Can organic food feed the world?

Yes, organic agriculture can feed the world, but it would require a lot of motivation, political will, sacrifices, and hardwork to make it a success.

In the late 1989, Cuba’s closest allies and trading partners, the Soviet Union and the socialist block in Eastern Europe, collapsed. Almost overnight, Cuba lost more than 80 per cent of its imports. Oil and trade embargo on Cuba further destroyed her economy and agriculture. There was little fuel for the tractors, little fertilizers, little pesticides, and few spare parts for farm machinery. Cuba was not only facing economic ruin but also a major food crisis.

The calorie intake per person in Cuba fell from 3,004 calories a day in 1989 to only 2,323 calories a day in 1993. But today, Cuba has an average calorie intake per person of 3,547 calories per day, which is even higher than that in 1989 and higher than what the US government recommends for US citizens.

So what happened in Cuba?

Facing no possibility of importing food, fuels, or agrochemicals, Cuba had to reinvent her agriculture to one that is more self-reliant, based on sustainable agriculture practices of requiring low external inputs. Many more key reforms were done, such as by introducing urban agriculture. Cuba’s vacant urban lots are transformed into “organoponicas” for growing food crops organically without any pesticides and agrochemicals. Nearly all of vegetables and fruits in Cuba are grown organically, and Cuba is today 80 per cent self-sufficient in vegetables and fruits.

So successful is the organic farming in Cuba that Oxfam International called Cuba “the largest experiment in sustainable agriculture”.

But before we become too excited about organic farming, it is important to realize that Cuba is different from other countries. For one, Cuba enjoys plenty of labour to work the organic farms (which are less mechanized). Countries with shortages of labours will find organic farming unattractive.

It is difficult to meet world food demand by using only organic agriculture. Crop yields from organic farms are typically lower than those in conventional farms, in particular during the early years of farming. Nonetheless, long-term projections still show that crop yields from organic farms could be as much as 40 to 50% lower than those in conventional farms. A 40% yield reduction in developed countries would require 67% more agriculture land to produce the same amount of crops. Consequently, this puts more, not less, pressure on land use if the world would fully adopt organic agriculture.

The easiest way to look at this is cost. Can the poorest of the worlds population (who live on less than $1 a day) afford to buy organic food, no way. They struggle to buy just basic caloric intake.

Could a lot more people choose to buy organic food if they so desired? Sure, in the developed world. But people vote with their wallets and the result is, that less than 10% of people value organic food enough to pay it's extra cost.

With major changes to our food system - such as what people eat, how much food is wasted, how food and wealth is distributed in the developing world, sure, organic could feed the world, but barring that, it's not going to happen.

I think it's great that people have the option of buying organic food, don't get me wrong. But keep in mind that markets and economics are what drives the food system, not what we might wish for.

Yes it can.

Reason for my answer:

We already produce More than enough food to provide adequate nutrition for everyone. The problems are several:

First: Political actions that prevent distribution: Food is a Political tool in many areas of earth. Especially in Africa. It is used for Power and Control rather than for feeding people.

Using food for energy is foolish indeed.

Food waste is another issue. Food spoils and rapid distribution becomes an issue. Organic food spoils more rapidly.

Cost and Greed: Profit is the prime motivating factor in what foods are produced. Change priorities and most problems can be resolved. Allow those who are starving to work toward the production of their own food sources would help considerably.

You see the trend. Expand on this base of information.

Probably not. Before a few hundred years they might have, but now the population of the world is too large to be satisfied by organic means. For example, in 1900 a farmer might have produced enough food for 5 families, but in 2010 the same farmer has to produce enough food to supply 500 families. And all the pollution has robbed the land everywhere of its fertility, so we have to rely on artificial means to produce food. And the average human has not decreased his daily supplement of food, but increased it tenfold. So there is no way organic food can support humanity.

No. Not unless the world's population drastically decreased.

Organic farming doesn't produce anywhere near as much food as non-organic farming does, and so, even if we stopped using non-organic fertilisers and converted other available space, it would be highly unlikely that this scheme would work - countries such as China have such a drastic person/space ratio that they could never grow enough food organically to support their own people, and so other countries would need to support their own and other countries' people.

As you can see, this would be difficult....!!

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Most farming in the world (especially in places like China) is still done by individual families and most second and third world countries DO NOT farm the way we do. In China I saw house chickens eating outside with no fences and yet they stayed by the house--only the pigs and cattle were fenced in to keep them from attacking passersby or getting into the middle of a road, and most of them cannot afford fancy pesticides and scientifically engineered hormones to give livestock (like RBGH) and genetically modified seed. So their produce and meat actually are "organic". Organic in terms of produce simply means no pesticides and the seed is not genetically modified (the US leads the world in genetically modified seed--you'd hate to know why--formerly farmers used pesticides, but now instead scientists in America have modified the seeds to be pest-resistent so less pesticides are used). Organic in terms of livestock means fowl are "free range" and cattle feed on grass and hay not specially manufactured feed and are not given immunity shots or hormones. We cannot unfortunately go "organic" world wide. In some tropical areas, the farmers would lose their crop if they did not use pesticides . The main problem with world hunger is that: 1) There are still too many tribal and religious wars to allow agriculture and livestock to continue unimpeded, meaning that in the wars the crops and fields and houses are burned to the ground, the animals slaughtered and the farmers and their families are murdered or taken as slaves. Believe it or not, these types of wars are still VERY COMMON--add to that political wars and revolutions and you can see why farming in Africa, Middle East, Southern Asia, and even South America are disrupted. 2) Corruption. Many governments suck their citizens dry. The land is mostly owned by the respective government or very powerful local land owners, or in the case of South America, DRUG LORDS, and these people prefer "CASH" crops as opposed to crops to feed their people. Thus, like in South America marijuana, cocaine, types of poppies and other plants (for heroin and opium), cocoa bean (chocolate), sugar cane, coffee beans, palms, etc. are grown instead of grains, fruits and vegetables or livestock raising or dairy farms. Their unfortunate workers are often given drugs or threatened with violence to keep them under control and from trying to change things. Much of the work is seasonal, and the people then go hungry. SO if you are concerned about world hunger--THEN STOP BUYING ILLEGAL DRUGS AND HELP LAW ENFORCEMENT ARREST DRUG DEALERS!! They actually HELP people in 3rd world countries STARVE. Dry up the market and growing the products for these drugs will become UNPROFITABLE and they will have to grow something else, maybe FOOD for a CHANGE. Another reason for world hunger is massive industrialization. Most countries make more money if they grow in their manufacturing, so often the farms are annexed. In a sense this isn't TOO BAD--it's certainly better than having one drug lord owning many drug producing plantations(!), but it's also bad because people that DID have farms lose. Look at our country, the US, farms are being turned into subdivisions ALL THE TIME. When the government is unfair to farmers--only the BIG industrial farms survive because they can pay the taxes and the individual family farms, which were MORE likely to produce ORGANIC, cannot pay the taxes and find it easier to sell out than keep paying the taxes and other fees. Lots of farms in the US have also lost out because they are sued by states and counties for "environmental violations". Again the big industrial multi-farm corporations can afford to change things and pay the fines. The family farmers cannot, and so they are forced to sell. So in meeting our desires for environmentalism in America, and raising taxes on the "rich"--we are actually killing the private sector that is most likely produce organic foods and most likely to stick to environmental regulations and care more about their workers----THE SMALL FARMER AND SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS. Sorry about the soapbox here. I care because I belong in a state where most of the manufacturing is GONE, the family farms are disappearing, and most small businesses are closing due to socialist, environmental thuggery and too high taxes, thus removing most of the jobs.