Ecological farming: the only real way to feed an increasingly hungry world

Agreed. More emphasis on conservation is needed as well.

the govt. needs to stop subsidizing industrial farms. Instead subsidize small community farms.

Industrial agriculture will never convert to ecological farming as long as we continue to support it with our dollars. That change has to come from us. WE must take back our seeds first. We must initiate global opportunity and access to saving seed and preserving land for biodiverse crops instead of allowing multinationals like Monsanto control our seeds and land to use it to grow bacteria corn for fuel. Monocultures will kill our biodiversity. It is no longer a choice. We must stand up for food freedom, or lose it. And if we lose that, we lose the ability to sustain ourselves on this planet.

As long as people put their wallets before the environment, corporate farms will not change in the near future.

Now the question is... How to convince large scale farmers to convert to take the risk of converting their fields to this method of farming?

I wish I had a green house , though .

Tastes better too !

Take back your lawns America! Feed yourselves again!!! Permaculture for All!

:)

Yes, that would solve so many problems!

Excerpt:

There are those who would like us to believe that industrialized farming is the only way to feed the earth’s growing population. Disinformation comes daily from powerful industrial agricultural companies whose profits depend entirely on the sale of chemicals, genetically modified (GM) seeds, and food processing. Furthermore, they maintain that massive-scale farming methods are key to adapting to climate change.

This is just not so.

Contrary to what the propaganda tells us, yields from industrial crops do not consistently produce more food. It’s an industry-generated myth that ecologically-safe organic agriculture yields less than conventional agriculture. In fact, a comprehensive study comparing 293 crops from industrial and organic growers demonstrates that organic farm yields are roughly comparable to industrial farms in developed countries; and result in much higher yields in the developing world.

Numerous studies unequivocally state that our survival depends on resilient and biodiverse farm systems that are free of fossil fuel and chemical dependencies. The 2008 World Bank and United Nations International Assessment on Knowledge, Science and Technology concluded that a fundamental overhaul of the current food and farming system is needed to get us out of both the food and fuel crises. The report’s findings indicated that small-scale farmers and agro-ecological methods are the way forward.

This assessment dovetails with a 2002 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report, which found that organic farming enables ecosystems to better adjust to the effects of climate change and has major potential for reducing agricultural GHG emissions. The FAO report also found that organic agriculture performs better than conventional agriculture in terms of both direct energy consumption (fuel and oil) and indirect consumption (synthetic fertilizers and pesticides).