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Criticisms and Frequent Misconceptions about Organic Agriculture: The Counter-Arguments |
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Misconception Number 9: Since yields are much lower in organic agriculture, widespread adoption of organic agriculture would require farmers to expand farming into marginal and natural areas to grow the same amount of food, thus destroying more fragile ecosystems and reducing biodiversity.
Summary of Counter-Arguments:
- Organic agriculture yields are only slightly lower than conventional yields in developed countries and actually typically much higher than conventional yields in tropical countries where areas with the highest biodiversity are located, so a worldwide adoption of Organic Agriculture would, overall, benefit wild areas.
- Conventional agriculture damages immediate surrounding wild areas as well as ecologically-connected wild areas further away and decreases agro-biodiversity.
- Organic standards forbid clearing of primary ecosystems as a way to extend cultivation areas.
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Details of Counter-Arguments:
First of all, global yields in organic agriculture are not much
lower than in conventional agriculture. Yields may be around 20 percent
less than in conventional agriculture in developed countries, but, in general,
are higher than in conventional agriculture in developing countries.
Overall, certain models show that a global shift to organic farming could
produce enough calories to feed the entire human population and,
potentially, up to 75 percent more calories than are now produced on the
same area of land. Most of the world’s biodiversity is located in
developing countries. Therefore, if
organic agriculture was more widely adopted, the higher yields obtained in these highly
biodiverse areas would allow for preservation of more wild land in regions
where it matters most. Furthermore, conventional agriculture leads to
a major desertification threat in many regions of the world. This means
that conventional agriculture creates marginal areas, from originally
fertile and productive agricultural land. This is detrimental to
agricultural development AND to the biodiversity in areas affected by
desertification. Organic agriculture can help maintain the fertility of
these fragile lands, thereby contributing to both maintaining levels of
agricultural productivity on agricultural lands and avoiding the loss of
biodiversity.
The other problem with the reasoning in the above misconception is
that the majority of the world’s
areas of high biodiversity are located near and between cultivated lands.
Biodiversity cannot be maintained in independent “islands” of protected
lands.These highly biodiverse
areas need to be connected to other natural areas that are protected in
order for animal and seed migrations to maintain the high level of
diversity. Therefore, it is important to create zones that are favorable
to maintaining this biodiversity in between protected areas.Organically managed farms are such
favorable zones. If the lands between protected areas are full of pesticides
they cannot be used as wildlife corridors and present a major threat to
world biodiversity, especially in the tropics. This is why it is so important
to adopt organic agriculture on a widespread scale. Organic farms exhibit
higher levels of all sorts of biodiversity (for soil, crops, and wild and
domesticated animals). Organic farmers rely on this biodiversity to
emulate ecological cycles that help sustain their agricultural
productivity.
Conventional agriculture
damages wild areas. Its negative effects on our environment and
wildlife are now widely acknowledged, sometimes reaching areas far beyond
immediate proximity of the agricultural fields. An example of this is the
threat of massive fertilizer pollution in the Gulf of
Mexico’s Dead Zone south of the Mississippi River Delta. Approximately
5,500 square miles of water in the Dead Zone has so little summer oxygen
that it is unable to sustain aquatic life. Federal agencies, nine states,
and Native American tribes are now cooperating to reduce nitrogen and
phosphorus run-off from agricultural fields that ends up in the Mississippi and the Gulf of
Mexico.
Approximately one-third of the world’s land surface is used for
agriculture. Organic standards and
practices ensure this area is sympathetically managed for biodiversity and
that primary ecosystems are not cleared to further extend the agricultural
frontier. [1]
[1] For more information on the role of Organic Agriculture in protecting biodiversity, read the IFOAM dossier “Organic Agriculture and Biodiversity,” which can be accessed on the IFOAM website.
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