This blog post/article from Scientific American identifies the benefits and negatives of organic farming vs. conventional farming.
It is identified that organic farming produces lower yields ..."organic agriculture delivers just 5 percent less yield in rain-watered
legume crops, such as alfalfa or beans, and in perennial crops, such as
fruit trees. But when it comes to major cereal crops, such as corn or wheat, and vegetables, such as broccoli, conventional methods delivered more than 25 percent more yield."
Is it worth it to have lower yields if it comes with a better environment? Does organic farming improve the environment? What are your opinions?
"Conventional farming requires knowledge of how to manage what farmers
know as inputs—synthetic fertilizer, chemical pesticides and the like—as
well as fields laid out precisely via global-positioning systems.
Organic farmers, on the other hand, must learn to manage an entire
ecosystem geared to producing food—controlling pests through biological
means, using the waste from animals to fertilize fields and even growing
one crop amidst another."
Are modern farmers, or those who will work in the agriculture industry prepared to move to a more organic approach?
I believe organic farming can definitely improve the environment if the farmers learn how to do it the right way. That is the biggest issues.. for the farmers to learn what they are dealing with in organic farming. If they are educated in it I am sure the agriculture industry can be prepared to move on to organic farming.
ReplyDeleteI am against chemical or as it is referred to in the article "conventional" farming because of what it does to our environment and what the leftover pesticides and chemicals might be doing to our intestines but lets face it; the economic state that the world is in(The U.S. included)we cant afford to cut down our food supplies by 25%. So I suppose it really is a matter of what is more important...the planet or the people on the planet? I am all for savign the environment from harmful things like pesticides and carcinogens but when it comes right down to it I believe that people are more important than animals and plants.
ReplyDeleteI think that organic farming is definitely better for our environment in contrast to farming with hazardous chemicals. I think that it would be better to have safer environment and have a shorter food production than to have dangerous pesticides sprayed on our food and damage the environment. Organic farming does help to improve our environment. Organic farming does not pollute our bodies of water, improves the soil quality, and it provides safer working conditions for the workers in the fields.
ReplyDeleteMiranda Cupples
I do not disagree completely with Anna, Charles, and Miranda, but I do a little. Yes, organic farming could improve our environment, but farmers have been around since time began and everyone has been perfectly fine. In the article, it talks about how organic farming would be safer for the environment, but honestly, in my opinion, it wouldn't increase it a whole lot and it wouldn't be as effective in production. Regular farming, with pesticides and all that, has been going on for ages and people have been perfectly fine in health. The only way you could be an unhealthy person is by not eating healthy. I feel as though this article is trying to tell people that farmers are bad people, when in reality without farmers our food production would be almost non-existant. I think that if everything became organic we wouldn't have as much food in stores, and a lot of people would have to either re-learn how to farm(organically) or they would be out of their job. I can guarantee you a lot of older farmers would not be very happy if this were to happen, and neither would I. I understnad that some of the things farmers use can be harmful to the environment and supposedly our bodies, but our bodies get rid of the harmful things and keep in the nutrients from the food we eat. I do not agree with organic farming.
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