31apb]

People in countries all over Africa are starving because they have no soil. You can be as organic as you want, but when your soil dries up and blows away, you simply can't win. It is about far more than organic practices at this point. Unless it has been salted, dead land can be brought back to life and then organic practices can maintain it so no one has to starve. And you don't have to be rich to make that happen. The key is education.

[TheMobocracy]

Most people in Africa engage exclusively in organic farming and they are starving to death.

[sthoverthere]

in some ten years, if we go on like this, any kind of agriculture can only feed the rich.

[occupynewparadigm]

why it feed man up until the post ww2 era.

[beautifulInner]

Healthier food, better taste less footprint on co2, water and airpulotion better for earth, and i could continue. Why is this not more common?. Because it cant be mass produced do to pests and sickness?. Hmm, theres anti pests insects, plants and animals immune system is not supressed by chemicals and therefor stronger, ofcause some will fail, but this is evolution and only best are going to the ground again or in our mouths :). Eating TOXIC chemicals and medicins left overs in food is no good!

[redddbaron]

It only needs higher scale for the price to drop.

[koertje]

It can only feed the rich.