“With patents, big companies make our farmers dependent on their seed. Here I see a great risk for worldwide food security and biodiversity. For us organic farming is not a luxury, but the only possible solution to fight hunger and poverty”,
Dr. Tewolde Gebre Egziabher, Ethiopia,
leader of Third World countries in
international negotiations around patents,
genetic engineering and biodiversity,
winner of the Alternative Nobel prize 2000
The main question confronting organic and sustainable farming is: how can farmers increase their yields with cheap, locally available and simple technologies, without damaging the environment? Organic farmers take their fate again in their own hands, and as many examples show, they can often increase their production – especially in the developing countries – significantly.
One example: in Cuba the traditional ‘threesister- agriculture’ with maize, beans and cassava produces yields twice as high as the sum of each one in monoculture. The maize plants function as bean sticks for beans and the beans fix nitrogen into the soil. Meanwhile, cassava grows well in the shady and damp conditions with the maize and beans, and helps suppress weeds. Food for all is a long-term project, and only the protection of biodiversity and the cultural diversity of agriculture adapted to local conditions can secure this.
The FAO conference on Organic Agriculture and Food Security, May 2007 identified organic agriculture's potential and limits in addressing the food security challenge, including conditions required for its success through the analysis of existing information in different agro-ecological areas of the world.
The University of Michigan: ‘Organic Agriculture and the Global Food Supply’ -a scenario study, comparing yields of organic versus conventional,a global dataset of almost 300 examples, and estimated the average yield ratio in 10 food categories for the developed and the developing world.
