Broader view needed for organic farms

To the editor:

Apparently Craig Hackert drove by a beginning farmer?s organic field and concluded that organic could not feed the world (Ledger, Sept. 13). Perhaps we need to take a broader view.

Long-term research at Iowa State University has found that well managed organic corn and soybean production produces yields equivalent to conventional production in Iowa. Granted, it takes more intensive management for organic production than for conventional, but if the fundamentals of soil fertility and weed and pest control are taken care of, there is no reason why organic yields cannot equal conventional. The GMO traits in use today are not targeted for yield potential, they are targeted for weed and pest control.

The USDA budget for conventional agricultural research is over $2 billion annually. None of that budget was allocated to research on organic agriculture until recent years when a small portion was targeted to organic research. No doubt if more resources had been devoted to organic agriculture research over the years, organic farming methods would be more consistently competitive with conventional.

Are today?s farming methods sustainable? The past 150 years of agriculture in Iowa has resulted in the erosion of over half of our topsoil and loss of over half of our original soil organic matter. The average annual rate of soil erosion for row crops in Iowa is 5.7 tons/acre. According to research under a range of conditions, soil regenerates itself at an average rate of only about 0.5 tons/acre annually. We are eroding our soil at 10 times the replacement rate. Clearly, we cannot continue this deficit spending of our ecological capital indefinitely.

According to the fertilizer industry, the United States? once massive phosphorus fertilizer reserves will be exhausted in about 20 years. The world?s reserves of reasonably accessible phosphorus may last 50 years, with possibly another 50 years of hard-to-recover phosphorus (read very expensive). Some researchers are predicting the world?s phosphorus supply will peak within 30 years. Unlike the problem of peak oil ? we can replace oil with other energy sources ? phosphorus is a biologically essential element; there is no substitute.

Can organic agriculture feed the world? A team of scientists from Michigan State University compared yields of organic vs. conventional agriculture by analyzing 293 existing data sets from around the world. They found that in developed countries the yields of organic and conventional were about equal. But in developing countries organic yields were higher, often substantially so. The reason is organic agriculture maximizes the use of homegrown and locally available resources, which is an advantage for limited-resource farmers (most of the farmers in the world) who cannot afford to purchase chemical inputs and GMO seeds. The study concluded ?that organic methods could produce enough food on a global per capita basis to sustain the current human population, and potentially an even larger population, without increasing the agricultural land base.?

? Francis Thicke, Fairfield