"Major Ursa" wrote in message
. ..
martin wrote in
:

On Thu, 14 Aug 2003 22:22:35 +0000 (UTC), "Franz Heymann"
wrote:

That is a laudable attitude, but my worry is that I doubt if enough
food to feed the whole world would be produced if organic farming
principles were applied globally.

or even Yorkshire

I don't get it; our farmers produce way too much

They produce far too much for local consumption at a cost which is far too
high to enable it to be marketed in those countries in the world in which
there is a chronic food shortage.

and to prevent prices
from dropping below living-standards they are kept at artificial levels
and (in Holland at least) farmers are encouraged to close down. Some of
them switch to organic methods; their production levels are almost the
same as before (slightly less because of switchover problems).

There is no reason why organic farming would produce less than conventinal
methods.

Unless I am mistaken, one of the aims (sometimes unspoken) of organic
farming is to produce less food per unit area in order not to deplete the
soil faster than it can recover. The reason is that the compost you put on
the soil does not provide a fully complete menu. Some of the nutrients have
to be dissolved out oif the almost insoluble rock. That takes time.

Agreed, if one could get political agreement to make a worldwide
cooperative effort to turn the Sahara desert into a large plantation that
would feed 1/4 of the third world, it might be best to start out with the
high-tech conventional intensive methods, just to make a quick start. But
because of the same protectionate measures that keep our prices high and
keep low-priced products outside our borders, this utopic green sahara
will not happen. The same ppl that tell us that we will not be able to
feed the world with organic methods are the ones that keep the third world
from dveloping competitive agriculture. We will not be able to incorporate
them in a free-trade-world without leveling down our own prices and
production; and that will never happen.

That is the problem, in a nutshell.

Imho, it will never be so that these new technologies will benefit the ppl
who most need it, so that argument is non-valid.

I think, in the long run it would be more cheaper, safer and less
complicated to use slower methods and develop food-farms in natural ways,
more in balance with local environments. Even modern conventional farmers
can tell you that using more and more chemicals and hormones is a road
with no end and can only be sustained by keeping on growing and growing.
It's not a stable system and it will implode when it reaches its critical
mass. This is not the way.

Franz