Organic and sustainable farming

Organic farming is a form of agriculture in which agricultural land is cultivated without the use of artificial fertilisers, or artificial pesticides, growth regulators and livestock feed additives. It relies on crop rotation, compost, biological pest control, mechanical cultivation, and other techniques using natural processes, to maintain soil productivity and control pests. Organic farming excludes or strictly limits the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and livestock feed additives. Genetically modified organisms are excluded, and organic standards in Britain and Australia exclude engineered nanoparticles.Genetically modified organisms and engineered nanoparticles are forbidden as well. The use of agricultural machines (running on either biofuels or fossil fuels) is allowed.^[1][2] The goals of organic farm systems include the maintenance of soil fertility, efficient usage of water, maximizing soil fertility, and improved animal welfare as well as environmental aspects indirectly related to farming such as reduction of energy use and avoidance of pollution (Trewavas 2001). Australia accounts for 39% of the world's certified organic agriculture hectares, followed by Argentina and USA.^[3]

Sustainable agriculture is the practice of farming using principles of ecology^W. Unlike organic agriculture, sustainable agriculture focuses on the ability of providing food on the long-term. As such, besides artificial fertilisers and pesticides^[4]it also does not allow the use of agricultural machines running on non-renewable resources^W. Besides this, it focuses on finding the most energy-efficient and cost-effective method of using agricultural machines and non-renewable natural resources (ie phosphate,...). For this reason it also implements natural biological cycles and controls where possible.^[5]

Except for some particularities, both methods of farming are hence quite similar, employing ecologic methods as polyculture, decreased (or zero-) tillage, crop rotation, nutrient cycling^W (ie composting,...), no or reduced chemical fertilizer applications, no or reduced reduced chemical pesticide application, biological pest control and/or fostered biodiversity, mechanical cultivation, and other techniques (ie mulching,...)^[6]

Organic agriculture is a production system that sustains the health of soils, ecosystems and people. It relies on ecological processes, biodiversity and cycles adapted to local conditions, rather than the use of inputs with adverse effects. Organic agriculture combines tradition, innovation and science to benefit the shared environment and promote fair relationships and a good quality of life for all involved...

— International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements, Definition of Organic Agriculture

History[edit | edit source]

In 1924 Rudolf Steiner, at Koberwitz, presented a course on agriculture in which he characterised a farm as 'an organism'.^[7]

The term "organic farming" was coined in 1940 by Lord Northbourne and first appeared in his book 'Look to the Land'^[8] and was influenced by Steiner's characterisation of the farm as an organism and the practices of biodynamic farming.^[9]

The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements was founded in 1972 in Paris.^[10]

The term "sustainable agriculture" was coined in 1950's by Gordon McClymont. Sustainable agriculture took off in the United States after passing the 1990 farm bill.^[11] More recently, as consumer and retail demand for sustainable products has risen, organizations such as Food Alliance and Protected Harvest^W have started to provide measurement standards and certification programs for what constitutes a sustainably grown crop.^[12]

Organic farming[edit | edit source]

Some recent studies have suggested that organic farming can potentially produce more than conventional farming methods on the same area of land.^[13] Note that besides conventional organic farming, another variant also exist called biodynamic agriculture.

One of the most important issues in organic farming is the eliminating of pests at a ecological way. Full details on this can be found at Integrated Pest Management.

Another important issue with organic farming is the use of organic fertilizers.

Conserving natural resources[edit | edit source]

The physical aspects of sustainability are partly understood.^[14] Practices that can cause long-term damage to soil include excessive tillage^W (leading to erosion) and irrigation without adequate drainage (leading to salinization^W). Long-term experiments^W have provided some of the best data on how various practices affect soil properties essential to sustainability. There is a federal agency, USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service that specializes in providing technical and financial assistance for those interested in pursuing natural resource conservation and production agriculture as compatible goals.

The most important factors affecting plant growth at an individual site are sun, air, soil and water. Of these, water and soil quality^W and soil quantity are most amenable to human intervention through time and labour.

Although air^W and sunlight^W are available everywhere on Earth^W, crops also depend on soil nutrients and the availability of water^W. When farmers grow and harvest^W crops, they remove some of these nutrients from the soil. Without replenishment, land suffers from nutrient depletion and becomes either unusable or suffers from reduced yields^W.

Sustainable agriculture depends on replenishing the soil while eliminating (or atleast minimizing) the use of non-renewable resources, such as natural gas (used in converting atmospheric nitrogen into synthetic fertilizer), or mineral ores (e.g., phosphate). Sustainable options for replacing nutrient inputs as phosphorus, potassium, etc. are limited. Nitrogen is, in principle, available indefinitely from sources as:

• animal and human manure^W, and crop and kitchen waste
• legume^W crops and forages such as peanuts^W or alfalfa^W which form symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing^W bacteria^W called rhizobia^W and release it into the soil
• industrial production of ammonia (which contains nitrogen) through the Haber-Bosch process^W. The Haber-Boch process requires hydrogen which is currently derived from natural gas. However, it could be made through electrolysis^W of water. This electrolysis can be generated using electricity produced through the action of natural phenomena (wind, waves, solar radiation,...) Besides making ammonia this way, it can also be made using titanium oxide
• genetically engineering (non-legume) crops to form nitrogen-fixing symbioses or fix nitrogen without microbial symbionts. This last option was proposed in the 1970s, but is only recently becoming feasible.^[15][16]

Community and farm composting of kitchen, yard, and farm organic waste can provide most if not all the required needs of local farms. This composting could potentially be a reliable source of energy. Many scientists, farmers, and businesses have debated how to make agriculture sustainable. Using community recycling from yard and kitchen waste utilizes a local area's commonly available resources. These resources in the past were thrown away into large waste disposal sites, are now used to produce low cost organic compost for organic farming.

Besides the self-produced organic waste, soil amendment^W can be used. Soil amendments is locally recycled compost from community recycling centers. By using this local recycling system small farmers can produce products from waste from the cities and sell the products back to the people in the city via the local farmers' markets, in effect closing the loop.

Additional options to recycling nutrients are the growing of seasonal crops, the use of long-term crop rotation^W and the use of sturdy native plants and livestock landraces^W.

The growing of seasonal crops allows to reduce energy requirements (ie no need of greenhouses, heating, reduced organic pesticide use,...) Native crops are better adapted to a lack of nutrients and other less than ideal conditions such as pests, drought, excessively watered fields,... For the crops, it is best to choose not only native crops, but also perennial versions of the crops, where possible (ie with grain crops,...)^[17]

In addition to reducing the energy requirements by selecting more suitable crops, the use of more suitable farm equipment is also important. For example, the current method of agriculture requires 10 calories of fossil energy for 1 calorie of food^[18][19] More suitable farm equipment can include draft animals^[20] or traction engines to replace the fuel-inefficient tractors which are now being used.

Water[edit | edit source]

In some areas, sufficient rainfall is available for crop growth, but many other areas require irrigation. For irrigation systems to be sustainable they require proper management (to avoid salinization) and must not use more water from their source than is naturally replenished, otherwise the water source becomes, in effect, a non-renewable resource. Improvements in water well drilling technology and submersible pumps^W combined with the development of drip irrigation and low pressure pivots have made it possible to regularly achieve high crop yields where reliance on rainfall alone previously made this level of success unpredictable. However, this progress has come at a price, in that in many areas where this has occurred, such as the Ogallala Aquifer^W, the water is being used at a greater rate than its rate of recharge.

Several steps should be taken to develop drought-resistant farming systems even in "normal" years, including both policy and management actions:

1. improving water conservation and storage measures
2. providing incentives for selection of drought-tolerant crop species
3. using reduced-volume irrigation systems
4. managing crops to reduce water loss or
5. not planting at all.

Indicators for sustainable water resource development are:

• Internal renewable water resources. This is the average annual flow of rivers and groundwater generated from endogenous precipitation, after ensuring that there is no double counting. It represents the maximum amount of water resource produced within the boundaries of a country. This value, which is expressed as an average on a yearly basis, is invariant in time (except in the case of proved climate change). The indicator can be expressed in three different units: in absolute terms (km3/yr), in mm/yr (it is a measure of the humidity of the country), and as a function of population (m3/person per yr).
• Global renewable water resources. This is the sum of internal renewable water resources and incoming flow originating outside the country. Unlike internal resources, this value can vary with time if upstream development reduces water availability at the border. Treaties ensuring a specific flow to be reserved from upstream to downstream countries may be taken into account in the computation of global water resources in both countries.
• Dependency ratio. This is the proportion of the global renewable water resources originating outside the country, expressed in percentage. It is an expression of the level to which the water resources of a country depend on neighbouring countries.
• Water withdrawal. In view of the limitations described above, only gross water withdrawal can be computed systematically on a country basis as a measure of water use. Absolute or per-person value of yearly water withdrawal gives a measure of the importance of water in the country's economy. When expressed in percentage of water resources, it shows the degree of pressure on water resources. A rough estimate shows that if water withdrawal exceeds a quarter of global renewable water resources of a country, water can be considered a limiting factor to development and, reciprocally, the pressure on water resources can have a direct impact on all sectors, from agriculture to environment and fisheries.^[21]

Soil[edit | edit source]

Soil erosion is fast becoming one of the worlds greatest problems. It is estimated that "more than a thousand million tonnes of southern Africa's soil are eroded every year. Experts predict that crop yields will be halved within thirty to fifty years if erosion continues at present rates."^[22] Soil erosion is not unique to Africa but is occurring worldwide. The phenomenon is being called Peak Soil as present large scale factory farming techniques are jeopardizing humanity's ability to grow food in the present and in the future.^[23] Without efforts to improve soil management practices, the availability of arable soil^W will become increasingly problematic.^[24]

Folowing soil management techniques can be used to reduce soil erosion

• The use of reduced (ie Do Nothing Farming) or no-till farming
• The use of Keyline design^W
• The growing of wind breaks^W to hold the soil and/or use other techniques to protect the soil from water runoff
• The incorporating of organic matter back into the fields
• Stopping to use chemical fertilizers^W (which contain salt)

Other methods for farming more effectively[edit | edit source]

Besides having many plant nutrients in the soil, another factor for plant growth is having a good soil texture. Without a good soil texture, the plant can not effectively extract the nutrients from the soil. Other techniques that improve the soil quality are the use of biochar and compost tea.

Besides improving the soil, we can also apply effective cultivation methods. 4 useful cultivation practices in sustainable agriculture are polyculture combined with crop rotation^W, the use of fallow periods, companion planting/intercropping and seasonal crop growing.

The growing of a mixture of crops (polyculture) reduces disease or pest problems in comparison with monoculture.^[25] Polyculture has rarely, if ever, been compared to the more widespread practice of growing different crops in successive years (called crop rotation^W) with the same overall crop diversity^W. Cropping systems that include a variety of crops (polyculture and/or rotation) may also replenish nitrogen (if legumes are included) and may also use resources such as sunlight, water, or nutrients more efficiently.^[26]

Crop rotation is the growing of a crop on a different section of the land each year. It can be done with or without fallow periods. Fallow periods are periods in the year in which land is prepared (plowed and tilled) but left unused (so no crops are grown) for one growing season. With crop rotation it does means that a section of the land is left unused each year (this section of land rotates each year). This allows the land to recover. During the fallow period, we can also introduce some nutrients back into the land by growing Nitrogen fixation^W plants on it. Fallowing can however also cause problems, particularly where a field is left exposed to the elements. The sun and rain in combination can dry the soil and wash away the nurients. An alternative to fallow periods is to plant nitrogenous rich legumes in a soil as part of Crop rotation

Intercropping is where two or more varieties of plant that do not compete with each other for light, water,... are grown close to each other. Often, this means using plants of different heights,... Intercropping allows a greater density of plants, which can each take up different nutrients from a well kept soil. Sometimes intercropping occurs when different varieties are planted in alternating rows. But true intercropping can also, be a lot more chaotic with fields resembling weed beds, due to the growth of multiple varieties of crop. Intercropping a pungent crop or a brightly coloured one can repel pests, trap crops function as "bait" attracting a pest away from the vegetable that is being grown. Companion planting also places plants that grow well together near each other, but uses plants of a same height and which may also stimulate each other in growing even stronger/faster. Agroforestry is a type of agriculture that makes extensive use of intercropping.

Seasonal crop growing involves the growing of a diverse number of perennial crops in a single field. The crops are grown one after another, each of which growing in separate season so as not to compete with each other for natural resources.^[27] This system would result in increased resistance to diseases and decreased effects of erosion and loss of nutrients in soil.

Overview of combined organic/sustainable farming techniques[edit | edit source]

The following table lists the techniques in order of importance.

Particularities of organic farming[edit | edit source]

Organic farms need to comply to following requirements in order to allow wearing the title of being organic:

• The land must be free of prohibited substances for 3 years prior to organic farming
• Seeds should be organic but right now the use of some non-organic seeds is permitted
• The use of genetic engineering, sewage sludge, or ionizing radiation is prohibited
• Weeds are controlled with management practices and lots of work
• Garden pests are handled with integrated pest management practices which include biological, physical, and mechanical controls.
• Some organic pesticides are permitted
• To maintain soil fertility organic farmers use methods such as: crop rotations, cover crops, animal manures, compost, and diversity in crops.
• Some organic fertilizers are permitted

Economics[edit | edit source]

Labor costs of organic farming are higher, but costs of inputs are often lower, as there are no chemical fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides to be purchased. This is an advantage in development contexts - see Permaculture and development.

Socioeconomic aspects of sustainable farming are but partly understood. Regarding less concentrated farming, the best known analysis is Netting's study on smallholder systems through history.^[28] The Oxford Sustainable Group^W defines sustainability in this context in a much broader form, considering effect on all stakeholders in a 360 degree approach

Given the finite supply of natural resources^W at any specific cost and location, agriculture that is inefficient or damaging to needed resources may eventually exhaust the available resources or the ability to afford and acquire them. It may also generate negative externality^W, such as pollution as well as financial and production costs.

The way that crops are sold^W must be accounted for in the sustainability equation^W. Food sold locally does not require additional energy for transportation (including consumers). Food sold at a remote location, whether at a farmers' market or the supermarket^W, incurs a different set of energy cost for materials, labour^W, and transport.

Location of the farm[edit | edit source]

There has been considerable debate about where farms are best located. Some argue that farms are best located in/near cities to shorten the distance the food needs to travel. Others have argued that privately produced food is even more efficient. However, the latter may not always generate sufficient food.

Off-farm impacts[edit | edit source]

A farm that is able to "produce perpetually", yet has negative effects on environmental quality elsewhere is not sustainable agriculture. An example of a case in which a global view may be warranted is over-application of synthetic fertilizer or animal manures^W, which can improve productivity of a farm but can pollute nearby rivers and coastal waters (eutrophication). The other extreme can also be undesirable, as the problem of low crop yields due to exhaustion of nutrients in the soil has been related to rainforest^W destruction, as in the case of Slash-and-burn agriculture^W for livestock feed.

Sustainability affects overall production, which must increase to meet the increasing food and fiber requirements as the world's human population expands to a projected 9.3 billion people by 2050^W. Increased production may come from creating new farmland, which may ameliorate carbon dioxide emissions if done through reclamation of desert as in Palestine^W, or may worsen emissions if done through slash and burn^W farming, as in Brazil^W. Additionally, Genetically modified organism^W crops show promise for radically increasing crop yields, although many people and governments are apprehensive of this new farming method.

Some advocates favour sustainable agriculture as the only system which can be sustained over the long-term. However, organic production methods, especially in transition, yield less than their conventional counterparts and raise the same problems of sustaining populations globally.

Sources and references[edit | edit source]

• Dore, J. 1997. Sustainability Indicators for Agriculture: Introductory Guide to Regional/National and On-farm Indicators, Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation, Australia.
• Gold, Mary. 1999. Sustainable Agriculture: Definitions and Terms. Special Reference Briefs Series no. SRB 99-02 Updates SRB 94-5 September 1999. National Agricultural Library, Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture.
• Hayes, B. 2008. Trial Proposal: Soil Amelioration in the South Australian Riverland.
• Jahn, GC, B. Khiev, C. Pol, N. Chhorn, S. Pheng, and V. Preap. 2001. Developing sustainable pest management for rice in Cambodia. pp. 243–258, In S. Suthipradit, C. Kuntha, S. Lorlowhakarn, and J. Rakngan [eds.] "Sustainable Agriculture: Possibility and Direction" Proceedings of the 2nd Asia-Pacific Conference on Sustainable Agriculture 18–20 October 1999, Phitsanulok, Thailand. Bangkok (Thailand): National Science and Technology Development Agency. 386 p.
• Lindsay Falvey (2004) Sustainability - Elusive or Illusion: Wise Environmental Management. Institute for International Development, Adelaide pp259.
• Hecht, Susanna and Alexander Cockburn (1989) The Fate of the Forest: developers, destroyers and defenders of the Amazon. New York: Verso.
• Netting, Robert McC. (1993) Smallholders, Householders: Farm Families and the Ecology of Intensive, Sustainable Agriculture. Stanford Univ. Press, Palo Alto.
• Dedicated double issue of Philosophical Transactions B on Sustainable Agriculture. Some articles are freely available.

See also[edit | edit source]

• Agroforestry
• Aquaponics
• Biomass
• Composting
• Ecological sanitation
• Forest gardening
• How to practice sustainable agriculture
• Incredible Edible Todmorden
• Portal:Food and agriculture
• List of sustainable agriculture topics
• Organic farming
• Organic food
• Permaculture
• Sustainable development
• Urban agriculture

External Links[edit | edit source]

• Polyculture forums at Permies.com
• Organic gardening forums at Permies.com
• Large farms forums at Permies.com
• Small farms forums at Permies.com
• Garden Master Course (organic, veganic & permaculture-focused)

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Keywords	water pollution gallery, land degradation gallery
Authors	KVDP, Dyuku, Chris Watkins, SaltedSoil
License	CC-BY-SA-3.0
Language	English (en)
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Aliases	Natural Farming, Organic food, Sustainable agriculture, Organic agriculture, Organic agricultural system, Organic farming
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Created	September 19, 2007 by Lonny Grafman
Last modified	May 28, 2024 by Kathy Nativi
Cite as	KVDP, Dyuku, Chris Watkins, SaltedSoil (2007–2024). "Organic and sustainable farming". Appropedia. Retrieved November 22, 2024.
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