Organic Agriculture has a significant role to play in addressing two of the world’s biggest and most urgent issues: climate change and food security. Climate change mitigation and adaptation and food security are inseparable and inherent beneficial characteristics of Organic Agriculture.
Organic Agriculture has well established practices that simultaneously mitigate climate change, build resilient farming systems, reduce poverty and improve food security. Organic Agriculture emits much lower levels of greenhouse gases (GHG), and quickly, affordably and effectively sequesters carbon in the soil. In addition, Organic Agriculture makes farms and people more resilient to climate change, mainly due to its water efficiency, resilience to extreme weather events and lower risk of complete crop failure.
In time for the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, IFOAM and IFOAM EU Group have published three new publications to raise awareness of the important role of organic agriculture in mitigating and adapting to climate change and securing food supply:
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Organic Agriculture - a Guide to Climate Change & Food Security | The Contribution of Organic Agriculture to Climate Change Adaptation in Africa | The Contribution of Organic Agriculture to Climate Change Mitigation |
Organic Agriculture mitigates climate change:
It reduces greenhouse
gases, especially nitrous oxide, as no chemical nitrogen fertilizers are used
and nutrient losses are minimized.
It stores carbon in soil and plant biomass by
building organic matter, encouraging agro-forestry and forbidding the clearance
of primary ecosystems.
It minimizes energy consumption by 30-70% per
unit of land by eliminating the energy required to manufacture synthetic
fertilizers, and by using internal farm inputs, thus reducing fuel used for
transportation.
Organic Agriculture helps farmers adapt
to climate change:
It prevents nutrient and water
loss through high organic matter content and soil covers, thus making soils
more resilient to floods, droughts and land degradation processes.
It preserves seed and
crop diversity which increases crop resistance to pests and disease.
Maintenance of diversity also helps farmers evolve new cropping systems to
adapt to climatic changes.
It minimizes risk as a
result of stable agro-ecosystems and yields, and lower production costs.
Conventional agriculture contributes to climate change:
It uses synthetic fertilizers and
pesticides that require significant amounts of energy to manufacture
It applies excessive amounts of nitrogen
fertilizer that is released as nitrous oxide
It operates intensive livestock holdings that
overproduce manure and methane
It relies on external, soy-based animal feed that
requires large amounts of fuel to travel thousands of kilometers to reach the
farm
It mines the earth of the nutrients needed to
sustain production thereby leading to the clearing of rainforest and “slash and
burn” techniques that reduce carbon storage and release huge amounts of carbon
dioxide from burning vegetation.
IFOAM position: Organic Agriculture
and Climate Change
IFOAM is constantly updating the
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Organic Agriculture mitigates climate change:
It applies excessive amounts of nitrogen fertilizer that is released as nitrous oxide
It operates intensive livestock holdings that overproduce manure and methane
It relies on external, soy-based animal feed that requires large amounts of fuel to travel thousands of kilometers to reach the farm
It mines the earth of the nutrients needed to sustain production thereby leading to the clearing of rainforest and “slash and burn” techniques that reduce carbon storage and release huge amounts of carbon dioxide from burning vegetation.
Back to the Growing Organic main page