Organic farming helps reduce CO2 emissions

Here's an article from 05, on some US research into organics and Co2 emissions. Happily, the number of orgnaic farmers is now on the rise in Ireland - for the first time in 6 years. It is estimated that up to 300 extra ppl will be certified organic for 06 than 05.

Ireland will be hit for about 1.5 billion euros by the EU under the terms and conditions of the Kyoto protocol. Why? Because our Co2 emissions increased so rapidly under the celtic tiger. That figure may even rise to something more like 4.5 billion, depending on how we perform between now and 2012.

Meanwhile, since the celtic tiger began all those years ago, organic farming has stagnated in Ireland. The amount spent on organic food has kept going up, but actual hectares farmed organically in Ireland has stalled, due mainly to imports. While initially, there may seem to be little connection between organic farming and the Kyoto protocol, read on.

While conventional farming contributes to green house gas emissions, organic farming actually takes the bad stuff (carbon dioxide) from the air and turns it into something beneficial. In fact, in the organic system, as in the organic philosophy, carbon is seen as useful. Growth of plants on an organic holding depends on the ability of the holding to maintain carbon. While conventional farming can deplete soil organic matter, organic farming actually builds it through the use of composted animal manures and cover crops.

It turns out that, over the 23 years of a study by the Rhodale Institute ,theres' been a 15-28% increase in soil carbon in organic systems, with virtually no increase in non-organic systems.

This study examined conventional, organic manure and organic plant/legume (i.e.manure-free) systems. The research was 'peer-reviewed' in the scientific journal, Nature; in other words, it was posited, challenged and defended by lecturers and professors from reputable academic institutions in what is the best academic journal in the area.

According to this massive piece of research, carried out from 1981 up until 2003, organic systems capture and make safe massive amounts of carbon. You can add to this the fact that organic systems actually use up less energy.

The word they use in the literature is 'sequestered'. In other words, carbon is sequestered in organic farm soil. 'Sequestered' seems, at first, an overly complex and convoluted word which just means something along the lines of removed from the air, or left behind in the soil, or taken out of action. It actually means 'to surrender for safekeeping' and it comes from the word which describes, essentially, a trustee, a sequester. In other words, an organic farm is a kind of safe keeper for carbon.

The carbon savings are massive. (Despite winning a war of Independence in the 1770s, the US still uses imperial measurements.) Organic farms sequester as much as 3,670 pounds of carbon per acre-foot each year.

Think of it in terms of cars. In the US, if they had 10,000 more 'medium sized' organic farms, that would equals 14.62 billion less miles driven.

And that�s not even counting the reductions in CO2 emissions represented by the organic systems' lower energy requirements.

A comparative analysis of the farm system trials' use of energy ( by Dr. David Pimentel of Cornell University) found that organic farming systems use just 63% of the energy required by conventional farming systems, in the main because of the massive amounts of energy required to synthesize nitrogen fertilizer.

Along with this, organic farming is a better way of holding carbon in a safe 'format' than even forests are. Farmers know more than most than 'experts differ and farming suffers'. Initially, in greenhouse gas research, vast areas of forests were considered the best available option for Co2s. Now, thanks in part to these decades of research by the Rhodale Institute, organic farms are.

In saying this, we are leaving aside all of the other benefits of organic farming. We are simply pointing out yet another reason that state policy in this country should favour organic farming. After all, 1.5 billion euros is 1.5 billion euros.