Scientists Find Organic Agriculture Can Feed the World & More (excerpts)
ISIS Report 06/09/07
Comprehensive study gives the lie to claims that organic agriculture cannot feed the world because it gives low yields and there is insufficient organic fertilizer.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/organicagriculturefeedtheworld.php
The average yields of organic and non-organic produce are about the same in the developed world, but it is in the developing world - where most food is needed and where farmers can least afford to pay for expensive synthetic fertilizers and pesticides - that the major gains in organic agriculture are most evident. Yield ratios of organic versus conventional range from about 1.6 to 4.0. The ratio averaged over all foodstuffs for the world is 1.3.
The implications of the University of Michigan study are far reaching. The results imply that even with rather conservative estimates, no additional land area is required to grow enough food to feed the world if we were to switch to organic, and enough biologically available N can be obtained to entirely replace the current use of synthetic N fertilizers.
There are substantial savings on carbon emissions and fossil fuels to mitigate climate change simply from phasing out pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, not to mention the extra carbon sequestered in organic soils.
No to GMOs, No to GM Science (excerpts)
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/NoToGMOs.php
Genetic engineering of plants and animals began in the mid 1970s under the illusion that the genome – the totality of all the genetic material of a species - is constant and static, and the characteristics of an organism is hardwired in its genes. But geneticists soon discovered to their surprise that the genome is dynamic and ‘fluid’, in that both the expression and structure of genes are constantly changing under the influence of the environment.
Thirty years of GMOs are more than enough
* No increase in yields; on the contrary GM soya decreased yields by up to 20 percent compared with non-GM soya, and up to 100 percent failure of Bt cotton in India
* No reduction in pesticides use; on the contrary, GM crops increase pesticide use by 50 million pounds from 1996 to 2003 in the United States
* GM crops harm wildlife, as revealed by UK’s farm scale evaluations
* Bt resistance pests and Roundup tolerant superweeds render the two major GM crop traits practically useless
* Vast areas of forests, pampas and cerrados lost to GM soya in Latin America, 15 m hectares in Argentina alone, may worsen with the demand for biofuels
* Epidemic of suicides in the cotton belt of India involving 100 000 farmers between 1993-2003, and a further 16 000 farmers a year have died since
* GM food and feed linked to deaths and sicknesses in the field and in lab tests
* Roundup herbicide is lethal to frogs and toxic to human placental and embryonic cells; Roundup is used in more than 80 percent of all GM crops planted in the world
* Transgene contamination unavoidable, scientists find GM pollination of non-GM crops and wild relatives 21 kilometres away [10]
And beware of GM bioenergy crops for producing biofuels. Biofuels are not ‘carbon neutral’ They compete directly with food for feedstock like maize, soyabean, oilseed rape, sugarcane etc., sending food prices sky-high. They also compete for land to grow them, causing large swathes of tropical rainforests to be razed to the ground, replaced by plantations, and in the process, sending extra tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, accelerating global warming [11] (Biofuels: Biodevastation, Hunger & False Carbon Credits, SiS 33). http://www.i-sis.org.uk/BiofuelsBiodevastationHunger.php
Scientists for a GM Free Europe, Final Announcement (excerpts)
Scientists from six countries join forces with MEPs to call for a Europe wide and worldwide ban on growing GM crops.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/GM_Free_Europe.php
The event coincides with key scientific publications [1,2] on how national and international regulators have been ignoring damning evidence against the safety of GM food and feed while colluding with industry to manipulate scientific research to promote GM crops. The scientific papers will be presented to the European Parliament together with a comprehensive dossier containing more than 160 fully referenced articles from the Science in Society archives documenting the serious hazards ignored, the scientific fraud, the regulatory sham and violation of farmers' rights [3]
Time: 10:00-13:15 Date: 12 June 2007
Venue: Room P5B001, Paul Henri Spaak Building, European Parliament, Brussels
Dr. Mae-Wan Ho , Director of ISIS: “ GMOs are not only hazardous for health and bad for the environment, they will severely damage our chances of surviving global warming. GM crops need more fossil fuels and water to grow, both of which are fast diminishing."
Food Futures Now - *Organic *Sustainable *Fossil Fuel Free (excerpts)
How organic agriculture and localised food (and energy) systems can potentially compensate for all greenhouse gas emissions due to human activities and free us from fossil fuels
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/foodFutures.php
Highlights
* The largest single study in the world in Ethiopia shows composting gives 30 percent more crop yields than chemical fertilizers
* Scientists, too, find organic out yields conventional agriculture by a factor of 1.3, and green manure alone could provide all nitrogen needs
* Local farmers in Sahel defied the dire predictions of scientists and policy-makers by greening the desert and creating a haven of trees
* Organic urban agriculture feeds Cuba without fossil fuels
* Organic agriculture and localised food systems mitigate 30 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions and save one-sixth of energy consumption
* Anaerobic digestion of farm and food wastes in zero-emission food and energy farms could boost total energy savings to 49.7 percent and greenhouse gas savings to 54 percent
* Cleaner, safer environment, greater biodiversity, more nutritious healthier foods
* Higher income and independence for farmers, more employment opportunities
* Regenerate local economies, revitalize local, indigenous knowledge, create social wealth.
Preface
Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and it is accelerating, says the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report, released 17 November 2007. Eleven of the past twelve years are among the warmest since records began. Sea levels are rising faster than predicted. Heavy rains, droughts and heat waves are more frequent, and happening over larger areas of the globe. Cyclone Sidr hit Bangladesh two days earlier leaving a death toll of more than 10 000 and rising, a dramatic enactment of the “increase in intense tropical cyclone activity.”
It will be much worse as the century progresses, IPCC predicts, and has “very high confidence” that human activities are to blame, most of all, in burning fossil fuels. The annual growth rate of CO2 in the atmosphere has jumped from an average of 1.4 ppm a year since 1960 to 1.9 ppm over the past ten years.
The good news is we can do a lot to mitigate global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. IPCC tells us that keeping CO2 levels down to the most stringent levels will cost less than 0.16 percent of Global GDP a year up to 2030. Surprisingly, however, IPPC has failed to mention organic agriculture or sustainable food systems in mitigating climate change.
Biofuels: Biodevastation, Hunger & False Carbon Credits (excerpts)
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/BiofuelsBiodevastationHunger.php
A report published in 2002 by the CONCAWE group – the oil companies’ European association for environment, health and safety in refining and distribution - estimated that if all 5.6 million hectares of set-asides in the EU15 nations were intensively farmed for bioenergy crops, we could save merely 1.3-1.5 percent of road transport emissions, or around 0.3 percent of total emissions from those 15 countries [7]. These and other similarly pessimistic estimates [8] are fuelling the growth in biofuels industries in Third World countries, where, we are now told, there is plenty of “spare” land for growing bioenergy crops. The sunshine is brighter all year round, so crops grow faster, yield more and labour is cheap.
In the case of GM crops, however, we’re told there isn’t enough land, and we need GM crops to boost yields to feed the world. GM crops have failed to boost yields so far, and are overwhelmingly rejected worldwide, especially in African countries where GM food and feed are being dumped as “food aid” [9]. Biotech companies are already promoting GM crops as bioenergy crops and hoping for less regulation and more public acceptance, as they won’t be used as food or feed. But that will leave our ecosystem and food crops wide open to contamination by GM crops that are far from safe [10] (Making the World GM-Free & Sustainable ). http://www.i-sis.org.uk/Making-the-World-GM-Free-and-Sustainable.php
