On 14 Aug 2003 23:10:19 GMT, Major Ursa
wrote:

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 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.

It's EU policy to encourage farms to close down. Where do you think
all the farm houses bought for residential purposes in UK are coming
from?

Some of
them switch to organic methods;

better than injecting on average 2.5 cm of pig shit into the land per
annum, as was done recently in the Netherlands.

The trend in the Bollenstreek is to cover farm land with concrete and
housing estates.

their production levels are almost the
same as before (slightly less because of switchover problems).

I very much doubt it. Certainly UK organic farming does not produce
the same levels. If it did then organic food should be cheaper as
there should be a significant saving on chemicals used.


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

yes there is.

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 fact that there is no water available to make the whole of the
Sahara green is also a factor.


--
Martin