At present, 11 percent of the fruits and vegetables consumed in the U.S, are organically grown. Yet less than 1 percent of the research budget of the USDA goes toward improving organic farming methods. The other 99 percent is spent on research designed to enhance industrial agriculture. This amounts to a huge ongoing subsidy for Big Ag. If we shifted research spending toward developing sustainable agriculture, organic farming could gradually boost its productivity to rival that of chemical-intensive growing. Actually, the question is not – as it is routinely framed by the media – whether organic or conventional agriculture can better feed the world. There is no way to turn back the clock to a purer age when farming was pursued without chemicals and heavy farm equipment. Modern agriculture is here to stay. But it does need to change – because the world itself is changing: Underground aquifers are drying out, bees and other pollinators are dying, the climate is getting hotter and drier in many places (witness this summer’s historic droughts in the Midwest.) Arable land is declining worldwide. Desertification is encroaching on huge swaths of Africa, China and elsewhere. And, in what Foreign Policy Magazine called “the gravest natural resource shortage you’ve never heard of,” the world’s reserves of phosphorus, which is essential in fertilizer production, are rapidly being depleted to the point of exhaustion. All of this means that farmers will need to learn how to grow our food more sustainably.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 01:27:27 +0000
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