Can organic and resource-conserving agriculture improve livelihoods? A synthesis

Bennett, Mica; Franzel, Steven

doi:10.1080/14735903.2012.724925

Cited by 58 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…This solution is, however, hampered by the limited number of public and private plant breeding programs addressing the specific needs of organic agriculture. This also suggests a flaw in those comparisons quoted earlier [42][43][44], because most of the varieties currently used by organic farmers were not actually bred for organic systems.…”

Section: Organic Agriculturementioning

confidence: 96%

“…The issue of whether organic farming is compatible with human needs and population growth is, however, a controversial one and has been recently the subject of three meta-analyses [42][43][44]. The first [42] compiled and analyzed a meta-dataset of 362 published organic-conventional comparative crop yields and showed that organic yields of individual crops are on an average 80% of conventional yields, but variation is substantial (standard deviation, 21%).…”

Section: Organic Agriculturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The first [42] compiled and analyzed a meta-dataset of 362 published organic-conventional comparative crop yields and showed that organic yields of individual crops are on an average 80% of conventional yields, but variation is substantial (standard deviation, 21%). The second [43] compared yields of organic versus conventional or low-intensive food production for a global dataset of 293 examples and estimated the average yield ratio (organic: non-organic) of different food categories for the developed and the developing world. For most food categories, the average yield ratio was slightly <1.0 for studies in the developed world and >1.0 for studies in the developing world.…”

Section: Organic Agriculturementioning

confidence: 99%

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GM Crops, Organic Agriculture and Breeding for Sustainability

Ceccarelli¹

2014

Sustainability

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Abstract:The ongoing debate about the use of genetically-modified (GM) crops in agriculture has largely focused on food safety and genetic contamination issues. Given that the majority of GM crops have been produced to respond to the problem of crop yield reductions caused by diseases, insects and weeds, the paper argues that in those cases, the currently used GM crops are an unstable solution to the problem, because they represent such a strong selection pressure, that pests rapidly evolve resistance. Organic agriculture practices provide a more sustainable way of producing healthy food; however, the lower yields often associated with those practices, making the resultant healthy food more expensive, open the criticism that such practices will not be able to feed human populations. Evolutionary plant breeding offers the possibility of using the evolutionary potential of crops to our advantage by producing a continuous flow of varieties better adapted to organic systems, to climate change and to the ever changing spectrum of pests, without depending on chemical control.

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Section: Organic Agriculturementioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Organic Agriculturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Organic Agriculturementioning

confidence: 99%

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GM Crops, Organic Agriculture and Breeding for Sustainability

Ceccarelli¹

2014

Sustainability

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“…Organic agriculture has the potential to increase productivity whilst minimizing the negative impacts on the already degraded environment. It has improved livelihoods for small-holders in developing countries while minimizing the use of external resources that could become increasingly unaffordable as world's rapidly growing population increases its demand for scarce resources needed for conventional agriculture, particularly water and energy (Bennett and Franzel 2013). Players in the Organic agricultural sector are therefore advocating and pushing for organic agriculture as the suitable form of agriculture for the continent.…”

Section: Organic Agriculture In Africamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Nearly all these increase will be in the developing parts of the world. As population increases land holdings decreases hence many poor small-holder farmers have resorted to more frequent cropping, preventing traditional long fallow periods and other ways of harnessing ecological processes to restore soil nutrients lost with repeated harvests (Bennett and Franzel 2013).…”

Section: Introduction Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organic Agriculture and Food Security: The Story of Africa

Arah

Kumah

2015

JAA

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Global food security problem has raise concerns on the best agricultural practices that will stand the test of time to replace the already failing conventional agriculture. Yields are reportedly decreasing despite the increasing use of imputes. In the quest of solving this problem, researches have revealed that organic agriculture can get the needed results in a more sustainable manner. Activists of organic agriculture are therefore of the view that it is the best option for food sustainability especially in developing worlds like Africa. Critics also think organic agriculture is a sort of luxurious lifestyle being champion by some few rich consumers of developed countries at the expense of the vulnerable majority. It is therefore unclear whether organic agriculture is the answer to Africa's food crisis. It was shown by literature that organic agriculture is the best model of agriculture for Africa in tackling the food needs of the continent. The superiority of organic agriculture over conventional agriculture was seen in its high yielding crops, high nutrient food produced, less energy consumption and less greenhouse gas produced during production, high drought and flood resistant crops with an overall positive impact on the ecosystem. However, challenges such as lack of national organic agriculture policies, low/no research in organic agriculture, high cost of organic certification and imputes, high illiteracy rate, and under developed markets in most African countries hampers widespread adoption of organic agriculture in Africa. Until these challenges are addressed by governments of African countries, organic agriculture cannot be the answer to Africa's food crises.

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