Expert provides follow-up response: Can organic farming feed the world?
04/26/2012
Last September, Best Food Facts asked Dr. Robert Paarlberg to respond to a question, Can Organic Farming Feed the World? Dr. Paarlberg is the Betty Freyhof Johnson Class of 1944 Professor of Political Science at Wellesley College and Adjunct Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Associate at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.
Since then, two blog posts - 6 Reasons Organics Can Feed the World and Industrial Agriculture Cannot Feed The World - have said otherwise. To follow up, we again asked Dr. Paarlberg to respond.
Dr. Robert Paarlberg
Dr. Paarlberg: "I am happy to give organic farming all the opportunity it might need to prove its potential. Currently, however, USDA data indicates that organic crop yields in the United States (on actual commercial farms, not test plots) are only 40-70 percent as high as conventional crop yields, so switching from conventional to organic would require half again as much land to produce the same amount of food. Where would that land come from?
"If organic methods are so productive, why - after several decades now of high premiums for organically grown food - have so few conventional farmers switched to organic? It can't be because of federal crop subsidies, because growers or organic corn or wheat are just as eligible for subsidies as conventional growers. Nor can it be a 'conventional' bias in USDA research, because only a small part of that research has gone into the things - like synthetic chemicals - that organic growers cannot use. Most agricultural research in the United States today comes from private companies, who simply respond to market potential. So, we have to suspect that conventional growers in the United States have not switched to organic because both the land costs and the labor costs are too high.
"Advocates for organic farming almost never address these much higher land and labor costs, but they are the most obvious reason why 99.5 percent of crop farming in the United States today remains conventional."
What do you think? Do you have any questions about conventional or organic farming? Submit a question to the experts!
Comments
Asif - 06/12/2012
So I'm reading the bill (at work, heh) and here are some intiresteng bits: the FDA will be changed to the Federal Drug and Device Administration and rolled into a new Food Safety Administration. They want to modernize the whole thing, which is a good idea. The FSA will (A) regulate food safety and labeling to strengthen the protection of the public health; (B) ensure that food establishments fulfill their responsibility to process, store, hold, and transport food in a manner that protects the public health of all people in the United States; (C) lead an integrated, systemwide approach to food safety and to make more effective and efficient use of resources to prevent food-borne illness; (D) provide a single focal point within the Department of Health and Human Services for food safety leadership, both nationally and internationally; and (E) provide an integrated food safety research capability, including internally generated, scientifically and statistically valid studies, in cooperation with academic institutions and other scientific entities of the Federal and State governments again, nothing bad yet. Things to keep in mind, though: food establishment means a food processing building slaughterhouse, factory, facility, etc. that processes food or stores or transports it. Food production facility means a farm, ranch, orchard, CAFO, etc. as well as restaurants, any place where food is prepared directly for the customer, and fishing vessels (unless that fishing vessel also processes its catch).Here's where things get tedious: adopt and implement a national system for the registration of food establishments and foreign food establishments, as provided in section 202 of this Act but will also provide technical assistance to farmers and food establishments that are small business concerns (meeting the requirements of section 3(a) of the Small Business Act and the regulations promulgated thereunder) to assist with compliance with the requirements of this Act. This is the bit that sounds like the USDA's NAIS.Section 202 gets into the registration process. Section 205 goes into the inspection process and this is where you'll need to know about the different categories of food establishments that they're setting up. The category that will affect farmer's markets is CATEGORY 3 FOOD ESTABLISHMENT- The term `category 3 food establishment' means a food establishment (other than a category 1 or category 2 establishment) that processes cooked, pasteurized, or otherwise ready-to-eat seafood or other animal products, fresh produce in ready-to-eat raw form, or other products that pose a risk of hazardous contamination. Cat 3 establishments will have random monthly inspections and have to keep up verification that their processes are controlled. Whatever that means. Like I can control where my cats pee in my veggie garden. Shuh.More tediousness: establishments will have to keep records of (A) the origin, receipt, delivery, sale, movement, holding, and disposition of food or ingredients; (B) the identity and quantity of ingredients used in the food; (C) the processing of the food; (D) the results of laboratory, sanitation, or other tests performed on the food or in the food establishment; (E) consumer complaints concerning the food or packaging of the food; (F) the production codes, open date codes, and locations of food production Prohibited acts: for a food establishment or foreign food establishment to fail to register under section 202, or to operate without a valid registration, and to slaughter an animal that is capable for use in whole or in part as human food at a food establishment processing any food for commerce, except in compliance with the food safety law, and basically not following this Act's provisions.I haven't read through Titles 3-5, except for that one last bit on prohibited acts from Title 4.
Jerome Donohoe - 05/18/2012
Like Organizations that charge for a service "Certified Organic" there is no true health perception other than paying a fee to produce a product for higher food prices for food produced. Great marketing, but who is really benefiting? Most of the foods produced are fruit and vegetables with little food nutritional labeling that goes with these products that continually fly under radar of the system with the perception of being healthier for you. Wonder what would happen to those high prices for "Organic" if everyone used the Organic label on any food item they wanted since the words "Organic Certified" are not trademarked?
James Walters - 05/17/2012
You might also want to separate the concepts of "sustainable" farming and "organic" farming. I notice many produce items I buy are grown without using synthetic chemicals, with no detriment to crop yield at all, and are not labelled "organic" only because the grower does not want the huge additional expense of registering for and maintaining the label itself. You can use nearly all the conventional chemicals and techniques and still techincally be eligible for the designation "organic", but most organic growers don't take that route. Many "officially" organic farming operations try to be as sustainable as possible - meaning they minimize negative environmental impact by doing things like letting land lay fallow for a while rather than saturating it with synthetic fertilizer to grow continuously. They try to rely more on hand labor than machinery. This does make them less productive, but it has nothing to do with the "organic" label on the produce. It is part and parcel of the marketing targeting a higher-end segment of the population with a higher-priced product.
Elliott Salazar - 05/01/2012
I am a student at Cal Poly State university and this is a lot of my research. I was born on a commercial farm and i believe the only way that organic production can happen and maximize productions is the the community must be involved.
Patrick Lillard - 04/30/2012
This is a commonly debated question and I don't think either side ever credits the other so both always perpetuate half-truths, preventing us from ever finding common ground.