UN Report Released: Can Organic Farming Feed the World?

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UN Report Released: Can Organic Farming Feed the World?

Planet Green
January 10th, 2012

Credit: David Luther Thompson/WikiMedia

By Sara Novak

The hold out for many of those that cling to conventional farming has often been that it will be impossible for organic farming to feed the world. It’s more expensive and the crops aren’t as strong, right? Wrong. This is far from the truth according to a new UN study reported on Civil Eats.

According to the report, Agro-ecology and the Right to Food, organic and sustainable small scale farming could double food production in the parts of the world where hunger is the biggest issue. Within five to 10 years we could see a big jump in crop cultivation.

“We won’t solve hunger and stop climate change with industrial farming on large plantations,” Olivier De Schutter, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and author of the report, said in a press release. “The solution lies in supporting small-scale farmers’ knowledge and experimentation, and in raising incomes of smallholders so as to contribute to rural development.”

While this makes perfect sense, we’ve been led to believe from the factory farming industry and especially GMO heavy weights like Monsanto, that GMOs and conventional crops are what’s necessary to feed the world. In fact, the opposite is true. Small scale farming, according to the report, can serve to create self sustainability amongst those in rural poverty.

Empowering Farmers and Creating Jobs

The genetic diversity within smaller organic and sustainable farms improves nutrition within small communities and builds a more resilient food system. Instead of depending on huge amounts of one crop, more diverse agriculture means that if one harvest goes bad as a result of climate and weather then other crops may take its place. This is good in the short and long run.

This empowers farmers and creates jobs where before there were none. According to Civil Eats, “[o]f 57 impoverished countries surveyed, for example, yields had increased by an average of nearly 80 percent when farmers used methods such as placing weed-eating ducks in rice patties in Bangladesh or planting desmodium, which repels insects, in Kenyan cornfields. These practices were also cost effective, locally available and resulted from farmers working to pass on this knowledge to each other in their communities.”

[Source: Planet Green]