Will Organic Food Satisfy Stomachs Worldwide?

With so many advances in medicine and technologies prolonging our lifespans, we are populating our world faster than ever. The other day my mother told me that when she was my age, there was somewhere in the range of 3 to 4 billion people living on this planet. In a few decades, that number has DOUBLED, as we now have over 7 billion people on Earth with the number steadily growing. As this number grows and grows, many smart minds are already at work trying to find a way to produce enough food to feed all of these people.

So far, global agriculture has been responsible for keeping our livestock fed and our stomachs satisfied. This type of agriculture has come with its disadvantages, however, as it is responsible for overtaking about 55% of our world's temperate climates, killing off species right and left as it goes. Because of these unsatisfactory alterations to our environment, people are now turning to organic farming to produce food without as much impact to the environment.

Environmental scientists at Montreal's McGill University, as well as the University of Minnesota analyzed 66 studies that compared the effectiveness of 34 crop species as both organic yields and conventional yields. Though the scientists found that organic farming had a much lower yield than conventional farming when it came to the major crops (i.e. corn, wheat), organic agriculture delivers only 5% less yield in crops and perennials such as alfalfa, beans, and fruit trees.

So, what method will allow us to increase our yield of organic crops? How about a whole lot of synthetic fertilizer!

Currently, farmers use synthetic fertilizer rich with nitrogen to help supplement the yield of their organic crops. This fertilizer is better at meeting the demand from crops during their growing season better than compost or manure. It's also quite good at causing the mouths of rivers to lose oxygen by encouraging algal blooms which then die and suck all of the oxygen out of the water surrounding it.

It seems as though we are caught in a place between needing to feed billions of mouths and needing to preserve our planet's fragile ability to support life.

Have all of our advances in medicine and nutrition caused our species to become too successful? While we strive to eliminate diseases and infant mortality, we have potentially created a very serious problem of overpopulation. Also, how can we hope to grow enough food without causing harm to our planet's environments? Unless we find a way to produce enough food, mass starvation will kick in at some point, and only powerful, developed countries will have a chance to afford the food needed to keep its population fed.

The original article can be found here.