91av

Should the world’s farms go 100 per cent organic to protect the environment? Absolutely not.

One huge problem is that organic farming requires far more land than conventional farming to produce the same amount of food. , going all-organic would require up to a third more land to feed the world by 2050 (some studies say more than would be needed).

But the authors say we should do it anyway because, they claim, massive cuts in food waste and meat consumption mean we could make the switch with no increase in land use overall.

Spot the logical flaws. This is the equivalent of arguing that it’s OK for everyone to start smoking because yet-to-exist medical advances will prevent any rise in the number of deaths caused by smoking.

Of course we should try to get people to eat less meat and waste less food. But with meat consumption rising relentlessly as the world’s growing population gets wealthier, the idea that it can be hugely reduced seems wildly implausible. As does the idea that food waste can be reduced by half.

Precious land

And how would this work in practice? Would farmers be forbidden to go organic unless meat consumption falls? Will they be ordered to switch back to conventional farming if food waste increases?

If any land can be freed up by cutting meat consumption, we shouldn’t waste it by going organic. Land is ever more precious and as our farms, cities and roads grow, we’re seeing the beginning of a mass extinction driven partly by habitat loss.

Then there’s global warming. Without it, feeding the world conventionally by 2050 would require only a 6 per cent increase in land use, the study assumes. But if climate impacts are high, 55 per cent more land will be needed – or 81 per cent if we go all-organic.

In addition, limiting warming to under 3°C now requires removing vast amounts of CO₂ from the atmosphere. The best way to do this is to capture the carbon from biomass burning – and this will require vast amounts of land.

If the aim is to minimise land use, we should stick with conventional farming, says the lead author of the study, of the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture in Switzerland. His argument, however, is that conventional farming is worse in other ways, such as pesticide use and excess nitrogen, so we should go all-organic if it can be done without increasing land use.

Better or worse?

Some might think that these environmental downsides are a price worth paying to help preserve wildernesses and save species. But we don’t need to make such trade-offs. The scientific reality is that, per unit of food produced, organic farming is no better than conventional farming on many environmental measures, and is often worse, as 91av pointed out last year.

The , broadly agrees with . For instance, it finds organic is no better in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

What’s more, this meta-analysis specifically concluded that the best way to reduce the environmental impact of farming, besides eating less meat, is to improve conventional methods rather than switch to organic farming.

Biotech revolution

There’s another big flaw with Muller’s study: it does not mention that organic farming rejects all organisms produced through modern genetic modification techniques. Zapping plants with radiation is fine, as is breeding a prize bullock to produce offspring with specific traits, but altering genes directly is a big no-no, despite the end results – changes to the genome – being the same.

This matters because we are on the brink of a biotech revolution thanks to methods such as CRISPR. Coming soon are salt-tolerant crops that can grow in saline soils wrecked by irrigation or in coastal regions where sea water is intruding due to sea level rise.

There will be crops that need far less fertiliser because they can make their own, crops that need far less land because they are better at photosynthesis, crops that don’t need to be drenched in fungicides because they are resistant to blight… the list goes on and on.

There will also be better forms of pest control. Genetically modified insects and gene silencing pesticides kill only the target pest species, leaving all others untouched.

All these advances could help make conventional farming far more environmentally friendly by 2050. So yes, let’s change the way we produce our food – but going all-organic isn’t the way forward.