As a certified organic farmer for more than 10 years, I am aware of the problems associated with small scale food production. I am also aware of the problems associated with the industrial agricultural production methods that we have come to rely upon for most of our food.
The latest research on organic food production shows that it is more than capable of meeting and even surpassing current industrial agricultural crop harvests and has a number of additional environmental benefits.
These benefits include the fact that organic agriculture sequesters more carbon and greenhouse gases in the soil than industrial agriculture and may be helpful in reducing some of the impact of climate change. Organically produced crops are more drought resistant and actually have higher yields during dry seasons than conventional agriculture. Soils under organic production have a greater biodiversity of micro-organisms, hold water better, and erode less than soil under conventional agricultural management.
Organic farmers also do a better job of managing nutrient cycles on their farms, contaminate less of our freshwater with E. coli and nutrient run-off, and in some cases produce food crops that are higher in nutritional value. Studies have also shown that some conventionally produced agricultural crops have lost much of their nutritional value and by changing some of our production methods, we can get that back. Organically raised crops are generally higher in nutrients than the same products produced conventionally.
The question yet to be answered is whether our conventional system of agriculture can continue to feed a world population expected to reach 11 billion within a decade. Climate change models predict drier climates in the regions where most of our crops are currently produced. It takes hundreds of litres of irrigation water to grow one head of lettuce. How long before Californians decide that they could make better use of that water than shipping it to Canada in the form of lettuce for less than a dollar?
Peak oil is another problem; our current food supply is highly dependent upon a supply of cheap oil. Oil fuels farm equipment, helps make the nitrogen component of chemical fertilizers and fuels shipment of food thousands of miles to the markets where we buy it. Another problem we hear even less about is "peak potash" and "peak phosphorous." Both are components of chemical fertilizers and are mined.
Canada is a major world supplier of potash, a lot of which comes from Sussex, N.B. Potash is in limited supply and prices for the commodity are predicted to rise dramatically within the next decade.
For those of us who care whether our children will have food to eat, world phosphorus production and supply is literally a life-or-death issue. China is currently scouring the world looking to secure potash and phosphorous sources to ensure a constant food supply. Our growing dependence upon commercial agricultural production may have led us to what some are now calling a "peak food" supply. We are at the limit of agricultural production of cheap and abundant food, the system is under tremendous stress and any one of the problems above could disrupt the entire food supply system that we take for granted.
We have to learn to grow our own food and to depend upon more sustainable methods of agriculture to do it. Organic agriculture has some of the answers. Advances in technology will also help us, but thus far all that technology has done is help us use up our natural resources faster.
We need more farmers in New Brunswick and we have to make farming more profitable for those that have already invested in it. For now, we owe our gratitude to our local producers (organic and commercial) who are willing to go thousands (even millions) of dollars in debt to supply us with food. Many of them are living below current poverty levels just to stay in business.
Susan Linkletter,
President,
Organic Crop Improvement Association,
Moncton
