Organic Farming and Food Security

Disclaimer: 

1. As always, "Organic Farming" here simply means farming without the use of chemicals, irrespective of the different approaches of chemical-free farming.

2. "Benefits" of Organic Farming shall be part of a different blog post.

Ever since the "food emergency" in Sri Lanka, there has been a renewed debate over organic farming and its capability to ensure food security. Howard G Buffet (son of Warren Buffet) in his 2013 book titled "40 Chances" had also advocated that Organic Farming cannot help eradicate global hunger. Here is my take on this. I am open to receive comments on this and make amendments to this blog.

First of all, let's take a relook at the "food emergency" in Sri Lanka. It is true that the situation is the result of switching to Organic Farming and there was a dip in the yield, increase in the pest attack, etc. But the root cause is because of the lack of preparedness for this switch. The farmers should be mentally prepared and rightly skilled towards this move and therefore it should be carefully planned. Almost an "overnight shift" to organic farming without proper planning and should be blamed. The government there decided to stop the import of all the chemicals used for farming from a certain date without giving sufficient time for the farmers to prepare themselves. We, at Chiguru Farm, have gone through a similar phase where we had to take a big hit on our farm output when we decided to stop using chemicals in our farm. This was way back in 2014. For example, our average weight of banana bunches used to be 35kgs before and it came  down to 10kgs without reducing the input cost proportionately, with frustration written large on our faces. However, our patience and perseverance paid off and the yield kept improving over the years while the input cost kept going down proportionately and we don't regret the switch any more! 

The lesson learnt is that a large-scale switch to Organic Farming should be well-planned, well-prepared, phased/staggered and with proper training to the stakeholders. Although the farmers in the Indian Subcontinent by-and-large were deploying organic farming techniques around 50 years ago, these techniques got lost and the soil quality degraded over the years. It takes many more years to regenerate the soil and the cost of transition was not considered.

One of the major allegations about Organic Farming is the low yield and therefore the need for increased amount of land required for farming. In my opinion, there is not much attention being given to the research with respect to Organic Farming and I am convinced, based on our own experience, that it is possible to get yield at par with chemical farming, if not more! Most of the farmers are left to experiment with their own land at their own expenses. The entire ecosystem is made suitable for chemical farming and reorient it to organic farming is the right way forward. There has been traction among the research community on this topic and there are studies proposing the ways to increase the productivity of organic farming, thus keeping the need for more land in control. One such strategy is reducing the global average demand for animal products and their share in human diets. More focused research on chemical-free farming can open up further avenues to address this issue.

One more allegation about Organic Food is its cost. I have already written earlier about this in my blog. Additionally, we are not taking a holistic approach to the costs associated with food, discounting the health benefits, quantity vs quality, reduced medical expenses, etc. associated with Organic Farming, We don't tend to notice the "externalised cost" associated with food grown in non-organic way. These costs include the expenses for the farmers as well as the tax payers.

In summary, it might be true in the current state of affairs, considering the degraded soil, unpreparedness, lack of knowledge, etc. the concerns related to Organic Farming might be justified. But they are not good enough reasons to reject Organic Farming itself. There is enough scope to make it work for the benefit of the entire world and focus should be on making that happen.

Postscript: Latest information as on 20th Oct 2021 is that Sri Lankan Govt has partially reversed the ban on importing agrochemicals, so that the farmers are prepared with organic alternatives. Although it is an after-thought, it's better late than never!