Organic and Biodiversity part 2

Recent University of Leeds research suggests that, because of a lower yield, organic farms are worse for biodiversity.

(Another of Lux Viatour's picture: can't access his site at mo, so you can see more here)

The research suggests that there will be a need to ramp up production in light of population growth, and the sacrifice of land to organic farming would thus be too great, notwithstanding 12% more biodiversity on organic farms.

The yield argument is, however, questionable. The research presumes that conventional farming can continue as is � in other words, the research has failed to take into account both the finite nature and climate change-causing elements of fossil fuels in farming and food.

Also, organisations like the UN FAO suggest that productive yield would increase in the places where hunger is most acute, were farmers to change over to organic farming from their current type of farming, which is subsistence farming.

Excluding the contentious issue of yield the biodiversity case for organic farming is strong.

For one thing, Biocides (pesticides, herbicides etc) and biodiversity are in basic terms incompatible. biocides are designed to kill, and they kill both target and non target plants and animals.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service point out that �about 40 pesticides ...are known to kill birds even when applied according to label instructions�. They also point to the difficult to calculate but nonetheless very real fact of indirect bird deaths from pesticides, in highlighting 67 million direct annual bird deaths from agricultural pesticides:

�The number of birds lost in a poisoning event can only be estimated; biologists believe that for each bird carcass found and reported, approximately 100 others are never found� and that since �World War Two, the manufacture and use of pesticides in the United States has increased ten-fold�.

According to a peer reviewed literature review by Hole et al (2005), of 76 studies comparing organic and conventional farming on biodiversity:

66 out of 99 comparisons found organic benefited wildlife more than conventional farming. 25 found mixed results, and 8 against organic. This ranged across all major taxon (insect, plant and animal species).

Neither of the two groups of researchers who conducted this research had a vested interest in organic farming.

Norton et al's (2009) peer reviewed study found that, even comparing like with like - equally �heterogeneous landscapes� in both organic and conventional farms, organic still scores better. In other words, even when there is mixed farming on a varied landscape, the organic farms in these places are still better for wildlife than the conventional ones.

There has been little research in Ireland on biodiversity and farming. O Brien et al (2008) overviews research into biodiversity and arable farming in Ireland. They point out that �only one study has compared the biodiversity of organisms in organic vs conventionally grown crops in Ireland� this study found �a greater abundance (78% higher) and diversity of beetles in the organic plots.�

While lamenting the lack of research, they do point out that �the research that is there suggests that conventional crop cultivation has had an adverse impact on biodiversity on Irish farms, with 15 of the 21 studies demonstrating negative trends for the taxa investigated.�

It is also the case that the farm-related losses in biodiversity in the last 60 years related to conventional farming anyway. According to Dr Gordon Purvis, who led the five-year Ag-Biota project on biodiversity and farming in Ireland ; �while bumblebees as a group are still readily found on typical farmland, our findings reveal that their abundance and diversity on moderately-to-intensively managed farmland may have declined by at least 50 per cent over the past 20-30 years.�

More diversity in plants and animals also means that the planet is more likely to function harmoniously. Monocultures � in farming and nature � expose us to everything from wildfires to famines.

Then there is the farm itself: separating farming and nature can be considered a category error, mainly because organic farms are part of nature and society at one and the same time. The farmed foods are more biodiverse, as is what surrounds them.

ORGANIC FARMING ISN'T BETTER FOR BIODIVERSITY? GIVE ME A BREAK!

This is a 2 parter, and I'm afraid I can't post the second part 'til this time next week.

(beautiful picture is by Luc Viatour see here for more)

Conventional farming is better for the environment, once yields are taken into account.

That's the main finding of a two year study by Professor Tim Benton, of the University of Leeds.

His research examined which production methods could increase food yields with the least impact on biodiversity.

Benton, a conservation expert, compared 192 fields on 32 farms in central south west england and the north midlands, taking into account over 30 variables covering climate, topography, socio-economic conditions, land use and soil type.

The study concluded organic farms produced less than half as much food per hectare as ordinary farms.

This is important, according to Benton, because �over the next 40 years, we're going to have to double food production worldwide to keep pace with population increases�.

The study did find that biodiversity levels were 12% higher on the organic farms, and that clusters of organic farms were found to be especially beneficial in biodiversity terms. Benton, however, finds this to be too little to assuage the yield losses, though he does concede that organic farming will have a role within the broader agri-food sector, especially in less productive regions of the UK.

So what does this mean for the organic sector? The answer is revealed as much in the nature of science as anything else.

As science becomes ever more specialised, the bigger picture gets left out. So, for example, climate change and the finite nature of resources are ignored in this study.

The study basically presumes that farming will have an indefinite supply of oil and synthetic fertilizers, and can continue without consequence or responsibility. It also presumes population growth and western style consumption patterns.

These are massive presumptions. And yet, resources are actually running out, farming is implicated in climate change, and, as it happens, population growth figures keep getting downgraded.

And herein lies another 'small picture' error: feeding people.

In the west, there is the production of the wrong types of food in the wrong sorts of places. There is overeating and wasting of food in mesmeric proportions: obesity, and the waste of 1/3 of all food, 2/3 of this even before it reaches the consumer, attest to this.

Then there is hunger itself. Recent UN FAO research suggests organic will increase yield, and do so in a sustainable way, where it is most needed. Where people are actually hungry, organic production methods are a step up from subsistence farming in yield terms.

Organic farming in these regions is also labour intensive and agri-industrial input sensitive: in other words, it uses the available resources (labour and nature) without introducing unsuited, expensive and environmentally destructive agri-industrial inputs, inputs that reduce the land's ability to feed into the future, and increase the risky strategy of monocultural food production.

�In market-marginalized areas, organic farmers can increase food production by managing local resources without having to rely on external inputs or food distribution systems over which they have little control and/or access���Organic farms grow a variety of crops and livestock in order to optimize competition for nutrients and space between species: this results in less chance of low production or yield failure in all of these simultaneously. This can have an important impact on local food security and resilience� according to the UN FAO.

Only in a world of chronic food dumping and unfair subsidies can the first world even attempt to feed the 3rd world: and even then, it is the food dumping itself which prevents local food production from emerging.

Conventional farming has also chronically indebted 3rd world farmers, as exemplified by the recorded suicide rates of farmers who go down this route on the Indian subcontinent.

A study of 300 peer reviewed articles into the effects of this industrialisation of farming in the third world found that economic inequality increased rather than decreased in 80% of applicable cases.

So no, farming as is will not provide the necessary yield to feed the world. Next week, the biodiversity case itself will be examined.