Organic Farming: The reality behind the myths
bu Karthik Kumar
An edited version of this article also appeared in The Business Line newspaper http://www.blonnet.com/2008/09/02/stories/2008090251610900.htm
Organic farming is coming under attack from many quarters, even as awareness spreads that it is a more sustainable and healthier way to live. Criticism ranges, from, doubts about its lack of capacity to feed the world, to, bogies being raised about people having to return to the ’dark ages‘ of food shortage and starvation unless recourse to intensive chemical farming is taken forthwith.
It is time that grains of facts shift the chaff or propaganda and fear mongering to prove that, in fact, organic farming is the real alternative to sustainably producing enough food for the growing world.
Organic farming can feed the world and still have enough food left over!
An extensive study carried out in nearly 50 countries, both developed and developing, by a group of eight eminent (disciplines included – Palaeontology, Natural Resources, Environment, Horticulture, Evolutionary Biology, Ecology, Art and Design) scientists (from the University of Michigan and Michigan State University) concluded that the available food production was more than sufficient for human kind. They estimated the calorific value of all the food supply to be 2,786 kCals per capita per day, for the total volume of food supply available in 2001. Astoundingly, they also went on to prove that, if the same land had been farmed organically, then the calorific value available in 2001 would have in fact been much higher i.e. 4,380, KCals per capita per day! Their data is summarised in Table 1. […]
Anecdotal evidence of the Indian experience suggests that Indian farmers too reap the many benefits of organic farming and many worldwide have, in fact, begun calling such cultivation practices ‘Indian Farming’! […]
Given our relative scarcity of land, large farmer population and fragmented land-holdings, the benefits of organic farming appear uniquely suited to Indian conditions.
So, perhaps the time is right to make a push into adopting organic farming in right earnest, given its many benefits to both the producer and the consumer.
The FAO too supports this point of view. […]
(The author is a Chennai-based business analyst. Feedback to [email protected])
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Reap more from organic farming(This article was published in the Business Line print edition dated September 2, 2008)
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