Organic farming: The best choice for our environment and growing world?

So, it's ok to poison people and the environment if it means more food? I never thought I'd hear this from EDF. Today, Glyphosate is being acknowledged as a carcinogenic and a contributory factor in hive collapse, and pesticides are killing off any insects including pollinators. I don't know about anyone else, but I'll less food that doesn't actually kill me or the rest of the ecosystem.

I wrote a paper in 1999 expressing a similar perspective, in which I examined tradeoffs between different agricultural systems.

Abstract: All systems of agriculture practiced today can be seen as having a potential for improvement and contributing toward a more sustainable agriculture. The major differences in approach and in the types of services needed to serve the development of sustainable agriculture are between industrial and ecological systems rather than between organic and conventional systems (defined by inputs).

Support services offered by private and public institutions are adequate for industrial systems, but not for ecological systems.

Interesting thesis. How come you didn't bring these topics up?

1. Biodynamic farming. These farming practices employ best practices that improve the soils fertility, encourage holistic practices and judicious use of all resources in the process. They also don't poison the food chain and our ecosystem with harmful herbicides, pesticides and GMOs.

2. Food waste. It's appalling how much food the United States wastes. Food supply calculations need to address the amount of food waste that is generated in most American family meals. That is a critical area to focus on when it comes to food sustainability. We must change our value systems around food and where it comes from, and how it made it to your pantry and dinner table. Focus on educating the population and encouraging them to stop wasting food (they will all take it for granted until they don't have more food.)

Don't you think its problematic to have a thesis that encourages conventional farming as a "sustainable" practice for world food supply? It's a slippery slope to GMOs.

I recognize organic farming alone isn't the silver bullet, but its a great start. Conventional farming is about profit, not growing food and feeding the planet sustainably. There needs to be a shift in the values system in order to effectively address the negative externalities of the Western world's food production, consumption and waste cycles.

What is your definition of sustainable? How is agriculture “sustainable” if it injects toxic chemicals into the soil on a regular basis, with potential runoff into our dwindling water supply? How is it appropriate for farm workers to continue to work in a toxic chemical environment?

I find it surprising that you would say performance trumps, whether a food production system is good or bad.

Yes, we all eat. But to live with a healthy body, we need healthy food. Otherwise, we poison both the soil and water. This direct relationship between the health of our bodies and the health of our food shatters your notion that performance is a “better paradigm” for sustainable agriculture.

Please remember that we have been fed the lie that GMOs are “the way to feed the world”, because they produce higher yields. Evidence has proven otherwise.

Until our food production system was changed forever by the so-called Green Revolution, small-scale peasant farmers around the world did the job of feeding us. Therefore, we need to stop big companies that steal land from peasants. We need to speak up for these people.

We also need to stop wasting so much food, as a reader has reminded us. We need to stop eating super-sized portions; they are madness! And more of us need to grow food, even if we only have an apartment balcony. Overall, we need to become more mindful about our food production systems, what we eat, and how we eat.

Focusing more on higher yields is a sure-fire way to perpetuate the business-as-usual practices of big ag colluding with chemical companies -- practices that are about higher profits, at the expense of our planetary environment and the health of all who eat.

It would also help if far more city people grew vegetables in their backyards and if municipalities converted more empty lots into community gardens. Compost programs include all kitchen waste and are therefore richer in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (NPK) than leaf-based compost. The product could be distributed to citizens so they rely neither on manure, nor on synthetic fertilizer.

I strongly suggest reading the book title "Organic Crop Production." Well-researched and very comprehensive focusing more on organic farming practices, not the science.

Much of what you say here is supported by a recent paper by Clark and Tilman (Environ Res Lett 12 [2017] 064016). I quote: "Our analyses show that dietary shifts, towards low-impact foods and increases in agricultural input use efficiency would offer larger environmental benefits than would switches from conventional agriculture systems to alternatives such as organic agriculture or grass-fed beef."

I am discouraged that this conversation includes such enthusiastic continuity for our toxic Big Ag system and not a single mention of slowing or stopping the growth of the human population on Earth. [Earth] Overshoot Day was August 1 this year. Do we wait until it happens on February 1 to reduce human population?