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Organic farming systems could feed the world while slashing fertilizer use
A scholarly review shows that natural farming approaches could produce enough food for current populations if distributed equally, while reducing environmental impacts of conventional farming methods.
Reviewing nearly 300 studies and reports, a team of researchers at the University of Michigan concluded in a 2007 paper that low-input, intensive food production systems (including organic and other natural approaches) “could produce enough food on a global per capita basis to sustain the current human population, and potentially an even larger population, without increasing the agricultural land base.”
Temperate and tropical agroecosystem farming which would comprehensively implement nitrogen-fixing (leguminous) cover crops could grow sufficient nitrogen to displace most use of purchased N fertilizer, the authors estimated.
The team’s paper triggered discussion about the relative role of crop rotations in organic and non-organic agriculture, and about the reliability of non-peer reviewed technical and research reports.
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