Organic Farming Produce Yield

There is an old and outdated idea that if the world’s food producers suddenly all decided to go organic, there wouldn’t be enough food to feed the world’s population. The idea simply doesn’t hold water.

It’s true that when a farm that previously used conventional farming techniques goes organic, there is an initial decrease in yield per acre. But that decrease isn’t sustained over a period of time. The organic techniques are better for the soil, and the total overall production per acre over a period of years is equal to or better than conventional farming techniques. And organic food production is just simply better for the earth. We won’t deplete the soil and leave a barren land for future generations.

Basically, organic food production shuns the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and drugs. That’s not to say that no fertilizer is used or that pests are not controlled. Fertilizer is used. The fertilizer that is used, however, is not made of synthetic chemicals. The fertilizer that is used is made up of all natural ingredients – grass clippings, dead leaves, vegetable peelings, etc. or manure from animals that are fed an organic feed without antibiotics or growth hormones.

Pesticides aren’t necessary for pest control in organic food production. Mother Nature has her own very workable and efficient pest control system. “Good bugs” eat “bad bugs.” It works – it’s worked for a few million years. Organic farms simply put ladybugs and others to work in the fields. They keep the pests from destroying the plants.

In developing countries, new farms that use organic methods are more productive than new farms that use conventional farming methods from the beginning. Nobody can quite explain this phenomenon, but it’s true. Maybe the moral is that we’d be better off if those toxic fertilizers and pesticides had never been invented




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