René Descartes, in De homine (1662), claimed that non-human animals could be explained reductively as automata; meaning essentially as more mechanically complex versions of this Digesting Duck.
Reductionism is any of several related philosophical ideas regarding the associations between phenomena, which can be described in terms of other simpler or more fundamental phenomena. It is also described as an intellectual and philosophical position that interprets a complex system as the sum of its parts.
Definitions
The Oxford Companion to Philosophy
suggests that reductionism is "one of the most used and abused terms in
the philosophical lexicon" and suggests a three-part division:
Ontological reductionism: a belief that the whole of reality consists of a minimal number of parts.
Methodological reductionism: the scientific attempt to provide an explanation in terms of ever-smaller entities.
Theory reductionism: the suggestion that a newer theory does
not replace or absorb an older one, but reduces it to more basic terms.
Theory reduction itself is divisible into three parts: translation,
derivation, and explanation.
For the sciences, application of methodological reductionism
attempts explanation of entire systems in terms of their individual,
constituent parts and their interactions. For example, the temperature
of a gas is reduced to nothing beyond the average kinetic energy of its
molecules in motion. Thomas Nagel
and others speak of 'psychophysical reductionism' (the attempted
reduction of psychological phenomena to physics and chemistry), and
'physico-chemical reductionism' (the attempted reduction of biology to
physics and chemistry).
In a very simplified and sometimes contested form, reductionism is said
to imply that a system is nothing but the sum of its parts.
However, a more nuanced opinion is that a system is composed entirely
of its parts, but the system will have features that none of the parts
have (which, in essence is the basis of emergentism). "The point of mechanistic explanations is usually showing how the higher level features arise from the parts."
Other definitions are used by other authors. For example, what John Polkinghorne terms 'conceptual' or 'epistemological' reductionism is the definition provided by Simon Blackburn and by Jaegwon Kim:
that form of reductionism which concerns a program of replacing the
facts or entities involved in one type of discourse with other facts or
entities from another type, thereby providing a relationship between
them. Richard Jones distinguishes ontological and epistemological
reductionism, arguing that many ontological and epistemological
reductionists affirm the need for different concepts for different
degrees of complexity while affirming a reduction of theories.
The idea of reductionism can be expressed by "levels" of
explanation, with higher levels reducible if need be to lower levels.
This use of levels of understanding in part expresses our human
limitations in remembering detail. However, "most philosophers would
insist that our role in conceptualizing reality [our need for a
hierarchy of "levels" of understanding] does not change the fact that
different levels of organization in reality do have different
'properties'."
Reductionism should be distinguished from eliminationism:
reductionists do not deny the existence of phenomena, but explain them
in terms of another reality; eliminationists deny the existence of the
phenomena themselves. For example, eliminationists deny the existence of
life by their explanation in terms of physical and chemical processes.
Reductionism does not preclude the existence of what might be termed emergent phenomena,
but it does imply the ability to understand those phenomena completely
in terms of the processes from which they are composed. This
reductionist understanding is very different from ontological or strong emergentism,
which intends that what emerges in "emergence" is more than the sum of
the processes from which it emerges, respectively either in the
ontological sense or in the epistemological sense.
Some physicists, however, claim that reductionism and emergentism are
complementary: both are needed to explain natural processes.
Types
Most philosophers delineate three types of reductionism and anti-reductionism.
Ontological reductionism
Ontological reductionism is the belief that reality is composed of a minimum number of kinds of entities or substances. This claim is usually metaphysical, and is most commonly a form of monism, in effect claiming that all objects, properties, and events are reducible to a single substance. (A dualist
who is an ontological reductionist would believe that everything is
reducible to two substances—as one possible example, a dualist might
claim that reality is composed of "matter" and "spirit".)
Richard Jones divides ontological reductionism into two: the
reductionism of substances (e.g., the reduction of mind to matter) and
the reduction of the number of structures operating in nature (e.g., the
reduction of one physical force to another). This permits scientists
and philosophers to affirm the former while being anti-reductionists
regarding the latter.
Nancey Murphy
has claimed that there are two species of ontological reductionism: one
that claims that wholes are nothing more than their parts; and atomist
reductionism, claiming that wholes are not "really real". She admits
that the phrase "really real" is apparently senseless but she has tried
to explicate the supposed difference between the two.
Ontological reductionism denies the idea of ontological emergence, and claims that emergence is an epistemological phenomenon that only exists through analysis or description of a system, and does not exist fundamentally.
Ontological reductionism takes two forms: token ontological reductionism and type ontological reductionism.
Token ontological reductionism is the idea that every item that
exists is a sum item. For perceivable items, it affirms that every
perceivable item is a sum of items with a lesser degree of complexity.
Token ontological reduction of biological things to chemical things is
generally accepted.
Type ontological reductionism is the idea that every type of item
is a sum type of item, and that every perceivable type of item is a sum
of types of items with a lesser degree of complexity. Type ontological
reduction of biological things to chemical things is often rejected.
Michael Ruse has criticized ontological reductionism as an improper argument against vitalism.
Methodological reductionism
Methodological
reductionism is the position that the best scientific strategy is to
attempt to reduce explanations to the smallest possible entities.
In a biological context, this means attempting to explain all
biological phenomena in terms of their underlying biochemical and
molecular processes.
Claim of efficacy is demonstrated that the gene – unit of classical
heredity – is the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), a macro-molecule.
Theory reductionism
Theory reduction is the process by which a more general theory absorbs a special theory. For example, both Kepler's laws of the motion of the planets and Galileo's
theories of motion formulated for terrestrial objects are reducible to
Newtonian theories of mechanics because all the explanatory power of the
former are contained within the latter. Furthermore, the reduction is
considered beneficial because Newtonian mechanics
is a more general theory—that is, it explains more events than
Galileo's or Kepler's. Besides scientific theories, theory reduction
more generally can be the process by which one explanation subsumes
another.
In science
Reductionist thinking and methods form the basis for many of the well-developed topics of modern science, including much of physics, chemistry and molecular biology. Classical mechanics
in particular is seen as a reductionist framework. For instance, we
understand the solar system in terms of its components (the sun and the
planets) and their interactions. Statistical mechanics can be considered as a reconciliation of macroscopicthermodynamic laws with the reductionist method of explaining macroscopic properties in terms of microscopic components.
In science, reductionism implies that certain topics of study are
based on areas that study smaller spatial scales or organizational
units. While it is commonly accepted that the foundations of chemistry are based in physics, and molecular biology
is based on chemistry, similar statements become controversial when one
considers less rigorously defined intellectual pursuits. For example,
claims that sociology is based on psychology, or that economics is based on sociology and psychology
would be met with reservations. These claims are difficult to
substantiate even though there are obvious associations between these
topics (for instance, most would agree that psychology can affect and inform economics). The limit of reductionism's usefulness stems from emergent properties of complex systems, which are more common at certain levels of organization. For example, certain aspects of evolutionary psychology and sociobiology are rejected by some who claim that complex systems are inherently irreducible and that a holistic method is needed to understand them.
Some strong reductionists believe that the behavioral sciences
should become "genuine" scientific disciplines based on genetic biology,
and on the systematic study of culture (see Richard Dawkins's concept
of memes). In his book The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins introduced the term "hierarchical reductionism"
to describe the opinion that complex systems can be described with a
hierarchy of organizations, each of which is only described in terms of
objects one level down in the hierarchy. He provides the example of a
computer, which using hierarchical reductionism is explained in terms of
the operation of hard drives, processors, and memory, but not on the level of logic gates, or on the even simpler level of electrons in a semiconductor medium.
Others argue that inappropriate use of reductionism limits our understanding of complex systems. In particular, ecologist Robert Ulanowicz
says that science must develop techniques to study ways in which larger
scales of organization influence smaller ones, and also ways in which
feedback loops create structure at a given level, independently of
details at a lower level of organization. He advocates (and uses) information theory as a framework to study propensities in natural systems. Ulanowicz attributes these criticisms of reductionism to the philosopher Karl Popper and biologist Robert Rosen.
Stuart Kauffman has argued that complex systems theory and phenomena such as emergence pose limits to reductionism. Emergence is especially relevant when systems exhibit historicity. Emergence is strongly related to nonlinearity. The limits of the application of reductionism are claimed to be especially evident at levels of organization with greater complexity, including living cells, neural networks, ecosystems, society, and other systems formed from assemblies of large numbers of diverse components linked by multiple feedback loops.
Nobel laureatePhilip Warren Anderson used the idea that symmetry breaking is an example of an emergent phenomenon in his 1972 Science paper "More is different" to make an argument about the limitations of reductionism. One observation he made was that the sciences can be arranged roughly in a linear hierarchy—particle physics, solid state physics, chemistry, molecular biology, cellular biology, physiology, psychology, social sciences—in
that the elementary entities of one science obeys the principles of the
science that precedes it in the hierarchy; yet this does not imply that
one science is just an applied version of the science that precedes it.
He writes that "At each stage, entirely new laws, concepts and
generalizations are necessary, requiring inspiration and creativity to
just as great a degree as in the previous one. Psychology is not applied
biology nor is biology applied chemistry."
Disciplines such as cybernetics and systems theory
imply non-reductionism, sometimes to the extent of explaining phenomena
at a given level of hierarchy in terms of phenomena at a higher level,
in a sense, the opposite of reductionism.
In mathematics
In mathematics,
reductionism can be interpreted as the philosophy that all mathematics
can (or ought to) be based on a common foundation, which for modern
mathematics is usually axiomatic set theory. Ernst Zermelo
was one of the major advocates of such an opinion; he also developed
much of axiomatic set theory. It has been argued that the generally
accepted method of justifying mathematical axioms by their usefulness in common practice can potentially weaken Zermelo's reductionist claim.
Jouko Väänänen has argued for second-order logic as a foundation for mathematics instead of set theory, whereas others have argued for category theory as a foundation for certain aspects of mathematics.
The incompleteness theorems of Kurt Gödel,
published in 1931, caused doubt about the attainability of an axiomatic
foundation for all of mathematics. Any such foundation would have to
include axioms powerful enough to describe the arithmetic of the natural
numbers (a subset of all mathematics). Yet Gödel proved that, for any consistent
recursively enumerable axiomatic system powerful enough to describe the
arithmetic of the natural numbers, there are (model-theoretically) true propositions about the natural numbers that cannot be proved from the axioms. Such propositions are known as formally undecidable propositions. For example, the continuum hypothesis is undecidable in the Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory as shown by Cohen.
In computer science
The role of reduction in computer science can be thought as a precise and unambiguous mathematical formalization of the philosophical idea of "theory reductionism".
In a general sense, a problem (or set) is said to be reducible to
another problem (or set), if there is a computable/feasible method to
translate the questions of the former into the latter, so that, if one
knows how to computably/feasibly solve the latter problem, then one can
computably/feasibly solve the former. Thus, the latter can only be at
least as "hard" to solve as the former.
Religious
reductionism generally attempts to explain religion by explaining it in
terms of nonreligious causes. A few examples of reductionistic
explanations for the presence of religion are: that religion can be
reduced to humanity's conceptions of right and wrong, that religion is
fundamentally a primitive attempt at controlling our environments, that
religion is a way to explain the existence of a physical world, and that
religion confers an enhanced survivability for members of a group and
so is reinforced by natural selection. Anthropologists Edward Burnett Tylor and James George Frazer employed some religious reductionist arguments.
In linguistics
Linguistic
reductionism is the idea that everything can be described or explained
by a language with a limited number of concepts, and combinations of
those concepts. An example is the language Toki Pona.
In philosophy
The concept of downward causation poses an alternative to reductionism within philosophy. This opinion is developed by Peter Bøgh Andersen, Claus Emmeche, Niels Ole Finnemann, and Peder Voetmann Christiansen,
among others. These philosophers explore ways in which one can talk
about phenomena at a larger-scale level of organization exerting causal
influence on a smaller-scale level, and find that some, but not all
proposed types of downward causation are compatible with science. In
particular, they find that constraint is one way in which downward
causation can operate. The notion of causality as constraint has also been explored as a way to shed light on scientific concepts such as self-organization, natural selection, adaptation, and control.
Philosophers of the Enlightenment worked to insulate human free will from reductionism. Descartes
separated the material world of mechanical necessity from the world of
mental free will. German philosophers introduced the concept of the "noumenal" realm that is not governed by the deterministic laws of "phenomenal" nature, where every event is completely determined by chains of causality. The most influential formulation was by Immanuel Kant,
who distinguished between the causal deterministic framework the mind
imposes on the world—the phenomenal realm—and the world as it exists for
itself, the noumenal realm, which, as he believed, included free will.
To insulate theology from reductionism, 19th century post-Enlightenment
German theologians, especially Friedrich Schleiermacher and Albrecht Ritschl, used the Romantic
method of basing religion on the human spirit, so that it is a person's
feeling or sensibility about spiritual matters that comprises religion.
Causation
Most common philosophical understandings of causation
involve reducing it to some collection of non-causal facts. Opponents
of these reductionist views have given arguments that the non-causal
facts in question are insufficient to determine the causal facts.
A contrast to reductionism is holism or emergentism. Holism is the idea that, in the whole, items can have properties, known as emergent properties, that are not explainable from the sum of their parts. The principle of holism was summarized concisely by Aristotle in the Metaphysics: "The whole is more than the sum of its parts".
Fragmentalism
An alternative term for ontological reductionism is fragmentalism, often used in a pejorative sense. Anti-realists use the term fragmentalism in arguments that the world does not exist of separable entities, instead consisting of wholes. For example, advocates of this idea claim that:
The linear deterministic approach to nature and technology promoted a
fragmented perception of reality, and a loss of the ability to foresee,
to adequately evaluate, in all their complexity, global crises in
ecology, civilization and education.
The term fragmentalism is usually applied to reductionist modes of thought, often with the related pejorative term scientism. This usage is popular among some ecological activists:
There is a need now to move away from scientism and the ideology of cause-and-effect determinism toward a radical empiricism, such as William James proposed, as an epistemology of science.
These perspectives are not new; during the early 20th century, William James noted that rationalist science emphasized what he called fragmentation and disconnection.
Such opinions also motivate many criticisms of the scientific method:
The scientific method only acknowledges monophasic
consciousness. The method is a specialized system that emphasizes
studying small and distinctive parts in isolation, which results in
fragmented knowledge.
Alternatives
The development of systems thinking has provided methods that seek to describe issues in a holistic rather than a reductionist way, and many scientists use a holistic paradigm. When the terms are used in a scientific context, holism and reductionism refer primarily to what sorts of models
or theories offer valid explanations of the natural world; the
scientific method of falsifying hypotheses, checking empirical data
against theory, is largely unchanged, but the method guides which
theories are considered.
In many cases (such as the kinetic theory of gases),
given a good understanding of the components of the system, one can
predict all the important properties of the system as a whole. In other
systems, especially concerned with life and life's emergent properties (morphogenesis, autopoiesis, and metabolism), emergent properties of the system are said to be almost impossible to predict from knowledge of the parts of the system. Complexity theory studies systems and properties of the latter type.
Alfred North Whitehead's
metaphysics opposed reductionism. He refers to this as the "fallacy of
the misplaced concreteness". His scheme was to frame a rational, general
understanding of phenomena, derived from our reality.
EcologistSven Erik Jorgensen makes both theoretical and practical arguments for a holistic method in certain topics of science, especially ecology. He argues that many systems are so complex that they can never be described in complete detail. In analogy to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle
in physics, he argues that many interesting ecological phenomena cannot
be replicated in laboratory conditions, and so cannot be measured or
observed without changing the system in some way. He also indicates the
importance of inter-connectedness in biological systems. He believes
that science can only progress by outlining questions that are
unanswerable and by using models that do not try to explain everything
in terms of smaller hierarchical levels of organization, but instead
model them on the scale of the system itself, taking into account some
(but not all) factors from levels higher and lower in the hierarchy.
In cognitive psychology, George Kelly developed "constructive alternativism" as a form of personal construct psychology
and an alternative to what he considered "accumulative fragmentalism".
For this theory, knowledge is seen as the construction of successful mental models of the exterior world, rather than the accumulation of independent "nuggets of truth".
Organic agricultural methods are internationally regulated and
legally enforced by many nations, based in large part on the standards
set by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), an international umbrella organization for organic farming organizations established in 1972.
Organic agriculture can be defined as "an integrated farming system
that strives for sustainability, the enhancement of soil fertility and
biological diversity while, with rare exceptions, prohibiting synthetic
pesticides, antibiotics, synthetic fertilizers, genetically modified
organisms, and growth hormones".
Since 1990, the market for organic food and other products has grown rapidly, reaching $63 billion worldwide in 2012.
This demand has driven a similar increase in organically-managed
farmland that grew from 2001 to 2011 at a compounding rate of 8.9% per
annum. As
of 2019, approximately 72,300,000 hectares (179,000,000 acres)
worldwide were farmed organically, representing approximately 1.5
percent of total world farmland.
Agriculture was practiced for thousands of years without the use of artificial chemicals. Artificial fertilizers were first developed during the mid-19th century. These early fertilizers were cheap, powerful, and easy to transport in bulk. Similar advances occurred in chemical pesticides in the 1940s, leading to the decade being referred to as the 'pesticide era'. These new agricultural techniques, while beneficial in the short-term, had serious longer-term side-effects such as soil compaction, erosion, and declines in overall soil fertility, along with health concerns about toxic chemicals entering the food supply. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, soil biology scientists began to seek ways to remedy these side effects while still maintaining higher production.
In 1921 the founder and pioneer of the organic movement Albert Howard and his wife Gabrielle Howard, accomplished botanists,
founded an Institute of Plant Industry to improve traditional farming
methods in India. Among other things, they brought improved implements
and improved animal husbandry methods from their scientific training;
then by incorporating aspects of Indian traditional methods, developed
protocols for the rotation of crops, erosion prevention techniques, and
the systematic use of composts and manures. Stimulated by these experiences of traditional farming, when Albert Howard returned to Britain in the early 1930s he began to promulgate a system of organic agriculture.
In 1924 Rudolf Steiner
gave a series of eight lectures on agriculture with a focus on
influences of the moon, planets, non-physical beings and elemental
forces.
They were held in response to a request by adherent farmers who noticed
degraded soil conditions and a deterioration in the health and quality
of crops and livestock resulting from the use of chemical fertilizers. The lectures were published in November 1924; the first English translation appeared in 1928 as The Agriculture Course.
In July 1939, Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, the author of the standard work on biodynamic agriculture (Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening), came to the UK at the invitation of Walter James, 4th Baron Northbourne as a presenter at the Betteshanger Summer School and Conference on Biodynamic Farming at Northbourne's farm in Kent.
One of the chief purposes of the conference was to bring together the
proponents of various approaches to organic agriculture in order that
they might cooperate within a larger movement. Howard attended the
conference, where he met Pfeiffer. In the following year, Northbourne published his manifesto of organic farming, Look to the Land,
in which he coined the term "organic farming". The Betteshanger
conference has been described as the 'missing link' between biodynamic
agriculture and other forms of organic farming.
In 1940 Howard published his An Agricultural Testament. In this book he adopted Northbourne's terminology of "organic farming".
Howard's work spread widely, and he became known as the "father of
organic farming" for his work in applying scientific knowledge and
principles to various traditional and natural methods. In the United States J.I. Rodale, who was keenly interested both in Howard's ideas and in biodynamics, founded in the 1940s both a working organic farm for trials and experimentation, The Rodale Institute, and the Rodale Press
to teach and advocate organic methods to the wider public. These became
important influences on the spread of organic agriculture. Further work
was done by Lady Eve Balfour (the Haughley Experiment) in the United Kingdom, and many others across the world.
The term "eco-agriculture" was coined in 1970 by Charles Walters, founder of Acres Magazine,
to describe agriculture which does not use "man-made molecules of toxic
rescue chemistry", effectively another name for organic agriculture.
Increasing environmental awareness in the general population in
modern times has transformed the originally supply-driven organic
movement to a demand-driven one. Premium prices and some government
subsidies attracted farmers. In the developing world, many producers
farm according to traditional methods that are comparable to organic
farming, but not certified, and that may not include the latest
scientific advancements in organic agriculture. In other cases, farmers
in the developing world have converted to modern organic methods for
economic reasons.
Terminology
The use of "organic" popularized by Howard and Rodale refers more narrowly to the use of organic matter derived from plant compost and animal manures to improve the humus
content of soils, grounded in the work of early soil scientists who
developed what was then called "humus farming". Since the early 1940s
the two camps have tended to merge.
Biodynamic agriculturists, on the other hand, used the term
"organic" to indicate that a farm should be viewed as a living organism, in the sense of the following quotation:
"An organic farm, properly
speaking, is not one that uses certain methods and substances and avoids
others; it is a farm whose structure is formed in imitation of the
structure of a natural system that has the integrity, the independence
and the benign dependence of an organism"
They based their work on Steiner's spiritually-oriented alternative agriculture which includes various esoteric concepts.
Regulations
Regulations
on "organic" food labels define "organic" primarily in terms of whether
"natural" or "artificial" substances were allowed as inputs in the food
production process.
"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..."
Organic farming methods combine scientific knowledge of ecology and some modern technology with traditional farming practices based on naturally occurring biological processes. Organic farming methods are studied in the field of agroecology.
While conventional agriculture uses synthetic pesticides and
water-soluble synthetically purified fertilizers, organic farmers are
restricted by regulations to using natural pesticides and fertilizers.
An example of a natural pesticide is pyrethrin, which is found naturally in the Chrysanthemum flower. The principal methods of organic farming include crop rotation, green manures and compost, biological pest control, and mechanical cultivation. These measures use the natural environment to enhance agricultural productivity: legumes are planted to fix nitrogen into the soil, natural insect predators are encouraged, crops are rotated to confuse pests and renew soil, and natural materials such as potassium bicarbonate and mulches are used to control disease and weeds. Genetically modified seeds and animals are excluded.
While organic is fundamentally different from conventional
because of the use of carbon-based fertilizers compared with highly
soluble synthetic based fertilizers and biological pest control
instead of synthetic pesticides, organic farming and large-scale
conventional farming are not entirely mutually exclusive. Many of the
methods developed for organic agriculture have been borrowed by more
conventional agriculture. For example, Integrated Pest Management
is a multifaceted strategy that uses various organic methods of pest
control whenever possible, but in conventional farming could include
synthetic pesticides only as a last resort.
Crop diversity
Organic farming encourages Crop diversity. The science of agroecology has revealed the benefits of polyculture (multiple crops in the same space), which is often employed in organic farming.
Planting a variety of vegetable crops supports a wider range of
beneficial insects, soil microorganisms, and other factors that add up
to overall farm health. Crop diversity helps environments thrive and
protects species from going extinct.
Soil management
Placard advocating organic food rather than global warming.
Organic farming relies more heavily on the natural breakdown of
organic matter than the average conventional farm, using techniques like
green manure and composting, to replace nutrients taken from the soil by previous crops. This biological process, driven by microorganisms such as mycorrhiza and earthworms,
releases nutrients available to plants throughout the growing season.
Farmers use a variety of methods to improve soil fertility, including
crop rotation, cover cropping, reduced tillage, and application of
compost. By reducing fuel-intensive tillage, less soil organic matter is
lost to the atmosphere. This has an added benefit of carbon sequestration,
which reduces greenhouse gases and helps reverse climate change.
Reducing tillage may also improve soil structure and reduce the
potential for soil erosion.
Plants need a large number of nutrients in various quantities to flourish. Supplying enough nitrogen
and particularly synchronization, so that plants get enough nitrogen at
the time when they need it most, is a challenge for organic farmers. Crop rotation and green manure ("cover crops") help to provide nitrogen through legumes (more precisely, the family Fabaceae), which fix nitrogen from the atmosphere through symbiosis with rhizobialbacteria. Intercropping,
which is sometimes used for insect and disease control, can also
increase soil nutrients, but the competition between the legume and the
crop can be problematic and wider spacing between crop rows is required.
Crop residues can be ploughed back into the soil, and different plants leave different amounts of nitrogen, potentially aiding synchronization. Organic farmers also use animal manure, certain processed fertilizers such as seed meal and various mineral powders such as rock phosphate and green sand, a naturally occurring form of potash that provides potassium. In some cases pH may need to be amended. Natural pH amendments include lime and sulfur, but in the U.S. some compounds such as iron sulfate, aluminum sulfate, magnesium sulfate, and soluble boron products are allowed in organic farming.
Mixed farms with both livestock and crops can operate as ley farms, whereby the land gathers fertility through growing nitrogen-fixing forage grasses such as white clover or alfalfa and grows cash crops or cereals
when fertility is established. Farms without livestock ("stockless")
may find it more difficult to maintain soil fertility, and may rely more
on external inputs such as imported manure as well as grain legumes and green manures, although grain legumes may fix limited nitrogen because they are harvested. Horticultural farms that grow fruits and vegetables in protected conditions often rely even more on external inputs.
Manure is very bulky and is often not cost-effective to transport more
than a short distance from the source. Manure for organic farms' may
become scarce if a sizable number of farms become organically managed.
Weed management
Organic weed management promotes weed suppression, rather than weed elimination, by enhancing crop competition and phytotoxic effects on weeds. Organic farmers integrate cultural, biological, mechanical, physical and chemical tactics to manage weeds without synthetic herbicides.
Organic standards require rotation of annual crops,
meaning that a single crop cannot be grown in the same location without
a different, intervening crop. Organic crop rotations frequently
include weed-suppressive cover crops and crops with dissimilar life cycles to discourage weeds associated with a particular crop.
Research is ongoing to develop organic methods to promote the growth of
natural microorganisms that suppress the growth or germination of
common weeds.
Other cultural practices used to enhance crop competitiveness and
reduce weed pressure include selection of competitive crop varieties,
high-density planting, tight row spacing, and late planting into warm
soil to encourage rapid crop germination.
Mechanical and physical weed control practices used on organic farms can be broadly grouped as:
Tillage
- Turning the soil between crops to incorporate crop residues and soil
amendments; remove existing weed growth and prepare a seedbed for
planting; turning soil after seeding to kill weeds, including cultivation of row crops.
Mowing and cutting - Removing top growth of weeds.
Flame weeding and thermal weeding - Using heat to kill weeds.
Some naturally sourced chemicals are allowed for herbicidal use. These include certain formulations of acetic acid (concentrated vinegar), corn gluten meal, and essential oils. A few selective bioherbicides based on fungal pathogens have also been developed. At this time, however, organic herbicides and bioherbicides play a minor role in the organic weed control toolbox.
Weeds can be controlled by grazing. For example, geese have been
used successfully to weed a range of organic crops including cotton,
strawberries, tobacco, and corn, reviving the practice of keeping cotton patch geese, common in the southern U.S. before the 1950s. Similarly, some rice farmers introduce ducks and fish to wet paddy fields to eat both weeds and insects.
Controlling other organisms
Chloroxylon is used for Pest Management in Organic Rice Cultivation in Chhattisgarh, India
Organisms aside from weeds that cause problems on farms include arthropods (e.g., insects, mites), nematodes, fungi and bacteria. Practices include, but are not limited to:
encouraging predatory beneficial insects to control pests by
serving them nursery plants and/or an alternative habitat, usually in a
form of a shelterbelt, hedgerow, or beetle bank;
encouraging beneficial microorganisms;
rotating crops to different locations from year to year to interrupt pest reproduction cycles;
Examples of predatory beneficial insects include minute pirate bugs, big-eyed bugs, and to a lesser extent ladybugs (which tend to fly away), all of which eat a wide range of pests. Lacewings are also effective, but tend to fly away. Praying mantis tend to move more slowly and eat less heavily. Parasitoid wasps
tend to be effective for their selected prey, but like all small
insects can be less effective outdoors because the wind controls their
movement. Predatory mites are effective for controlling other mites.
Naturally derived insecticides allowed for use on organic farms use include Bacillus thuringiensis (a bacterial toxin), pyrethrum (a chrysanthemum extract), spinosad (a bacterial metabolite), neem (a tree extract) and rotenone
(a legume root extract). Fewer than 10% of organic farmers use these
pesticides regularly; one survey found that only 5.3% of vegetable
growers in California use rotenone while 1.7% use pyrethrum. These pesticides are not always more safe or environmentally friendly than synthetic pesticides and can cause harm.
The main criterion for organic pesticides is that they are naturally
derived, and some naturally derived substances have been controversial.
Controversial natural pesticides include rotenone, copper, nicotine sulfate, and pyrethrums. Rotenone and pyrethrum
are particularly controversial because they work by attacking the
nervous system, like most conventional insecticides. Rotenone is
extremely toxic to fish and can induce symptoms resembling Parkinson's disease in mammals.
Although pyrethrum (natural pyrethrins) is more effective against
insects when used with piperonyl butoxide (which retards degradation of
the pyrethrins), organic standards generally do not permit use of the latter substance.
Naturally derived fungicides allowed for use on organic farms include the bacteria Bacillus subtilis and Bacillus pumilus; and the fungus Trichoderma harzianum. These are mainly effective for diseases affecting roots. Compost tea contains a mix of beneficial microbes, which may attack or out-compete certain plant pathogens,
but variability among formulations and preparation methods may
contribute to inconsistent results or even dangerous growth of toxic
microbes in compost teas.
Some naturally derived pesticides are not allowed for use on organic farms. These include nicotine sulfate, arsenic, and strychnine.
Synthetic pesticides allowed for use on organic farms include insecticidal soaps and horticultural oils for insect management; and Bordeaux mixture, copper hydroxide and sodium bicarbonate for managing fungi. Copper sulfate and Bordeaux mixture (copper sulfate plus lime), approved for organic use in various jurisdictions, can be more environmentally problematic than some synthetic fungicides disallowed in organic farming.
Similar concerns apply to copper hydroxide. Repeated application of
copper sulfate or copper hydroxide as a fungicide may eventually result
in copper accumulation to toxic levels in soil,
and admonitions to avoid excessive accumulations of copper in soil
appear in various organic standards and elsewhere. Environmental
concerns for several kinds of biota arise at average rates of use of
such substances for some crops. In the European Union, where replacement of copper-based fungicides in organic agriculture is a policy priority, research is seeking alternatives for organic production.
Livestock
For
livestock, like these healthy cows, vaccines play an important part in
animal health since antibiotic therapy is prohibited in organic farming
Raising livestock and poultry, for meat, dairy and eggs, is another
traditional farming activity that complements growing. Organic farms
attempt to provide animals with natural living conditions and feed.
Organic certification verifies that livestock are raised according to
the USDA organic regulations throughout their lives. These regulations include the requirement that all animal feed must be certified organic.
Organic livestock may be, and must be, treated with medicine when
they are sick, but drugs cannot be used to promote growth, their feed
must be organic, and they must be pastured.
Also, horses and cattle were once a basic farm feature that
provided labour, for hauling and plowing, fertility, through recycling
of manure, and fuel, in the form of food for farmers and other animals.
While today, small growing operations often do not include livestock,
domesticated animals are a desirable part of the organic farming
equation, especially for true sustainability, the ability of a farm to
function as a self-renewing unit.
A key characteristic of organic farming is the exclusion of
genetically engineered plants and animals. On 19 October 1998,
participants at IFOAM's 12th Scientific Conference issued the Mar del Plata Declaration,
where more than 600 delegates from over 60 countries voted unanimously
to exclude the use of genetically modified organisms in organic food
production and agriculture.
Although opposition to the use of any transgenic technologies in
organic farming is strong, agricultural researchers Luis
Herrera-Estrella and Ariel Alvarez-Morales continue to advocate
integration of transgenic technologies into organic farming as the optimal means to sustainable agriculture, particularly in the developing world. Organic farmer Raoul Adamchak and geneticist Pamela Ronald write that many agricultural applications of biotechnology are consistent with organic principles and have significantly advanced sustainable agriculture.
Although GMOs are excluded from organic farming, there is concern
that the pollen from genetically modified crops is increasingly
penetrating organic and heirloom seed stocks,
making it difficult, if not impossible, to keep these genomes from
entering the organic food supply. Differing regulations among countries
limits the availability of GMOs to certain countries, as described in
the article on regulation of the release of genetic modified organisms.
Tools
Organic farmers use a number of traditional farm tools to do farming. Due to the goals of sustainability in organic farming, organic farmers try to minimize their reliance on fossil fuels. In the developing world on small organic farms tools are normally constrained to hand tools and diesel powered water pumps.
Standards regulate production methods and in some cases final output
for organic agriculture. Standards may be voluntary or legislated. As
early as the 1970s private associations certified organic producers. In
the 1980s, governments began to produce organic production guidelines.
In the 1990s, a trend toward legislated standards began, most notably
with the 1991 EU-Eco-regulation developed for European Union,
which set standards for 12 countries, and a 1993 UK program. The EU's
program was followed by a Japanese program in 2001, and in 2002 the U.S.
created the National Organic Program (NOP). As of 2007 over 60 countries regulate organic farming (IFOAM 2007:11). In 2005 IFOAM created the Principles of Organic Agriculture, an international guideline for certification criteria. Typically the agencies accredit certification groups rather than individual farms.
Production materials used for the creation of USDA Organic certified foods require the approval of a NOP accredited certifier.
Composting
Using
manure as a fertilizer risks contaminating food with animal gut
bacteria, including pathogenic strains of E. coli that have caused fatal
poisoning from eating organic food. To combat this risk, USDA organic standards require that manure must be sterilized through high temperature thermophilic composting.
If raw animal manure is used, 120 days must pass before the crop is
harvested if the final product comes into direct contact with the soil.
For products that don't directly contact soil, 90 days must pass prior
to harvest.
In the US, the Organic Food Production Act of 1990 (OFPA,) as
amended, specifies that a farm can not be certified as organic if the
compost being used contains any synthetic ingredients. The OFPA singles
out commercially blended fertilizers [composts] disallowing the use of
any fertilizer [compost] that contains prohibited materials.
Labour input, carbon and methane emissions,
energy use, eutrophication, acidification, soil quality, effect on
biodiversity, and overall land use vary considerably between individual
farms and between crops, making general comparisons between the
economics of organic and conventional agriculture difficult.
In the European Union "organic farmers receive more subsidies under agri-environment and animal welfare subsidies than conventional growers".
Geographic producer distribution
The
markets for organic products are strongest in North America and Europe,
which as of 2001 are estimated to have $6 and $8 billion respectively
of the $20 billion global market. As of 2007 Australasia
has 39% of the total organic farmland, including Australia's 11,800,000
hectares (29,000,000 acres) but 97 percent of this land is sprawling rangeland (2007:35). US sales are 20x as much. Europe farms 23 percent of global organic farmland (6,900,000 ha (17,000,000 acres)), followed by Latin America and the Caribbean
with 20 percent (6,400,000 ha (16,000,000 acres)). Asia has 9.5 percent
while North America has 7.2 percent. Africa has 3 percent.
Besides Australia,
the countries with the most organic farmland are Argentina (3.1 million
hectares - 7.7 million acres), China (2.3 million hectares - 5.7
million acres), and the United States (1.6 million hectares - 4 million
acres). Much of Argentina's organic farmland is pasture, like that of
Australia (2007:42).
Spain, Germany, Brazil (the world's largest agricultural exporter),
Uruguay, and England follow the United States in the amount of organic
land (2007:26).
In the European Union (EU25)
3.9% of the total utilized agricultural area was used for organic
production in 2005. The countries with the highest proportion of organic
land were Austria (11%) and Italy (8.4%), followed by the Czech
Republic and Greece (both 7.2%). The lowest figures were shown for Malta
(0.2%), Poland (0.6%) and Ireland (0.8%).
In 2009, the proportion of organic land in the EU grew to 4.7%. The
countries with the highest share of agricultural land were Liechtenstein
(26.9%), Austria (18.5%) and Sweden (12.6%). 16% of all farmers in Austria produced organically in 2010. By the same year the proportion of organic land increased to 20%. In 2005 168,000 ha (415,000 ac) of land in Poland was under organic management.
In 2012, 288,261 hectares (712,308 acres) were under organic
production, and there were about 15,500 organic farmers; retail sales of
organic products were EUR 80 million in 2011. As of 2012 organic
exports were part of the government's economic development strategy.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, agricultural inputs that had previously been purchased from Eastern bloc countries were no longer available in Cuba, and many Cuban farms converted to organic methods out of necessity.
Consequently, organic agriculture is a mainstream practice in Cuba,
while it remains an alternative practice in most other countries. Cuba's organic strategy includes development of genetically modified crops; specifically corn that is resistant to the palomilla moth.
Growth
Organic farmland by world region (2000-2008)
In 2001, the global market value of certified organic products was
estimated at US$20 billion. By 2002, this was US$23 billion and by 2015
more than US$43 billion. By 2014, retail sales of organic products reached US$80 billion worldwide. North America and Europe accounted for more than 90% of all organic product sales.
In 2018 Australia accounted for 54% of the world's certified organic
land with the country recording more than 35,000,000 verified organic
hectares.
Organic agricultural land increased almost fourfold in 15 years,
from 11 million hectares in 1999 to 43.7 million hectares in 2014.
Between 2013 and 2014, organic agricultural land grew by 500,000
hectares worldwide, increasing in every region except Latin America.
During this time period, Europe's organic farmland increased 260,000
hectares to 11.6 million total (+2.3%), Asia's increased 159,000
hectares to 3.6 million total (+4.7%), Africa's increased 54,000
hectares to 1.3 million total (+4.5%), and North America's increased
35,000 hectares to 3.1 million total (+1.1%).
As of 2014, the country with the most organic land was Australia (17.2
million hectares), followed by Argentina (3.1 million hectares), and the
United States (2.2 million hectares). Australia's organic land area has increased at a rate of 16.5% per annum for the past eighteen years.
In 2013, the number of organic producers grew by almost 270,000, or more than 13%. By 2014, there were a reported 2.3 million organic producers in the world. Most of the total global increase took place in the Philippines, Peru, China, and Thailand.
Overall, the majority of all organic producers are in India (650,000 in
2013), Uganda (190,552 in 2014), Mexico (169,703 in 2013) and the
Philippines (165,974 in 2014).
In 2016, organic farming was responsible for producing over 1
million metric tonnes of bananas, over 800,000 metric tonnes of soybean,
and just under half a million metric tonnes of coffee.
Productivity
Studies comparing yields have had mixed results.
These differences among findings can often be attributed to variations
between study designs including differences in the crops studied and the
methodology by which results were gathered.
A 2012 meta-analysis found that productivity is typically lower
for organic farming than conventional farming, but that the size of the
difference depends on context and in some cases may be very small.
While organic yields can be lower than conventional yields, another
meta-analysis published in Sustainable Agriculture Research in 2015,
concluded that certain organic on-farm practices could help narrow this
gap. Timely weed management and the application of manure in conjunction
with legume forages/cover crops were shown to have positive results in
increasing organic corn and soybean productivity.
Another meta-analysis published in the journal Agricultural
Systems in 2011 analysed 362 datasets and found that organic yields were
on average 80% of conventional yields. The author's found that there
are relative differences in this yield gap based on crop type with crops
like soybeans and rice scoring higher than the 80% average and crops
like wheat and potato scoring lower. Across global regions, Asia and
Central Europe were found to have relatively higher yields and Northern
Europe relatively lower than the average.
Long term studies
A
study published in 2005 compared conventional cropping, organic
animal-based cropping, and organic legume-based cropping on a test farm
at the Rodale Institute over 22 years.
The study found that "the crop yields for corn and soybeans were
similar in the organic animal, organic legume, and conventional farming
systems". It also found that "significantly less fossil energy was
expended to produce corn in the Rodale Institute’s organic animal and
organic legume systems than in the conventional production system. There
was little difference in energy input between the different treatments
for producing soybeans. In the organic systems, synthetic fertilizers
and pesticides were generally not used". As of 2013 the Rodale study was
ongoing and a thirty-year anniversary report was published by Rodale in 2012.
A long-term field study comparing organic/conventional
agriculture carried out over 21 years in Switzerland concluded that
"Crop yields of the organic systems averaged over 21 experimental years
at 80% of the conventional ones. The fertilizer input, however, was 34 –
51% lower, indicating an efficient production. The organic farming
systems used 20 – 56% less energy to produce a
crop unit and per land area this difference was 36 – 53%. In spite of
the considerably lower pesticide input the quality of organic products
was hardly discernible from conventional analytically and even came off
better in food preference trials and picture creating methods"
Profitability
In
the United States, organic farming has been shown to be 2.7 to 3.8
times more profitable for the farmer than conventional farming when
prevailing price premiums are taken into account.
Globally, organic farming is between 22 and 35 percent more profitable
for farmers than conventional methods, according to a 2015 meta-analysis
of studies conducted across five continents.
The profitability of organic agriculture can be attributed to a
number of factors. First, organic farmers do not rely on synthetic
fertilizer and pesticide inputs, which can be costly. In addition,
organic foods currently enjoy a price premium over conventionally
produced foods, meaning that organic farmers can often get more for
their yield.
The price premium for organic food is an important factor in the
economic viability of organic farming. In 2013 there was a 100% price
premium on organic vegetables and a 57% price premium for organic
fruits. These percentages are based on wholesale fruit and vegetable
prices, available through the United States Department of Agriculture's
Economic Research Service.
Price premiums exist not only for organic versus nonorganic crops, but
may also vary depending on the venue where the product is sold: farmers'
markets, grocery stores, or wholesale to restaurants. For many
producers, direct sales at farmers' markets are most profitable because
the farmer receives the entire markup, however this is also the most
time and labour-intensive approach.
There have been signs of organic price premiums narrowing in
recent years, which lowers the economic incentive for farmers to convert
to or maintain organic production methods.
Data from 22 years of experiments at the Rodale Institute found that,
based on the current yields and production costs associated with organic
farming in the United States, a price premium of only 10% is required
to achieve parity with conventional farming.
A separate study found that on a global scale, price premiums of only
5-7% percent were needed to break even with conventional methods. Without the price premium, profitability for farmers is mixed.
For markets and supermarkets organic food is profitable as well,
and is generally sold at significantly higher prices than non-organic
food.
Energy efficiency
Compared to conventional agriculture, the energy efficiency of organic farming depends upon crop type and farm size.
Two studies – both comparing organically- versus
conventionally-farmed apples – declare contradicting results, one saying
organic farming is more energy efficient, the other saying
conventionally is more efficient.
It has generally been found that the labor input per unit of
yield was higher for organic systems compared with conventional
production.
Sales and marketing
Most
sales are concentrated in developed nations. In 2008, 69% of Americans
claimed to occasionally buy organic products, down from 73% in 2005. One
theory for this change was that consumers were substituting "local"
produce for "organic" produce.
Distributors
The USDA
requires that distributors, manufacturers, and processors of organic
products be certified by an accredited state or private agency. In 2007, there were 3,225 certified organic handlers, up from 2,790 in 2004.
Organic handlers are often small firms; 48% reported sales below
$1 million annually, and 22% between $1 and $5 million per year.
Smaller handlers are more likely to sell to independent natural grocery
stores and natural product chains whereas large distributors more often
market to natural product chains and conventional supermarkets, with a
small group marketing to independent natural product stores.
Some handlers work with conventional farmers to convert their land to
organic with the knowledge that the farmer will have a secure sales
outlet. This lowers the risk for the handler as well as the farmer. In
2004, 31% of handlers provided technical support on organic standards or
production to their suppliers and 34% encouraged their suppliers to
transition to organic. Smaller farms often join together in cooperatives to market their goods more effectively.
93% of organic sales are through conventional and natural food
supermarkets and chains, while the remaining 7% of U.S. organic food
sales occur through farmers' markets, foodservices, and other marketing channels.
Direct-to-consumer sales
In
the 2012 Census, direct-to-consumer sales equalled $1.3 billion, up
from $812 million in 2002, an increase of 60 percent. The number of
farms that utilize direct-to-consumer sales was 144,530 in 2012 in
comparison to 116,733 in 2002. Direct-to-consumer sales include farmers' markets, community supported agriculture
(CSA), on-farm stores, and roadside farm stands. Some organic farms
also sell products direct to retailer, direct to restaurant and direct
to institution.
According to the 2008 Organic Production Survey, approximately 7% of
organic farm sales were direct-to-consumers, 10% went direct to
retailers, and approximately 83% went into wholesale markets. In
comparison, only 0.4% of the value of convention agricultural
commodities were direct-to-consumers.
While not all products sold at farmer's markets are certified
organic, this direct-to-consumer avenue has become increasingly popular
in local food distribution and has grown substantially since 1994. In
2014, there were 8,284 farmer's markets in comparison to 3,706 in 2004
and 1,755 in 1994, most of which are found in populated areas such as
the Northeast, Midwest, and West Coast.
Labour and employment
Organic production is more labour-intensive than conventional production. On the one hand, this increased labour cost is one factor that makes organic food more expensive.
On the other hand, the increased need for labour may be seen as an
"employment dividend" of organic farming, providing more jobs per unit
area than conventional systems.
The 2011 UNEP Green Economy Report suggests that "[a]n increase in
investment in green agriculture is projected to lead to growth in
employment of about 60 per cent compared with current levels" and that
"green agriculture investments could create 47 million additional jobs
compared with BAU2 over the next 40 years".
Much of the growth in women labour participation in agriculture
is outside the "male dominated field of conventional agriculture".
Operators in organic farming are 21% women, as opposed to 14% in farming
in general.
World's food security
In 2007 the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
(FAO) said that organic agriculture often leads to higher prices and
hence a better income for farmers, so it should be promoted. However,
FAO stressed that by organic farming one could not feed the current
mankind, even less the bigger future population. Both data and models
showed then that organic farming was far from sufficient. Therefore,
chemical fertilizers were needed to avoid hunger.
Other analysis by many agribusiness executives, agricultural and
environmental scientists, and international agriculture experts revealed
the opinion that organic farming would not only increase the world's
food supply, but might be the only way to eradicate hunger.
FAO stressed that fertilizers and other chemical inputs can much
increase the production, particularly in Africa where fertilizers are
currently used 90% less than in Asia. For example, in Malawi the yield has been boosted using seeds and fertilizers. FAO also calls for using biotechnology, as it can help smallholder farmers to improve their income and food security.
Also NEPAD,
development organization of African governments, announced that feeding
Africans and preventing malnutrition requires fertilizers and enhanced
seeds.
According to a 2012 study in ScienceDigest, organic best
management practices shows an average yield only 13% less than
conventional.
In the world's poorer nations where most of the world's hungry live,
and where conventional agriculture's expensive inputs are not affordable
by the majority of farmers, adopting organic management actually
increases yields 93% on average, and could be an important part of
increased food security.
Capacity building in developing countries
Organic agriculture can contribute to ecological sustainability, especially in poorer countries.
The application of organic principles enables employment of local
resources (e.g., local seed varieties, manure, etc.) and therefore
cost-effectiveness. Local and international markets for organic products
show tremendous growth prospects and offer creative producers and
exporters excellent opportunities to improve their income and living
conditions.
Organic agriculture is knowledge intensive. Globally, capacity
building efforts are underway, including localized training material, to
limited effect. As of 2007, the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements hosted more than 170 free manuals and 75 training opportunities online.
In 2008 the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
(UNCTAD) stated that "organic agriculture can be more conducive to food
security in Africa than most conventional production systems, and that
it is more likely to be sustainable in the long-term" and that "yields had more than doubled where organic, or near-organic practices had been used" and that soil fertility and drought resistance improved.
Millennium Development Goals
The value of organic agriculture (OA) in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals
(MDG), particularly in poverty reduction efforts in the face of climate
change, is shown by its contribution to both income and non-income
aspects of the MDGs. These benefits are expected to continue in the
post-MDG era. A series of case studies conducted in selected areas in
Asian countries by the Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI) and
published as a book compilation by ADB in Manila document these
contributions to both income and non-income aspects of the MDGs. These
include poverty alleviation by way of higher incomes, improved farmers'
health owing to less chemical exposure, integration of sustainable
principles into rural development policies, improvement of access to
safe water and sanitation, and expansion of global partnership for
development as small farmers are integrated in value chains.
A related ADBI study also sheds on the costs of OA programs and
set them in the context of the costs of attaining the MDGs. The results
show considerable variation across the case studies, suggesting that
there is no clear structure to the costs of adopting OA. Costs depend on
the efficiency of the OA adoption programs. The lowest cost programs
were more than ten times less expensive than the highest cost ones.
However, further analysis of the gains resulting from OA adoption
reveals that the costs per person taken out of poverty was much lower
than the estimates of the World Bank,
based on income growth in general or based on the detailed costs of
meeting some of the more quantifiable MDGs (e.g., education, health, and
environment).
Externalities
Agriculture imposes negative externalities upon society through public land and other public resource use, biodiversity loss, erosion, pesticides, nutrient pollution, subsidized water usage, subsidy
payments and assorted other problems. Positive externalities include
self-reliance, entrepreneurship, respect for nature, and air quality.
Organic methods differ from conventional methods in the impacts of
their respective externalities, dependent on implementation and crop
type. Overall land use is generally higher for organic methods, but
organic methods generally use less energy in production.
The analysis and comparison of externalities is complicated by whether
the comparison is done using a per unit area measurement or per unit of
production, and whether analysis is done on isolated plots or on farm
units as a whole.
Measurements of biodiversity are highly variable between studies,
farms, and organism groups. "Birds, predatory insects, soil organisms
and plants responded positively to organic farming, while non-predatory
insects and pests did not. The positive effects of organic farming on
abundance were prominent at the plot and field scales, but not for farms
in matched landscapes."
Other studies that have attempted to examine and compare
conventional and organic systems of farming and have found that organic
techniques reduce levels of biodiversity less than conventional systems
do, and use less energy and produce less waste when calculated per unit
area, although not when calculated per unit of output. "Farm comparisons
show that actual (nitrate) leaching rates per hectare are up to 57%
lower on organic than on conventional fields. However, the leaching
rates per unit of output were similar or slightly higher." "On a
per-hectare scale, the CO2 emissions are 40 – 60% lower in organic
farming systems than in conventional ones, whereas on a per-unit output
scale, the CO2 emissions tend to be higher in organic farming systems."
In the U.K. uncompensated costs for 1996 reached 2,343 million British pounds or £208 per ha (£84.20/ac).
It has been proposed that organic agriculture can reduce the
level of some negative externalities from (conventional) agriculture.
Whether the benefits are private or public depends upon the division of
property rights.
Issues
A 2003 to 2005 investigation by the Cranfield University for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in the UK found that it is difficult to compare the Global warming potential,
acidification and eutrophication emissions but "Organic production
often results in increased burdens, from factors such as N leaching and N2O emissions", even though primary energy use was less for most organic products. N2O
is always the largest global warming potential contributor except in
tomatoes. However, "organic tomatoes always incur more burdens (except
pesticide use)". Some emissions were lower "per area", but organic
farming always required 65 to 200% more field area than non-organic
farming. The numbers were highest for bread wheat (200+ % more) and
potatoes (160% more).
As of 2020 it seems that organic agriculture can help in mitigating climate change but only if used in certain ways.
Yield from organic farming is significantly lower than that from
conventional farming, ranging between 40% and 85% of the latter. The
premiums on organic foods is also 150% higher than those from
conventional farms, which is presented as an advantage for producers,
partially compensating lower yield, but is at the same time a
disadvantage for consumers.
Environmental impact and emissions
Researchers
at Oxford University analysed 71 peer-reviewed studies and observed
that organic products are sometimes worse for the environment. Organic milk, cereals, and pork generated higher greenhouse gas emissions per product than conventional ones but organic beef and olives had lower emissions in most studies. Usually organic products required less energy, but more land. Per unit of product, organic produce generates higher nitrogen leaching, nitrous oxide emissions, ammonia emissions, eutrophication, and acidification potential than conventionally grown produce. Other differences were not significant.
The researchers concluded that public debate should consider various
manners of employing conventional or organic farming, and not merely
debate conventional farming as opposed to organic farming. They also
sought to find specific solutions to specific circumstances.
A 2018 review article in the Annual Review of Resource Economics
found that organic agriculture is more polluting per unit of output and
that widespread upscaling of organic agriculture would lead cause
additional loss of natural habitats.
Proponents of organic farming have claimed that organic
agriculture emphasizes closed nutrient cycles, biodiversity, and
effective soil management providing the capacity to mitigate and even reverse the effects of climate change and that organic agriculture can decrease fossil fuel emissions.
"The carbon sequestration efficiency of organic systems in temperate
climates is almost double (575–700 kg carbon per ha per year – 510–625
lb/ac/an ) that of conventional treatment of soils, mainly owing to the
use of grass clovers for feed and of cover crops in organic rotations."
Critics of organic farming methods believe that the increased
land needed to farm organic food could potentially destroy the
rainforests and wipe out many ecosystems.
Nutrient leaching
According to a 2012 meta-analysis
of 71 studies, nitrogen leaching, nitrous oxide emissions, ammonia
emissions, eutrophication potential and acidification potential were
higher for organic products, although in one study "nitrate leaching was 4.4–5.6 times higher in conventional plots than organic plots". Excess nutrients in lakes, rivers, and groundwater can cause algal blooms, eutrophication, and subsequent dead zones. In addition, nitrates are harmful to aquatic organisms by themselves.
Land use
The
Oxford meta-analysis of 71 studies found that organic farming requires
84% more land for an equivalent amount of harvest, mainly due to lack of
nutrients but sometimes due to weeds, diseases or pests, lower yielding
animals and land required for fertility building crops. While organic farming does not necessarily save land for wildlife habitats and forestry in all cases, the most modern breakthroughs in organic are addressing these issues with success.
Professor Wolfgang Branscheid says that organic animal production
is not good for the environment, because organic chicken requires twice
as much land as "conventional" chicken and organic pork a quarter more. According to a calculation by Hudson Institute, organic beef requires three times as much land.
On the other hand, certain organic methods of animal husbandry have
been shown to restore desertified, marginal, and/or otherwise
unavailable land to agricultural productivity and wildlife. Or by getting both forage and cash crop production from the same fields simultaneously, reduce net land use.
SRI methods for rice production, without external inputs, have produced record yields on some farms, but not others.
Pesticides
A sign outside of an organic apple orchard in Pateros, Washington reminding orchardists not to spray pesticides on these trees
In organic farming synthetic pesticides are generally prohibited. A
chemical is said to be synthetic if it does not already exist in the
natural world. But the organic label goes further and usually prohibit
compounds that exist in nature if they are produced by chemical synthesis. So the prohibition is also about the method of production and not only the nature of the compound.
A non-exhaustive list of organic approved pesticides with their median lethal doses:
Boric acid is used as an insecticide (LD50: 2660 mg/kg).
Bromomethane is a gas that is still used in the nurseries of strawberry organic farming
Lime sulfur (aka calcium polysulfide) and sulfur are considered to be allowed, synthetic materials (LD50: 820 mg/kg)
Neem oil is used as an insect repellant in India; since it contains azadirachtin its use is restricted in the UK and Europe.
Pyrethrin comes from chemicals extracted from flowers of the genus Pyrethrum (LD50 of 370 mg/kg). Its potent toxicity is used to control insects.
Rotenone is a powerful insecticide that was used to control insects (LD50:
132 mg/kg). Despite the high toxicity of Rotenone to aquatic life and
some links to Parkinson disease the compound is still allowed in organic
farming as it is a naturally occurring compound.
While there may be some differences in the amounts of nutrients and
anti-nutrients when organically produced food and
conventionally-produced food are compared, the variable nature of food
production and handling makes it difficult to generalize results, and
there is insufficient evidence to make claims that organic food is safer
or healthier than conventional food. Claims that organic food tastes better are not supported by evidence.
Supporters claim that organically-managed soil has a higher quality and higher water retention.
This may help increase yields for organic farms in drought years.
Organic farming can build up soil organic matter better than
conventional no-till farming, which suggests long-term yield benefits
from organic farming. An 18-year study of organic methods on nutrient-depleted soil concluded that conventional methods were superior for soil fertility
and yield for nutrient-depleted soils in cold-temperate climates,
arguing that much of the benefit from organic farming derives from
imported materials that could not be regarded as self-sustaining.
In Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, geomorphologist David Montgomery outlines a coming crisis from soil erosion. Agriculture relies on roughly one meter of topsoil, and that is being depleted ten times faster than it is being replaced. No-till farming, which some claim depends upon pesticides, is one way to minimize erosion.
However, a 2007 study by the USDA's Agricultural Research Service has
found that manure applications in tilled organic farming are better at
building up the soil than no-till.
Gunsmoke Farms, a 137 km2 organic farming project in South Dakota, suffered from massive soil erosion as result of tiling after it switched to organic farming.
The conservation of natural resources and biodiversity is a core
principle of organic production. Three broad management practices
(prohibition/reduced use of chemical pesticides and inorganic
fertilizers; sympathetic management of non-cropped habitats; and
preservation of mixed farming) that are largely intrinsic (but not
exclusive) to organic farming are particularly beneficial for farmland
wildlife.
Using practices that attract or introduce beneficial insects, provide
habitat for birds and mammals, and provide conditions that increase soil
biotic diversity serve to supply vital ecological services to organic
production systems. Advantages to certified organic operations that
implement these types of production practices include: 1) decreased
dependence on outside fertility inputs; 2) reduced pest-management
costs; 3) more reliable sources of clean water; and 4) better
pollination.
Nearly all non-crop, naturally occurring
species observed in comparative farm land practice studies show a
preference for organic farming both by abundance and diversity. An average of 30% more species inhabit organic farms. Birds, butterflies, soil microbes, beetles, earthworms,
spiders, vegetation, and mammals are particularly affected. Lack of
herbicides and pesticides improve biodiversity fitness and population
density. Many weed species attract beneficial insects that improve soil qualities and forage on weed pests.
Soil-bound organisms often benefit because of increased bacteria
populations due to natural fertilizer such as manure, while experiencing
reduced intake of herbicides and pesticides. Increased biodiversity, especially from beneficial soil microbes and mycorrhizae
have been proposed as an explanation for the high yields experienced by
some organic plots, especially in light of the differences seen in a
21-year comparison of organic and control fields.
Biodiversity from organic farming provides capital to humans.
Species found in organic farms enhance sustainability by reducing human
input (e.g., fertilizers, pesticides).
The USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) published a Federal Register
notice on 15 January 2016, announcing the National Organic Program
(NOP) final guidance on Natural Resources and Biodiversity Conservation
for Certified Organic Operations. Given the broad scope of natural
resources which includes soil, water, wetland, woodland and wildlife,
the guidance provides examples of practices that support the underlying
conservation principles and demonstrate compliance with USDA organic
regulations § 205.200.
The final guidance provides organic certifiers and farms with examples
of production practices that support conservation principles and comply
with the USDA organic regulations, which require operations to maintain
or improve natural resources.
The final guidance also clarifies the role of certified operations (to
submit an OSP to a certifier), certifiers (ensure that the OSP describes
or lists practices that explain the operator's monitoring plan and
practices to support natural resources and biodiversity conservation),
and inspectors (onsite inspection) in the implementation and
verification of these production practices.
A wide range of organisms benefit from organic farming, but it is
unclear whether organic methods confer greater benefits than
conventional integrated agri-environmental programs.
Organic farming is often presented as a more biodiversity-friendly
practice, but the generality of the beneficial effects of organic
farming is debated as the effects appear often species- and
context-dependent, and current research has highlighted the need to
quantify the relative effects of local- and landscape-scale management
on farmland biodiversity.
There are four key issues when comparing the impacts on biodiversity of
organic and conventional farming: (1) It remains unclear whether a
holistic whole-farm approach (i.e. organic) provides greater benefits to
biodiversity than carefully targeted prescriptions applied to
relatively small areas of cropped and/or non-cropped habitats within
conventional agriculture (i.e. agri-environment schemes); (2) Many
comparative studies encounter methodological problems, limiting their
ability to draw quantitative conclusions; (3) Our knowledge of the
impacts of organic farming in pastoral and upland agriculture is
limited; (4) There remains a pressing need for longitudinal,
system-level studies in order to address these issues and to fill in the
gaps in our knowledge of the impacts of organic farming, before a full
appraisal of its potential role in biodiversity conservation in
agroecosystems can be made.
Opposition to labour standards
Organic
agriculture is often considered to be more socially just and
economically sustainable for farmworkers than conventional agriculture.
However, there is little social science research or consensus as to
whether or not organic agriculture provides better working conditions
than conventional agriculture.
As many consumers equate organic and sustainable agriculture with
small-scale, family-owned organizations it is widely interpreted that
buying organic supports better conditions for farmworkers than buying
with conventional producers.
Organic agriculture is generally more labour-intensive due to its
dependence on manual practices for fertilization and pest removal and
relies heavily upon hired, non-family farmworkers rather than family
members. Although illnesses from synthetic inputs pose less of a risk,
hired workers still fall victim to debilitating musculoskeletal
disorders associated with agricultural work. The USDA certification
requirements outline growing practices and ecological standards but do
nothing to codify labour practices. Independent certification
initiatives such as the Agricultural Justice Project, Domestic Fair
Trade Working Group, and the Food Alliance have attempted to implement
farmworker interests but because these initiatives require voluntary
participation of organic farms, their standards cannot be widely
enforced.
Despite the benefit to farmworkers of implementing labour standards,
there is little support among the organic community for these social
requirements. Many actors of the organic industry believe that enforcing
labour standards would be unnecessary, unacceptable, or unviable due to the constraints of the market.
Regional support for organic farming
China
The Chinese
government, especially the local government, has provided various
supports for the development of organic agriculture since the 1990s.
Organic farming has been recognized by local governments for its
potential in promoting sustainable rural development.
It is common for local governments to facilitate land access of
agribusinesses by negotiating land leasing with local farmers. The
government also establishes demonstration organic gardens, provides
training for organic food companies to pass certifications, subsidizes
organic certification fees, pest repellent lamps, organic fertilizer and
so on. The government has also been playing an active role in marketing
organic products through organizing organic food expos and branding
supports.
Denmark
Denmark
has a long ongoing support towards converting conventional farming into
organic farming, that has been taught on academic classes in
universities since 1986 and the state began substitutes and has promoted
a special national label for products that qualifies as organic since
1989. Denmark is thus the first country in the world to substitute
organic farming, promoting the concept and organizing the distribution
of organic products.
Today the government accept applicants for financial support during
conversion years, as in Danish regulations there must not have been
utilized conventional farming methods such as the usage of pesticides
for several years before products can be assessed for qualification as
organic. This conversion support has in recent years been cut in
financial size, due to organic farming increasing in profitability, and
some goods surpassing the profitability of conventional farming in
domestic markets. In general, the financial situation of organic farmers
in Denmark boomed between 2010 and 2018, where in 2018 serious
nationwide long lasting droughts stagnated the economic results of
organic farmers, however, the average farmer still achieved a net
positive result that year. In 2021 Denmark's largest (Also largest in Europe) slaughterhouse Danish Crown
publicized it's expectations of stagnating sales of conventional pork
domestically, however it expected increasing sales of organic pork and
especially the division for free range, organic pork. Besides the conversion support, there's still a base subsidies for organic farming paid per area of qualified farm land.
The first Danish private development organisation "SamsØkologisk"
was established in 2013, by veteran organic farmers from the existing
organisation of "Økologisk Samsø". The development organisation has
intentions to buy and invest in farmland and then lend the land to young
and aspiring farmers seeking to get into farming and organic farming
especially. This organisation reports 300 economical active members as
of 2021, but doesn't publish the amount of acquired land or active
lenders.
However the organic farming concept in Denmark is often not
limited to organic farming as the definition is globally. Instead, the
majority of organic farming is instead "Ecological farming". The
development of this concept has been parallel with the general organic
farming movement, and is most often used interchangeable with organic
farming. Thus there's a much stronger focus on the environmental and
especially the ecological impact of ecological farming than organic
farming. E.g. besides the base substitute for organic farming, farmers
can qualify for an extra substitute equal to 2/3 of the base for
realizing a specific reduction in the usage of added nitrogen to the farmland (also by organic means). There's also parallels to the extended organic movements of Regenerative agriculture,
although far from all concepts in regenerative agriculture is included
in the national strategy at this time, but exist as voluntary options
for each farmer. For these reasons it happens that international organic
products doesn't not fur fill the requirements of ecological farming
and thus doesn't receive the domestic label for ecological products,
rather they "only" receive the standard European Union organic label.
India
In India, in 2016, the northern state of Sikkim achieved its goal of converting to 100% organic farming. Other states of India, including Kerala, Mizoram, Goa, Rajasthan, and Meghalaya, have also declared their intentions to shift to fully organic cultivation.
The South Indian state Andhra Pradesh is also promoting organic
farming, especially Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) which is a form
of regenerative agriculture.
As of 2018, India has the largest number of organic farmers in
the world and constitutes more than 30% of the organic farmers globally. India has 835,000 certified organic producers.
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic has successfully converted a large amount of its banana crop to organic. The Dominican Republic accounts for 55% of the world's certified organic bananas.
Thailand
In
Thailand, the Institute for Sustainable Agricultural Communities (ISAC)
was established in 1991 to promote organic farming (among other
sustainable agricultural practices). The national target via the
National Plan for Organic Farming is to attain, by 2021, 1.3 million rai
of organically farmed land. Another target is for 40% of the produce
from these farmlands to be consumed domestically.
Much progress has been made:
Many organic farms have sprouted, growing produce ranging from mangosteen to stinky bean
Some of the farms have also established education centres to promote and share their organic farming techniques and knowledge
In Chiang Mai Province, there are 18 organic markets (ISAC-linked)
United States
The United States Department of Agriculture Rural Development (USDARD) was created in 1994 as a subsection of the USDA that implements programs to stimulate growth in rural communities.
One of the programs that the USDARD created provided grants to farmers
who practiced organic farming through the Organic Certification Cost
Share Program (OCCSP). During the 21st century, the United States
has continued to expand its reach in the organic foods market, doubling
the number of organic farms in the U.S. in 2016 when compared to 2011.
Employment on organic farms offers potentially large numbers of jobs for people, and this may better manage the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Moreover, sustainable forestry, fishing, and mining, and other
conservation-oriented activities provide larger numbers of jobs than
more fossil fuel and mechanized work.
Organic Farming has grown by 3.53 million acres in the U.S. from 2000 to 2011.
In 2016, California had 2,713 organic farms, which makes California the largest producer of organic goods in the U.S.
4 percent of food sales in the U.S. are of organic goods.
Sri Lanka
In 2021 Sri Lanka
started the first "100% organic farming" program and imposed a
countrywide ban on inorganic fertilizers and pesticides in June 2021.
The program was welcomed by its advisor Vandana Shiva, but ignored critical voices from scientific and farming community who warned about possible collapse of farming, including financial crisis due to devaluation of national currency pivoted around tea industry.
With harvest starting to decline in July 2021, the farming
community warned about "collapse" of farming output by up to 50%. The
situation in tea industry was described as critical, with farming under
the organic program being described as 10x more expensive and producing
half of the yield by the farmers.
With 90% of the farms depending on inorganic fertilizers, the mean
reduction of harvest seen across all crops planted in Sri-Lanka was
19-25%. Only in late August the government acknowledged the ban created a
critical dependency on supplies of organic fertilizers from abroad but
by then food prices have already increased twofold in some cases.
In September 2021 the government announced "economic emergency",
as the situation was further aggravated by falling national currency
exchange rate, inflation rising as result of high food prices, and
pandemic restrictions in tourism which further decreased country's
income.
In mid-October 2021 the ban was largely lifted "until the island was able to produce enough organic fertiliser".
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