Posted on 05/15/2014 9:43:32 PM PDT by grundle
More labor with lower yields is a luxury only rich populations can afford.
A study by the Institute for Water Research at Ben-Gurion University in Israel, published last year in the journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, found that "intensive organic agriculture relying on solid organic matter, such as composted manure that is implemented in the soil prior to planting as the sole fertilizer, resulted in significant down-leaching of nitrate" into groundwater. With many of the world's most fertile farming regions in the throes of drought, increased nitrate in groundwater is hardly a hallmark of sustainability.
Moreover, as agricultural scientist Steve Savage has documented on the Sustainablog website, wide-scale composting generates significant amounts of greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide. Compost may also deposit pathogenic bacteria on or in food crops, which has led to more frequent occurrences of food poisoning in the U.S. and elsewhere.
Organic farming might work well for certain local environments on a small scale, but its farms produce far less food per unit of land and water than conventional ones. The low yields of organic agriculture—typically 20%-50% less than conventional agriculture—impose various stresses on farmland and especially on water consumption. A British meta-analysis published in the Journal of Environmental Management (2012) found that "ammonia emissions, nitrogen leaching and nitrous oxide emissions per product unit were higher from organic systems" than conventional farming systems, as were "land use, eutrophication potential and acidification potential per product unit."
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Another Marxist lie exposed.
Unfortunately this just means the left will skip to enforcing hunting and gathering as being sustainable. At least we had a shot of living like the Amish with organics.
I fit’s unsustainable, they’d better figure out how to make it sustainable.
The populace is , well, some people, enough to drive this industry, are starting to figure out that it’s the way to eat.
Organic farming is the stupidest thing ever invented!
Many years ago, a reporter asked a scientist what people did prior to synthetic fertilizers. The scientist responded, “Farmers used shit for fertilizer and people died at a much younger age.”
It’s factory farming that’s Marxist in fact—it’s even in the Manifesto, where it mentions “combining agriculture with industrial production” as part of one of the planks of communism. That’s what was forced on the USA by the leftists after WWII.
The Marxists at the USDA aren’t so fond of what they call “organic” farming anyhow. This shows in their current attempts at regulating it.
Well, that’s scientists for you.
I’m amazed that many conservatives don’t see what’s coming with chemical/industrial farming.
Such idiocy.
They have no problem eating ANY CRAP that the industrial/chemical food production industry manufactures.
They have no problem doing away with all family-owned farms.
They just want to preserve the delusion in their mind that big agribusiness and international banking is their “friend”.
Been farming long?
The elites foster something so they can regulate and control it.
The elites will have THEIR good food.
It will come down to a few fine organic farms; like the Rothschild wineries. Nothing but the best, wild caught fish, etc.
You just won’t see any of that in the stores. It will only be in the wealthy towns that won’t be accessible to the slaves.
The slaves will get the chemical scum food from the factory.
Looks like many idiot slaves in the Republican party will LIKE the chemical scum. Just as long as they can have some fake chemical beeer(tm) to swill down with it, and some $200/month cable TV to watch sports while they do. They’re happy as slaves in a pointless existence, happy to be ground up as feed themselves when the death panel formula says they’ve outlived their usefulness.
I’m pretty sure farming was organic before it wasn’t.
I’m born and raised in farm country and I see more organic/ no-till farming all the time. In my business I talk to people engaged in production agriculture every day. A lot of them tell me they can’t believe how much they used to unnecessarily work the fields when they can get as good or better yields with less work and less chemicals.
It just seems to me more natural is more better.
I’ve never figured out the advantage. So we don’t spend near as much on veggies.
A lot depends on the definition of “organic”. It is possible to farm year round with green houses and hydroponics. This tends to cut down on the costs by using higher density farming techniques such as vertical farming. This trades a number of factors such as reduced water requirements, reduced crop distance (energy and time to move from one plant to the next), against the manpower issue.
Ultimately, sustainability will be determined on the hard dollar costs (manpower, fertilizer, insect and weed abatement), then time costs, and lastly the number of crop rotations in a year.
>> Organic farming is the stupidest thing ever invented!
Epoch stupidity not unlike the invention of fire.
>> impose various stresses on farmland and especially on water consumption.
A subjective point of view conveyed by the author. It’s only a comparative “imposition”, but not definitive as implied.
It's natural for man to improve on nature.
Strange. The farmer from whom I purchase our meat and eggs has discovered just the opposite of what this article is pushing.
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