By:  Dennis T. Avery
 
CHURCHVILLE, VA—Organic farming could feed the world’s current population, and even a larger one based on organic crop yields reported from the Third World, say Catherine Badgley and a group of co-authors at the University of Michigan.

Evidence coming from around the world, however, indicates that the Badgley paper is wrong.  For example, Roberto Pieretti of Argentina says the high corn yields credited to him were obtained with no-till farming, which uses herbicides, chemical fertilizers, and genetically-modified seeds. 

Now comes Craig Miesner, a Bangladesh-based  professor of crops and soils with Cornell University.  Meisner says organic supporters seem to believe that organic fertilizers are cheap and readily available in poor countries—but they aren’t. 

“I see cow dung in Bangladesh and all of South Asia as a valuable commodity.  During my walks in the villages, I see it collected, largely by women and children, and used as fuel.  Straw is another organic source of nutrients, but that’s not always available either.  Rice and wheat straw is collected from the fields and used for cattle feed or thatching for roofs.  Even the stubble is used, which the poorest come and cut for fuel.”

Miesner says the large quantities of wet, heavy organic fertilizers required to sustain productive crop growth are very difficult for the poor to handle.  “For example,” says Meisner, “to raise a six-tonne [per hectare] rice crop in the peak season requires 100 kg (220 pounds) of nitrogen, thus requiring 17 tonnes per hectare of good-quality manure.  Can you imagine carrying 17 tonnes of manure, in 110-pound loads, in a basket on your head?”  That would mean carrying 340 baskets of manure per hectare.

He also warns there simply isn’t enough manure or plant biomass available to apply 17 tonnes per hectare for even a single annual rice crop in Bangladesh—and the country grows two rice crops every year. 

Meisner says for a green-manure crop to be used in Bangladesh, “it would have to take the place of a food crop, effectively halving the amount of food the land can provide.  The cropping intensity in many developed countries is well over two crops per year, but I have seen as many as four to five crops per year in places that are elevated and flood-free.”  To make matters worse, without herbicides it is difficult to kill off the cover crops in the tropics so the crop plants can thrive.

“Some people propose a greater use of leguminous food crops to supply nitrogen for themselves and succeeding crops.  However, in South Asia, while the national pulse yields appear stable, switching to more of these crops is quite risky due to unseasonable rainfall, diseases, and poor growing environments,” says the Cornell expert.

To make organic compost effectively, the farmer needs surplus plant biomass and cow dung.  Miesner says the growers who have the ability to add organic fertilizer tend to be richer, with larger land holdings and more animals.  The poor have to rely on purchased fertilizers, and the industrial fertilizer is less expensive.

“Using organic farming to feed the developing world remains a pipe dream,” Meisner concludes—but points to a recent study published in Nature that found plants take up the same 26 minerals from the soil whether the fertilizer is organic or chemical.  There was absolutely no difference in the biochemical makeup of the plants, whether they were grown with organic or chemical fertilizers. 

Fortunately, organic doesn’t matter much.

DENNIS T. AVERY is a senior fellow for Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. and is the Director for Global Food Issues (www.cgfi.org).  He was formerly a senior analyst for the Department of State.  Readers may write him at Post Office Box 20, Churchville, VA 24421.