Organic Farming - Critical Analysis

Critical Analysis

Norman Borlaug (father of the "Green Revolution" and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate), Prof A. Trewavas and other critics contested the notion that organic agricultural systems are more friendly to the environment and more sustainable than conventional farming systems. Borlaug asserts that organic farming practices can at most feed 4 billion people, after expanding cropland dramatically and destroying ecosystems in the process. Borlaug and his co-authors advocated using organic matter in addition to inorganic fertilizers in soil fertility management, but opposed advocating only organic agriculture for the developing world. The Danish Environmental Protection Agency estimated that phasing out all pesticides would result in an overall yield reduction of about 25%. Environmental and health effects were assumed but hard to assess.

One study claims that organic agriculture could feed the entire global population, somewhat more than 6 billion people. It states that organic farms have lower yields than their conventional counterparts in developed countries (92%) but higher than their low-intensity counterparts in developing countries (180%), attributing this to lower adoption of fertilizers and pesticides in the developing world compared to the intensive farming of the developed world. However, concerns have been expressed about that study's selection, characterization and interpretation of data, and its assumptions and analytical methods, casting doubt on several of its conclusions.

The Centers for Disease Control repudiated a claim by Dennis Avery of the Hudson Institute, that the risk of E. coli infection was eight times higher when eating organic food. (Avery had cited CDC as a source.) Avery had included problems stemming from non-organic unpasteurized juice in his calculations. Epidemiologists traced the 2011 E. coli O104:H4 outbreak - which caused over 3,900 cases and 52 deaths - to an organic farm in Bienenbüttel in Germany.

Urs Niggli, director of the FiBL Institute, contends that a global campaign against organic farming derives mostly from Alex Avery's book The truth about organic farming.

The Rodale Institute, dedicated to "pioneering organic farming through research and outreach", conducted a thirty year "Farm Systems Analysis Trial" of organic farming. Their findings suggest that organic farming is superior to conventional systems in "building, maintaining and replenishing the health of the soil." In addition to soil health, the Institute's trials looked at economic viability, energy usage, and human health and concluded that organic agriculture is more sustainable than conventional.