Organic agriculture enters mainstream.

[Guest guest]

ISIS Press Release 12/09/05

 

Organic Agriculture Enters Mainstream

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Organic Yields on Par with Conventional and Ahead During

Drought Years

 

But by far the greatest gains are due to savings on damages

to public health and the environment estimated at more than

US$59 billion a year Dr. Mae-Wan Ho puts the nail on the

coffin on industrial agriculture

 

A fully referenced version of this article is posted on ISIS

members' website http://www.i-sis.org.uk/full/OBCAFull.php.

Details here http://www.i-sis.org.uk/membership.php

 

Myths die hard

 

Scientists who should know better - if only they had kept up

with the literature - continue to tell the world that

organic agriculture invariably means lower yields,

especially compared to industrial high input agriculture,

even when this has long been proven false (see for example,

"Organic agriculture fights back" SiS 16 [1];

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/sis16.php

"Organic production works", SiS 25 [2]).

http://www.i-sis.org.uk/isisnews/sis25.php

 

 

Researchers led by David Pimenthal, ecologist and

agricultural scientist at Cornell University, New York, have

now reviewed data from long-term field investigations and

confirmed that organic yields are no different from

conventional under normal growing conditions, but that they

are far ahead during drought years [3]. The reasons are well

known: organic soils have greater capacity to retain water

as well as nutrients such as nitrogen.