Conventional agriculture is associated with problems such as pesticide residues in soils and plants, contamination of meat with antibiotics and hormones, and eutrophication of water bodies. An alternative for consumers is the consumption of products from organic farming. Organic management is possible on arable farms, although livestock is often a crucial part of the system as manure and slurry can contribute significantly to maintaining closed nutrient cycles. Independent of the management system, it is not possible to exclude nutrient losses to the environment on agricultural fields, but acceptable loads need to be defined. Organic farming can contribute to environmental protection and nature conservation in many ways, for instance by improving soil porosity which yields higher infiltration rates and thus contributes significantly towards mitigating flooding peaks. It is the objective of this contribution to provide a holistic appraisal of what organic farming is going to deliver

Haneklaus, Silvia

Paulsen, Hans-Marten

Rahmann, Gerold

Schnug, Ewald

Walker, Robin

English

Conventional agriculture is associated with problems such as pesticide residues in soils and plants, contamination of meat with antibiotics and hormones, and eutrophication of water bodies. An alternative for consumers is the consumption of products from organic farming. Organic farming can contribute to environmental protection and nature conservation in many ways, for instance by improving soil porosity which yields higher infiltration rates and thus contributes significantly towards mitigating flooding peaks. It is the objective of this contribution to provide a holistic appraisal of what organic farming is going to deliver

Schnug, E

Haneklaus, S

Rahmann, G

Walker, R

Organic Eprints

Aspects of Applied Biology 79, 2006What will organic farming deliver?  COR 200657Organic farming - stewardship for food security, food quality, environment and nature conservationBy E SCHNUG1, S HANEKLAUS1, G RAHMANN2 & R WALKER31Institute of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science, Federal Agricultural Research Centre (FAL), Bundesallee 50, D-38116 Braunschweig, Germany2Institute of Organic Farming, Federal Agricultural Research Centre (FAL),Trenthorst, Germany3Scottish Agricultural College (SAC), Craibstone Estate, Bucksburn, Aberdeen, AB21 9YA, ScotlandSummary  Conventional agriculture is associated with problems such as pesticide residues in soils and plants, contamination of meat with antibiotics and hormones, and eutrophication of water bodies. An alternative for consumers is the consumption of products from organic farming. Organic farming can contribute to environmental protection and nature conservation in many ways, for instance by improving soil porosity which yields higher inﬁ  ltration rates and thus contributes signiﬁ  cantly towards mitigating ﬂ  ooding peaks. It is the objective of this contribution to provide a holistic appraisal of what organic farming is going to deliver.Key words: Organic farming, authenticity, earthworm, ecobalance, ﬂ  ooding,   sustainability Introduction  Organic farming, compared to conventional and industrialised farming shows fundamental differences from agricultural, environmental, social and economic points of view. Organic farming is a well deﬁ  ned production concept which provides practical solutions to various problems of agricultural production and therefore best meets the demand for sustainability as outlined by the Brundtland Commission which stated that “sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. Additionally, organic farming provides ‘authentic’ food, an aspect that is likely to gain increasing signiﬁ  cance for consumers in future. It is the aim of this contribution to provide a comprehensive overview of what organic farming can deliver in the sectors food security, food quality, and environment and nature conservation. Here, special attention will be paid to prominent highlights. Food Security  A common argument against organic farming is that it ignores the results of modern agricultural research and so is a deliberate step backwards in progress thus jeopardising food security on a 58global scale. However, quite the opposite is the case: based upon an exhaustive understanding of biological and physiological processes, it should be possible to replace chemical aid by a scientiﬁ  c appreciation of these processes.  A serious, but common allegation is that organic farming aggravates the problem of world hunger because of its lower yields compared to those obtained in intensive farming systems. Kimbrell (2002) points out that “world hunger is not created by lack of food but by poverty and landless-ness, which deny people access to food. Industrial agriculture actually increases hunger by raising the cost of farming, by forcing tens of millions of farmers off the land, and by growing primarily high-proﬁ  t export and luxury crops”. Kimbrell (2002) concludes that the only solution to prob-lems related to industrialised agricultural production is a return to sound organic agricultural practices.   The fact is that per capita food production in sub-Saharan Africa has declined in the past 20 years by 20% because of reduced soil fertility (Nwanze et al., 2004). Here, organic farming or small farming enterprises with similar lines of operation offer the chance to improve soil fertility and at the end increase food production (Halberg et al., 2006). The same authors pointed out that ‘green revolution’ technologies were not applicable in sub-Saharan Africa because of the basic problem of low yield potential, political and socio-economic constraints. Critical researchers even point out the risk that genetic engineering will strengthen the gap between rich and poor in developing countries (Jordan, 2002). Interestingly with regard to developed countries, the results of a case study from Austria suggest that even a total switch to organic farming will not compromise food security, but will fulﬁ  l the requirements of sustainable agricultural production (Kratochvil et al., 2004).Food Quality  Food quality is an issue of increasing public interest. The subject targets not only the content of nutritional compounds, health promoting or otherwise beneﬁ  cial substances and features, but more and more the way food is produced. System inherent organic products contain no po-tentially harmful food preservatives, pesticides and phytochemicals and thus provide authentic food. Organically produced foodstuffs may even have signiﬁ  cantly higher contents of secondary metabolites (Brandt & Mølgaard, 2001).  Organic farming has been stirring the emotions of conventional farmers since its beginnings with the organic farming movement initiated by Sir Albert Howard (1873-1947) and the anthro-posophical agriculture lectures of Rudolf Steiner in the early 1920’s. Extended investigations were carried out in order to identify qualitative differences between products from both management systems and organic products usually had a signiﬁ  cantly higher dry matter content and lower nitrate concentrations (Woese et al., 1997). However, nutritional quality implies not only physico-chemical parameters, which can rapidly be determined by laboratory analysis, but also ‘dynamic’ features, which Balzer-Graf (1987) describes as vitality, differentiation and regeneration. These have so far only been assessed by image forming methods. Non-protein nitrogen compounds  The enrichment of non-protein nitrogen (N) compounds such as amides is primarily a problem of an excess N supply, and is promoted if sulphur (S) deﬁ  ciency occurs at the same time. This is a particular problem on intensive livestock farms. In contrast, N is regularly the greatest limiting factor in organic farming.  The most important non-protein N compound enriched following S deﬁ  ciency is nitrate. Nitrate is prone to microbiologically induced reduction to nitrite by nitrate reductase during storage and processing of vegetables and nitrite is toxic to humans by blocking the oxygen carrying capacity of haemoglobin or as a potential precursor for carcinogenic nitrosamines. An intake of 0.17 mg nitrate per kg body weight yielded a spontaneous mutation rate of 12.5% (Wiesner, 1984). There is a still ongoing discussion whether an increased intake of nitrate enhances or reduces the risk of gastro-intestinal cancer. The generally lower nitrate concentrations in organically produced crops 59can only be beneﬁ  cial given this background.Medicinal plants  There are many plants with therapeutically active compounds claiming to act as anti-carci-nogenic, antibiotic, anti-hypertensive and cholesterol reducing agents (Verhoeven et al. 1997). There is an increasing market for phyto-pharmaceuticals and such products are of interest for human and animal application. The latter aspect is of prime interest as medicinal substances are strictly regulated in organic farming. Conventional farmers are also seeking effective substitutes for antibiotics since their use as feedstuff additives has been prohibited in the EU since 1 January 2006.  The validation of the curative effect of different medical plants is important for developing new, efﬁ  cient phyto-pharmaceuticals. The cropping of medicinal plants could positively contribute to the income of organic farms as the guidelines for good agricultural practice for medicinal and spice plants demand products which are not contaminated by pesticides (Europam, 1998). EnvironmentPrecision agriculture technologies  Independent of the management system, it is not possible totally to exclude nutrient losses to the environment from agricultural ﬁ  elds, but acceptable loads need to be deﬁ  ned. For an efﬁ  cient reduction of diffuse N losses it is necessary to take the spatial variability of soil features into account which affect N dynamics in the soil and N utilisation by the plant. A site-speciﬁ  c, variable rate nutrient management could therefore be the solution to this problem.  In organic farming systems where legal guidelines exclude or restrict the use of fertilisers, the relative signiﬁ  cance of soil-borne nutrients for the nutrition of plants increases. This stresses the particular value of a variable rate nutrient management for small scale farming and low input systems, while usually precision agricultural technologies focus on large-scale farming (Haneklaus & Schnug, 2006). The strategy would imply spatially variable measures, which increase the utilisation of soil nutrients by improving their mobility or uptake efﬁ  ciency by the crop. The ﬁ  rst option would be feasible for nutrients with an expressed dependency on soil pH such as micronutrients and phosphorous, the second by promoting root growth in order to improve the source:sink ratio of nutrients (Haneklaus & Schnug, 2006). Precautionary measures for soil and ﬂ  ood protection  The inﬁ  ltration rate (mm h-1) deﬁ  nes the velocity with which water passes through the soil proﬁ  le. High values minimise not only the risk of run-off and erosion, but also local ﬂ  ooding events by reducing peak values during extremely high precipitation. Sparovek et al. (2002) showed that the risk of extreme ﬂ  oodings increased over-proportionally if inﬁ  ltration rates were lower than 15 mm h-1. Important factors causing reductions of inﬁ  ltration capacity in agricultural soils are compaction, loss of mechanical stability and biological activity. Maintaining a high inﬁ  ltration capacity of soils is one of the most signiﬁ  cant achievements of agriculture, which is not covered by the price received for agricultural products. Independent of the production system, conservation soil tillage improves signiﬁ  cantly the inﬁ  ltration capacity (Schnug et al., 2004). On organic farms there are, however, a number of factors with positive effects on inﬁ  ltration rates such as a diverse crop rotation, abandonment of pesticides and higher organic matter content together with the stimulation of soil life. Organically farmed soils have more “biopores” because of a larger biomass and density of earthworms and particularly a higher number of anecic earthworm species, as a result of which inﬁ  ltration rates can be twice as high as on conventionally farmed soils (Schnug et al., 2004). The spatial extension of organic farming consequently provides an efﬁ  cient counter-measure against the adverse effects of the anthropogenic sealing of soils resulting from conurbation expansion.60Nature conservation  A comparative study on the inﬂ  uence of the farm management system on nature and landscape in Ireland revealed that organic farming had a positive effect in every respect (MacNaeidhe & Culleton, 2000). Organic farming contributes distinctly to nature conservation on different levels: it stimulates the micro-ﬂ  ora and micro-fauna in the soil, yields a higher number and biodiversity of meso, macro and mega-fauna (Pﬁ  ffner, 2004). A strong beneﬁ  cial effect of organic farming was also found for birds, butterﬂ  ies and bumblebees and herbaceous plants with two to ﬁ  ve times higher ﬁ  gures compared to conventional farms (Belfrage et al., 2005). The reason behind this effect is the diversiﬁ  ed crop production with a balanced nutrient supply. A higher diversity of arable ﬁ  eld plants is part of a successful pest and disease control strategy (van Elsen, 2000). These environmental effects of organic farming are components of the ecobalance (Haas, 2003). In system-based comparative studies, organic farming had a more positive appraisal (Haas, 2003). ReferencesBalzer-Graf U. 1987. Vitalaktivitaet von Nahrungsmitteln im Spiegel bildschaffender Methoden. Elemente der Naturwissenschaft 46:69–92.Belfrage K, Bjorklund J, Salomonsson L. 2005. The effects of farm size and organic farming on diversity of birds, pollinators, and plants in a Swedish landscape. Ambio 34(8):582–588.Brandt K, Mølgaard J P. 2001. Organic agriculture: does it enhance or reduce the nutritional value of plant foods? Journal of the Science of Food & Agriculture 81:924–931.Europam. 1998. Leitlinien für die gute landwirtschaftliche Praxis (GAP) von Arznei- und Gewuerzpﬂ  anzen. Zeitschrift Arznei- & Gewuerzpﬂ  anzen 3:166–174.Halberg N, Sulser T B, Hogh-Jensen H, Rosegrant M W, Knudsen M T. 2006. The impact of organic farming on food security in a regional and global perspective. In Global Development of Organic Agriculture; Challenges and Promises. Eds N Halberg, H F Alroe, M T Knudsen and E S Kristensen. Wallingford, UK: CAB International.Haneklaus S, Schnug E. 2006. Site-speciﬁ  c nutrient management – objectives, current status and future needs. In Precision Farming – A global perspective. Ed. A Srinivasan.  New York: Marcel Dekker. (In press).Haas G. 2003. Oekobilanz: Wie oekologisch ist der oekologische Landbau? Der kritische Agrar-bericht, pp. 128–134. Jordan C F. 2002. Genetic engineering, the farm crisis, and world hunger. BioScience 52(6):523–529.Kimbrell A. 2002. Fatal Harvest - the tragedy of industrial agriculture. Washington, USA: The Foundation of Deep Ecology by Island Press.Kratochvil R, Kaltenecker M, Freyer B. 2004. The ability of organic farming to nourish the Austrian people: an empirical study in the region Mostviertel-Eisenwurzen (A). Renewable Agri-culture and Food Systems 19(1):47–56.MacNaeidhe F S, Culleton N. 2000. The application of parameters designs to measure nature conservation and landscape development on Irish farms. Agriculture Ecosystems & Environment 77(1-2):65–78.Nwanze K, Mohapatra S, Kouka P-J. 2004. In search of the right solutions for Africa’s develop-ment. Agricultural biotechnology: ﬁ  nding common international goals. NABAC’s sixteenth annual meeting, Guelph, 13-15 June 2004, pp. 29–48.Pﬁ  ffner L. 2004. Impact of different farming systems on epigeic arthropods and earthworm fauna in arable crops. Ph.D. Thesis, Bern University. 87 pp.Schnug E, Rogasik J, Panten K, Paulsen H M, Haneklaus S. 2004. Oekologischer Landbau erhoeht die Versickerungsleistung von Boeden – ein unverzichtbarer Beitrag zum vorbeugenden Hochwasserschutz. Oekologie & Landbau 32 (132):53–55.61Sparovek G, van Lier Q D, Marcinkonis S, Rogasik J, Schnug E. 2002. A simple model to predict river ﬂ  oods – a contribution to quantify the signiﬁ  cance of soil inﬁ  ltration rates. FAL  - Agricultural Research 52(3):187–194.Van Elsen T. 2000. Species diversity as a task for organic agriculture in Europe. Agriculture Ecosystems & Environment 77(1):101-109.Verhoeven D T H, Verhagen H, Goldbohm R A, van der Brandt P A, van Poppel G. 1997. A review of mechanisms underlying the anticarcinogenicity by brassica vegetables. Chemical &   Biological Interactions 103:79–129.Wiesner E. 1984. Wieviel Nitrat vertraegt das Tier? Landwirtschaftliche Forschung 37:7–15.Woese K, Lange D, Boess C, Boegl K W. 1997. A comparison of organically and conventionally grown foods – results of a review of the relevant literature. Journal of Science & Food Agriculture 74:281–293.

Organic farming - stewardship for food security, food quality, environment and nature conservation

Organic farming - stewardship for food security, food quality, environment and nature conservation

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Organic Eprints

Organic Eprints