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Organic agriculture and the global food supply

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2007

Catherine Badgley ,
Jeremy Moghtader ,
Eileen Quintero ,
Emily Zakem ,
M. Jahi Chappell ,
Katia Avilés-Vázquez ,
Andrea Samulon  and
Ivette Perfecto
Catherine Badgley
Affiliation:
Museum of Palaeontology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
Jeremy Moghtader
Affiliation:
School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109USA. Department of Horticulture, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA.
Eileen Quintero
Affiliation:
School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109USA.
Emily Zakem
Affiliation:
School of Art and Design, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
M. Jahi Chappell
Affiliation:
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
Katia Avilés-Vázquez
Affiliation:
School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109USA.
Andrea Samulon
Affiliation:
School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109USA.
Ivette Perfecto*
Affiliation:
School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109USA.
*
*Corresponding author: perfecto@umich.edu
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Abstract

The principal objections to the proposition that organic agriculture can contribute significantly to the global food supply are low yields and insufficient quantities of organically acceptable fertilizers. We evaluated the universality of both claims. For the first claim, we 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. With the average yield ratios, we modeled the global food supply that could be grown organically on the current agricultural land base. Model estimates indicate that organic methods could produce enough food on a global per capita basis to sustain the current human population, and potentially an even larger population, without increasing the agricultural land base. We also evaluated the amount of nitrogen potentially available from fixation by leguminous cover crops used as fertilizer. Data from temperate and tropical agroecosystems suggest that leguminous cover crops could fix enough nitrogen to replace the amount of synthetic fertilizer currently in use. These results indicate that organic agriculture has the potential to contribute quite substantially to the global food supply, while reducing the detrimental environmental impacts of conventional agriculture. Evaluation and review of this paper have raised important issues about crop rotations under organic versus conventional agriculture and the reliability of grey-literature sources. An ongoing dialogue on these subjects can be found in the Forum editorial of this issue.

Keywords

organic agricultureconventional agricultureorganic yieldsglobal food supplycover crop
Type
Research Article
Information
Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , June 2007 , pp. 86 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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