Organic farming has created quite a stir since it got popular lately. When choosing restaurant, many would nowadays choose to eat "healthy" and go to a place where they offer organic food. It did not only create a new trend but it has paved the way to promoting healthy diet. Looking at the process, there may be some issues about how organic farming is done.
According to a recent paper in nature journal, Comparing the yields of organic and conventional farming" by Seufert, Ramankutty and Foley, organic farming could come close to scientific farming in some food types, notably fruits, they fell to 34% less productive when comparing similar techniques in staple food production.
Some organic farmers not only love to take care of their soil, but they believe that they have received some sort of divine revelation from Gaia about how to farm. These farmers have deliberately rejected modern farming techniques and have tried to reinvent the wheel.
Scientific farming is in no way opposed to using many of the techniques also employed in organic farming. Anyone who thinks top dressing their fields with a bit of Urea and Superphosphate alone is sufficient to keep soil depletion at bay is just not farming well. Good farmers have always ploughed in vegetable matter to replenish the tithe of their soil. But if you are going to continuously remove vegetable matter (produce) from the soil, you must replace the nutrients taken out of the system. Inorganic fertilizers are the most cost effective method of doing so.
To improve soil quality, farmers use all sorts of organic techniques. Most of these techniques are not as inventive as they seem to believe. On the other hand, an organic farmer dismisses the use of inorganic fertilizers altogether. This can be based on any factual reason. It seems instead to rest on some sort of religious belief system.
Evil technology is what keeps millions of people from starving. And those who do believe in organic farming should not pretend that they are somehow morally superior because they didn't use evil technology to grow their food. On the other hand, we cannot judge other people's religion. It is none of our business.
According to a recent paper in nature journal, Comparing the yields of organic and conventional farming" by Seufert, Ramankutty and Foley, organic farming could come close to scientific farming in some food types, notably fruits, they fell to 34% less productive when comparing similar techniques in staple food production.
Some organic farmers not only love to take care of their soil, but they believe that they have received some sort of divine revelation from Gaia about how to farm. These farmers have deliberately rejected modern farming techniques and have tried to reinvent the wheel.
Scientific farming is in no way opposed to using many of the techniques also employed in organic farming. Anyone who thinks top dressing their fields with a bit of Urea and Superphosphate alone is sufficient to keep soil depletion at bay is just not farming well. Good farmers have always ploughed in vegetable matter to replenish the tithe of their soil. But if you are going to continuously remove vegetable matter (produce) from the soil, you must replace the nutrients taken out of the system. Inorganic fertilizers are the most cost effective method of doing so.
To improve soil quality, farmers use all sorts of organic techniques. Most of these techniques are not as inventive as they seem to believe. On the other hand, an organic farmer dismisses the use of inorganic fertilizers altogether. This can be based on any factual reason. It seems instead to rest on some sort of religious belief system.
Evil technology is what keeps millions of people from starving. And those who do believe in organic farming should not pretend that they are somehow morally superior because they didn't use evil technology to grow their food. On the other hand, we cannot judge other people's religion. It is none of our business.
About the Author:
I have written blogs and novels as a way of letting off steam when the touchy feely brigade got too much for me to handle rationally. If you ever feel the same, visit www.tomgrafton.com and try a Tom Grafton novel to refresh you.. This article, Moral Issues On Eating Organic Food is available for free reprint.
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