Food security: intensification of agriculture is essential, for which current tools must be defended and new sustainable technologies invented

Abstract

To spare land for amenity use and to preserve natural habitats, including those for ecosystem services, food production must be intensified on land which is presently farmed. Current tools, such as pesticides, although largely unsustainable in that they require seasonal application, must be defended against the growth of legislated restrictions being imposed without recourse to scientific evidence. This is the only practical short‐term approach to increasing food production without taking more land for agriculture, but more sustainable approaches delivered via the seed must be invented, including by genetic modification (GM), in order to replace seasonal inputs in the future. Eventually, perennial arable crops will be needed, thereby replacing seasonal land preparation, but, for full benefits to be realized, all crop protection and nutrition will need to be delivered via the planting material. Governments, and particularly those in the EU, must embrace risk analysis in which advantages, as well as potential hazards, are accommodated. The precautionary principle is not an appropriate approach to the registration of new technologies for achieving food security in a world suffering both climate change and rapid population increase.

Does Organic Farming Provide a Viable Alternative for Smallholder Rice Farmers in India?

“…Especially in combination with reduced production costs, an average yield drop of 10-18% can be more than compensated, resulting in a net profitability 22-35% higher than conventional agriculture [3]. Critics argue that due to lower productivity, a wider adoption of organic agriculture would exacerbate the challenge of providing sufficient food to feed the world [4][5][6]. However, transition processes are always long-term and gradual, requiring models that incorporate multiple factors and scenarios that include advances in technological options, for example in resource use efficiency, and other changes affecting food security, for example climate change resilience and reduction of food waste [7,8].…”

Financial competitiveness of organic agriculture on a global scale

“…In turn, adopting organic agriculture on too large a scale could potentially threaten the world's forests, wetlands, and grasslands (9, 11). Additionally, skeptics contend that organic agriculture has too many shortcomings and poor solutions to agricultural problems (9,12) and will become less relevant in the future (10). However, recent international agricultural reports recognize organic agriculture as an innovative farming system that balances multiple sustainability goals and will be of increasing importance in global food and ecosystem security (1,4,5).…”

Sustainable Intensification of Tropical Agro-Ecosystems: Need and Potentials

“…The main critique of organic agriculture is lower productivity; opponents claim that organic agriculture needs more land than conventional agriculture to produce the same amount of food, and thus adoption on large scales may threaten the world's forests, wetlands and grasslands (Trewavas, 2001;Avery, 2006;Pickett, 2013). Depending on the data considered and the methodology applied, studies report the organic-conventional yield gap to range from −25% to zero or even higher yields in organic (De Ponti et al, 2012;Seufert et al, 2012;Tuomisto et al, 2012;Ponisio et al, 2015).…”