David Zetland, the aguanomics blogger, has rounded up a couple of choice items on organic agriculture. There’s a report from UNEP and UNCTAD on Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa.
According to a newspaper report,
An analysis of 114 projects in 24 African countries found that yields had more than doubled where organic, or near-organic practices had been used. That increase in yield jumped to 128 per cent in east Africa.
The article goes on to say that
[O]rganic practices outperformed traditional methods and chemical-intensive conventional farming. It also found strong environmental benefits such as improved soil fertility, better retention of water and resistance to drought. And the research highlighted the role that learning organic practices could have in improving local education.
David doesn’t like that because he says that UNCTAD is “known for its anti-globalization perspective”. But how, exactly, would this invalidate the conclusions or the report? Furthermore, he says that:
[T]he 114 analyzed projects involved 1.9 million farmers on 2.0 million ha. Those are SMALL farms, and it’s hard to imagine expanding organic practices everywhere, at all scales.
Indeed they are small, just over a hectare each. But actually, that’s big, for most subsistence farmers. and I would argue that it is less important to expand organic practices everywhere at all scales than it is to give the smallest landholders (and, more so, those who don’t even own land) access to sustainable practices that can boost resilience and yields and deliver environmental benefits. Not necessarily organic, but soundly based on agricultural biodiversity.
P.S. Follow the other links in David’s piece if you’re more interested in “truth” than rhetoric.
So perhaps we need smaller farms to make agriculture sustainable again?
“how, exactly, would this invalidate the conclusions or the report?”
There are lies, damn lies and statistics, and organizations with bias (incl IMF and the Bank) can turn evidence to suit that bias.
As for scale, I agree that small farms can do quite a lot, but large farms tend to dominate markets for ag production. Can those large farms go organic or must they be subdivided into smaller farms? If the latter, then adjustment to sustainability will be harder.