What is organic agriculture?

Organic agriculture, whether in farming, processing, distribution, or consumption, seeks to sustain and enhance the health of ecosystems and organisms from the smallest in the soil to human beings. In particular, organic agriculture intends to produce high quality, nutritious food that contributes to preventive health care and well-being. As such, health starts with balanced nutrition that avoids or eliminates the use of chemical-synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, animal drugs and food additives that may have an adverse side effects on health and well-being.

Organic farming, pastoral and wild harvest systems should fit the cycles and ecological balances in nature. These cycles are universal but their operation is site-specific. Organic management must be adapted to local conditions, ecology, culture and scale. Inputs should be reduced by reuse, recycling and efficient management of materials and energy in order to maintain and improve environmental quality and conserve resources. Those who produce, process, trade, or consume organic products should protect and benefit the common environment including landscapes, climate, habitats, biodiversity, air and water.

This principle emphasizes involvement in greater communities. In organic agriculture human relationships should be conducted in a manner that ensures fairness at all levels and to all parties - farmers, workers, processors, distributors, traders and consumers. Organic agriculture should provide everyone involved with a good quality of life, and contribute to food sovereignty and reduction of poverty. It aims to produce a sufficient supply of good quality food and other products. This principle also insists that animals should be provided with the conditions and opportunities of life that accord with their physiology, natural behaviour and well-being. Finally, natural and environmental resources that are used for production and consumption should be managed in a way that is socially and ecologically just and should be held in trust for future generations.

This principle states that precaution and responsibility are the key concerns in management, development and technology choices in organic agriculture. Given the incomplete understanding of ecosystems and agriculture, care must be taken. Consequently, new technologies need to be assessed and existing methods reviewed. Science is necessary to ensure that organic agriculture is healthy, safe and ecologically sound. However, scientific knowledge alone is not sufficient. Practical experience, accumulated wisdom and traditional and indigenous knowledge offer valid solutions, tested by time. Organic agriculture aims at preventing significant risks by adopting appropriate technologies and rejecting unpredictable ones, such as genetic engineering. Decisions should reflect the values and needs of all who might be affected through transparent and participatory processes.

How do organic farmers implement the principles of organic farming? The following five topics are summaries that are discussed in detail in subsequent modules:

Organic farmers give central importance to the improvement and conservation of soil conditions. They protect the topsoil as well as organic matter in the soil from loss through soil erosion control, mulching, cover cropping, green manuring, application of compost, adequate mechanisation and management methods to avoid soil compaction and degradation and minimum tillage practices. All these measures improve and stabilize the soils physical structure, enhance its ability to absorb and store water and plant nutrients, and stimulate the activity of soil organisms, roots and finally plant performance.

Organic nutrient management is based on biodegradable materials (i.e. plant and animal residues) that can be decomposed. Farms strive to create closed nutrient cycles whereby nutrients exported from the farm with the sold produce need to be replaced in some way. With the help of composting, mulching, green manuring, crop rotation and cultivation of nitrogen fixing plants. Farm animals also play an important role in the nutrient cycle: their waste is of high value and its use allows to recycle nutrients provided with the fodder. If carefully managed, losses of nutrients due to leaching, soil erosion and through gases can be reduced to a minimum. These measures mentioned minimize the need and the dependency on external nutrient inputs and help to save significant production expenses.

Organic farms grow several crops, including, trees, in carefully planned rotations or even as mixed cropping systems. Ideally, also husbandry is an integrated part of the farm system (see below). The diversity not only allows optimum use of resources, but also serves as a form of economic security as it decreases the risk of vitality lost through pests, diseases, unfavourable weather or market conditions for certain crops.

It is not only the biodiversity of the produced crops and animals organic farms are aiming for, but also for the biodiversity of wild-life flora and fauna. A good proportion of the wild-fauna often consists of beneficials to control pests in the crops, thus are very useful helpers to assure and stabilize yield security. Providing and preserving a vital habitat for wild flora and fauna species—increasingly endangered and becoming extinct—is an extremely important and valuable service that sustainable agriculture provides that benefits society as a whole.

It must be said, however, that handling and managing a wide range of biodiversity within crops and also with wild flora and fauna demands farmers with profound knowledge, highly professional skills and long-term experience.

Organic farmers try to keep pests and diseases at a level which does not cause economical damage through a concept of several preventive measures. The main focus supports the vigour and robustness, or self-defence potential by cropping through careful management. Resistant or tolerant cultivars are used wherever they exist and fulfil market requirements; beneficial insects are promoted by offering them a favourable habitat and food sources. If pests reach critical population levels to decrease yields significantly, natural preparations and biocontrol agents and methods are applied as control measures.     

Organic farmers, when possible, integrate farm animals into their production system to support the recycling of nutrients, obtain animal products for household nutrition and sale to optimize the family income. The animals must be provided with the conditions and opportunities of life in accordance with their physiology and natural behaviour (e.g. stable construction and herd management) The health of farm animals is ensured by primarily selecting strong and locally adapted breeds, followed by providing a balanced nutrition, clean and safe housing, continuous monitoring and using natural means for disease and parasite control.

In the past, the unsustainable production of food, feed, fibre and fuel strongly degraded global ecosystems and the services those systems provided for human survival (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). An area of 10 million hectares disappears by wind and water erosion every year, and is therefore lost for food production, due to unsustainable farming techniques (Pimentel et al., 1995).

No other form of agriculture and food production can claim to offer so many benefits to consumers and to provide such a bounty of public goods as organic farming and food systems. Such ecosystem services include, for example:

• Provision of pure water,
• Recycling of organic matter and nutrients,
• Regulation of climate and weather events by fertile soils,
• Regulation of crop pests and diseases through biodiversity and natural enemies, and
• Pollination of crops by wild animals.

These claims are substantiated by scientific evidence (for a comprehensive review of the literature, see Niggli et al., 2008; UNCTAD, 2006; Scialabba El Hage and Hattam, 2002; Stolze et al., 2000). The most notable environmental advantages may be summarized as follows:

Biodiversity is an important driver for the stability of agroecosystems (Altieri and Nicholls, 2006), and, hence, for a continuously stable supply of food. In organic agriculture, biodiversity is both the means and the end. As organic farmers cannot use synthetic substances (e.g. fertilizers, pesticides and chemicals) they depend on carefully restoring the natural ecological balance. At farm level, diversity is practised through various farm activities (e.g. by adding value through processing and direct marketing, or by combining farming with farm schools, visits and trainings). In the fields of tropical and sub-tropical countries, diversity is achieved by multiple crop rotations, intercropping or agroforestry (Kilcher, 2007). Ultimately, organic farms cannot be operated in the long run simply by cultivation that focuses only on economically attractive crops.

The diversity of species on organic farms is predominantly the effect of the very specific organic techniques of farmers and the ban of pesticides, herbicides and fast release fertilizers. An organic farm becomes more successful in a diversified landscape where there are sufficient semi-natural landscape elements like hedge rows, fallow-ruderal habitats and wildflower strips, which serve as natural sources of controlling pests (Zehnder et al., 2007). Soil quality management (e.g. enrichment with compost), tillage practices (e.g. conservation tillage), crop rotation and intercropping are important additional measures, aimed at lowering the risk of pest and disease outbreaks. It is therefore in the economic interest of organic farmers to enhance diversity at all levels, because organic weed, pest and disease management would fail without high diversity.

Comparative biodiversity assessments on organic and conventional farms reveal a 30 per cent higher species diversity and a 50 per cent greater abundance of beneficial animals in organic fields (Bengtsson, Ahnstrom and Weibull, 2005; Hole et al., 2005). The higher biodiversity applies to many different taxonomic groups, including microorganisms, earthworms, insects and birds (Hole et al., 2005). In regions where the number of organic farms increased, the diversity and abundance of bees grew considerably, which contributed to the pollination of crops and wild plants over larger areas (Rundlöf, Nilsson and Smith, 2008).

The high dependence of traditional farming on chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides has caused considerable environmental damage. Due to the ban of chemical fertilizers on organic farms, 35 to 65 percent less nitrogen leaches from arable fields into soil zones where it could degrade ground and drinking water quality (Drinkwater, Wagoner and Sarrantonio, 1998; Stolze et al, 2000). Other nutrient elements like potassium and phosphorous are not found in excessive quantities in organic soils, which increases their efficient use (Mäder et al., 2002). Since synthetic herbicides and pesticides are not applied in organic farms, they cannot be found in their soils, surface and ground water.

Fertile soils with stable physical properties have become the top priority of sustainable agriculture. Essential conditions for fertile soils are vast populations of bacteria, fungi, insects and earthworms, which build up stable soil aggregates. There is abundant evidence from European, United States, Australian and African studies that organic farms and organic soil management lead to good soil fertility. Compared to conventionally managed soils, organically managed ones show higher organic matter contents, higher biomass, higher enzyme activities of microorganisms, better aggregate stability, improved water infiltration and retention capacities, and less water and wind erosion (Edwards, 2007; Fliessbach et al., 2007; Marriott and Wander, 2006; Pimentel et al, 2005; Reganold, Elliot and Unger, 1987; Reganold et al, 1993; Siegrist et al, 1998). The fact that organic farmers use a plough periodically in order to bury weed roots and seeds, does not render their soils more prone to erosion (Teasdale et al, 2007; Müller et al, 2007).

Organic farmers use different techniques for building up soil fertility. The most effective ones are fertilization by animal manure, by composted harvest residues and by leguminous plants as (soil) cover and (nitrogen) catch crops. Introducing grass and leguminous leys as feedstuff for ruminants into the rotations and diversifying the crop sequences, as well as reducing ploughing depth and frequency, also augment soil fertility. All these techniques also increase carbon sequestration rates on organic fields. A further increase of carbon capture in organically managed fields can be measured by reducing the frequency of soil tillage.

In agroecosystems, mineral nitrogen in soils boosts crop productivity. Crop productivity has increased substantially through the use of heavy inputs of soluble fertilizers – mainly nitrogen – and synthetic pesticides. However, only 17 per cent of the 100 metric tons of industrial nitrogen produced in 2005 was taken up by crops. The remainder was somehow lost to the environment (Erisman et al., 2008). High levels of reactive nitrogen (NH4, NO3) in soils may contribute to the emission of nitrous oxides, and are a major source of agricultural emissions. The efficiency of fertilizer use decreases with increasing fertilization, because a large part of the fertilizer is not taken up by the plant but instead emitted into water bodies and the atmosphere.

In organic agriculture, the ban on industrially produced nitrogen and the reduced livestock density per hectare considerably decrease the concentration of easily available mineral nitrogen in soils and, thus, N2O emissions. Furthermore, diversifying crop rotations with green manure improves soil structure and diminishes N2O emissions. Soils managed organically are more aerated and have significantly lower mobile nitrogen concentrations, which further reduces N2O emissions. As a result, the limited availability of nitrogen in organic systems requires careful, efficient management (Kramer et al, 2006). Organic farms use nitrogen in a more efficient and less polluting way (Mäder et al, 2002).

In a simplified scenario, a conversion of global agriculture to organic farming would reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the agricultural sector considerably and make agriculture almost GHG neutral (Niggli et al, 2009). In an in-depth study for Austria, a conversion to organic farming was modelled to reduce the Austrian GHG emissions by 3 per cent (Freyer and Dorninger, 2008). With the much higher sequestration rates as measured in the Rodale experiment in Pennsylvania, LaSalle and Hepperly (2008) estimated the potential for mitigation from organic agriculture to be 25 per cent of the total GHG emissions of the United States. This spread of the mitigation potential of different scenarios demonstrates that organic farming is an important option in a multifunctional approach to climate change.

As a result of climate change, agricultural production is expected to face less predictable weather conditions than experienced during the last century. South Asia and Southern Africa, in particular, are expected to be the worst affected by negative impacts on important crops, with possibly severe humanitarian, environmental and security implications (Lobell et al., 2008).

Thus the adaptive capacity of farmers, farms and production methods will become especially important to cope with climate change. As unpredictability in weather events will increase, robust and resilient farm production will become more competitive and farmers’ local experiences will be invaluable for permanent adaptation. Organic agriculture stresses the need to use farmer and farmer-community knowledge, particularly about such aspects as farm organization, crop design, manipulation of natural and semi-natural habitats on the farm, use or even selection of locally appropriate seeds and breeds, on-farm preparation of fertilizers, natural plant strengtheners and traditional drugs and curing techniques for livestock, as well as innovative and low budget technology. Tengo and Belfrages (2004) described such knowledge as a ‘reservoir of adaptations’.

Techniques for enhancing soil fertility help to maintain crop productivity in case of drought, irregular rainfall events with floods and rising temperature. Soils under organic management retain significantly more rainwater thanks to the ’sponge properties’ of organic matter. Water infiltration capacity was 20 to 40 per cent higher in organically managed loess soils in the temperate climate of Switzerland when compared to conventional farming (Mäder et al., 2002). Pimentel et al. (2005) estimated the amount of water held in the upper 15 cm of soil in the organic plots of the Rodale experiment at 816,000 litres per hectare. This water reservoir was most likely the reason for higher yields of corn and soybean in dry years. The water capture in the organic plots was approximately 100 per cent higher during torrential rains than in the conventional ones (Lotter, Seidel and Liebhardt, 2003). This significantly reduced the risk of floods, an effect that could be very important if organic agriculture were practiced over much larger areas. Similar findings, that organic farming improved the physical properties of soils and therefore the drought tolerance of crops, where made in on-farm experiments in Ethiopia, India  and the Netherlands (Pulleman, et al., 2003; Eyhorn, Ramakrishnan and Mäder, 2007; Edwards, 2007).

The capacity of farms to adapt to climate change depends not only on soil qualities, but also on their diversity of species and diversification of farm activities. The parallel farming of many crop and livestock species greatly reduces weather-induced risks. Landscapes rich in natural elements and habitats buffer climate instability effectively. New pests, weeds and diseases – the results of global warming – are likely to be less invasive in natural, semi-natural and agricultural habitats that contain a high number and abundance of species (Zehnder et al., 2007; Altieri, Ponti and Nicholls, 2005; Pfiffner, Merkelbach, and Luka, 2003).