How Does Organic Agriculture Compare with Other Farming Systems

How Does Organic Agriculture Compare with Other Farming Systems

Introduction

The recent growth in the interest, in vital consumer goods, has made substantial inroads into food production and consumption patterns in UK. This growth has accelerated over the past 20 years, with global sales of organic food now in the billions. This paper briefly considers what organic food is, the reasons people motivate to purchase and consume organic food, and some of the multiple ways organic food grows. These categories often overlap, reflecting the complexity that inheres to the ecosystems in which organic food is grown and in how such food should market, sold, and transported. Organic food refers to agricultural production without the use of synthetic chemicals. Organic agriculture base on principles of sustainability—the ability to be continued in the long term without negative environmental effects—and designed to improve and support soil health.

It prohibits using human-made chemicals such as pesticides, herbicides, and synthetic fertilizers. For livestock farming, organic agriculture prohibits the use of antibiotics, hormones such as bovine growth hormone, or synthetic medications. Organic agriculture also prohibits the use of genetically modified plants or animals. Instead, organic agriculture relies on more labour-intensive management such as using a chipper to remove weeds and the use of natural inputs such as composts and homeopathic animal health treatments. Prior to the advent of chemically synthesized fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides that facilitated industrial agriculture, farmers relied on organic matter such as manure, guano, fish meal, leguminous crops, or cover crops to enrich soil with nutrients, enhance its water retention and tilt, and minimize erosion. Many describe this as food that is more “natural” or more “traditional” in its production; it certainly measures a gap between organic farming practices and those of most non-organic farming.

Conventioanl Farming Systems

The technical revolution of 20th-century farming centred on three main areas — mechanization, chemistry, and organization. This revolution resulted in a very large and rapid rise in agricultural output. For example, between 1935-39 and 1997 the output of the two main Australiacereal crops, wheat and barley, rose by 209 and 259 per cent respectively. The successes of productivist policies are handled in the studies of Blaxter, Robertson and Martin. The general picture they describe can be summarized in a few paragraphs as follows (Bocker, Hanf, 2000, 471- 485).

The most notable technical innovations were the tractor and the combine harvester, the former used for ploughing and seedbed preparation, and the latter combining the work done formerly by the reaper-binder and the thresher. Both replaced horses, which disappeared from farming. Crop cultivation and harvesting were immensely speeded up, and losses due to shedding of grain (which previously took between 10 and 20 per cent of the crop) were much reduced. Crop storage was mechanized, with the transfer of the harvested crop direct from the combine harvester to grain silo. Cereals were also dried mechanically. The planting of root crops was mechanized. Mechanical harvesting was applied to roots and to ...