organic farming and climate change

Following on from the recent article critically examining the DEFRA/MBS report on the sustainability/carbon footprint of organic food, have a look at this article, which appeared in the Irish Examiner a couple of weeks ago.

There are two ways to look at the effect of organic farming on climate change. One is to look at the effect of current organic production on climate change. The other is to conduct field trails that compare organic and conventional farming systems.

A fundamental problem with the former is that presently organic farming accounts for only 3% of the EU�s farming. In this context, it is inevitable that in a certified, traceable system the movement of agri-inputs and the use of various certified, traceable processes occasionally increases the organic system�s greenhouse gas emissions. As an example, organic farmers have to source guaranteed GM-free manure, rather than just use any available local source, as was the case before a percentage of GM ingredients was added to most winter feed rations on conventional farms.

In order to better asses the potential of farming systems to contribute to or take away from global warming, scenario comparisons need to be done. Comparing a world where food is produced organically to one where it is produced conventionally is far more useful than the fundamentally truncated and inevitably misleading 3% scenario.

This is especially important in the context of global warming: food production both contributes to it - 25-30% of global warming by most reckonings - and will be effected by it. Specific agriculturally-related changes include changes in what can be produced where; rising tides; increases in temperature with various regional variations (in Ireland, this includes a split between the already wet west getting wetter and the relatively dry east getting drier); increased droughts and increased cyclones. It goes without saying that each of these effects has knock-on effects, encompassing aspects as divergent as insurance premiums, holiday homes and diets.

Field trials allow for the study of something other than organic farming in the current 3% scenario. In these trials it is possible to, literally, compare organic and conventional worlds of farming.

Various field trials have been highlighted before in this diary. Other more recent research was presented in February at Biofach 2007 by the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL). This week and next, some of the key findings will be presented.

Dr. Andreas Fliessbach made a presentation on the scientific evidence of the role of organic agriculture in climate change, based mainly on field trials (the DOK trails) in Switzerland. Fliessbach first points to the lack of mineral fertilizer use in the organic system. Mineral fertilizer production necessitates large amounts of fossil fuel.

Carbon sequestering (locking carbon away, rather than allowing it to enter the atmosphere) emerges from his research as one of the major benefits of the organic system. He cites Swiss research that finds lower levels of energy use in an organic system: 46-49% lower when compared to conventional mineral fertilizer systems, and 31-35% lower when compared to conventional manure based systems.

Because energy use is not the only cause of greenhouse gases in agriculture, he compares the greenhouse gas production of organic and conventional systems. Organic farming�s �greenhouse warming potential� is 29-32% lower than conventional mineral fertilizer systems, and 35-37% lower than in conventional manure systems.

Because the ozone depleting nitrous oxide is inevitably released with nitrogen application, the lower levels applied in the organic system also emerged as beneficial. Likewise, the lower stocking rates of animals, as well as their use as a source of manure and their generally more integrated role on an organic farm emerged as beneficial.

Fliessbach concludes by summarising the various climate change reducing dimensions of the organic system. These are resource limitation; optimisation of manure use; crop rotations; mixed livestock and crop production systems; temporal or permanent grass-clover; and set-asides, extensification programmes and ecological measures.

Next week, more of the FiBL research on organic farming and climate will be presented.

To access the FiBl research into organic farming and climate change, go here, click on news and then click on the relevant link.