Thesis: “Why Organic Farming Does Not Best Address Climate Change” – Genetic Literacy Project, American. Antithesis: “Why Organic Farming Does!” – Frank A Hilario, Filipino. Synthesis – American Farmers Are Abusing Organic Farming!

About organic agriculture (OA): Are you anti-OA? I am pro-OA. Are you scientific? Yes. And so am I!

On 30 March 2022, I saw the Facebook sharing of Filipino science thinker Benigno Peczon: “Viewpoint: Organic Farming Best Addresses Climate Change? Why The Popular Consensus Is Wrong – And Why GE Crops Should Be Agriculture’s Future” (Henry Miller & Kathleen Hefferon, 23 March 2022, geneticliteracyproject.org). The authors are writing for the Genetic Literacy Project (GLP); Here’s the Thesis; the GLP authors say:

A prevalent “green myth” about organic agriculture is that it does not employ pesticides. Organic farming does, in fact, use insecticides and fungicides to prevent predation of its crops.

American OA employs chemicals to grow foods with the label “Organic” – what?! Americans are crazy!

Filipino, I am a BS Agriculture graduate of UP Los Baños (1965) and a very wide digital reader since 1997. For myself, I discovered organic agriculture in 1966 in the open shelves of the library of UP College of Agriculture, now UPLB, in the books of American gentleman farmer Edward H Faulkner: Plowman’s Folly (1943) and Soil Development (1952).

The GLP authors say:

More than 20 chemicals are commonly used in the growing and processing of organic crops and are acceptable under the US Department of Agriculture’s arbitrary and ever-shifting organic rules. Many of those organic pesticides are more toxic than the synthetic ones used in ordinary farming.

“More than 20 chemicals” – American “organic agriculture” is actually “chemical agriculture”!

The GLP authors blast American OA:

“The fatal flaw of organic agriculture is the low yields that cause it to be wasteful of water and farmland.”

The GLP authors cite 2014 data analyzed by Steven Savage of CropLife Foundation who reported:

In 59 of the 68 crops surveyed, there was a yield gap, which means that, controlling for other variables, organic farms were producing less than conventional farms.

The more glaring differences were these: strawberries produced 61% less, tangerines 58% less, cotton 45% less; and rice 39% less.

I accept the data. What I want to dispute is the way/s of organic farming that those American farmers employ. (That is also one reason I do not subscribe to organic produce being certified by a national body – the certification expense is unnecessary if you do it right, 100% organic!)

In any case, I am arranging for a group, nameless here yet, to sponsor a 5-ha organic techno demo farm in Bay, Laguna – near where we have the Los Baños Science Community: Asean Centre for Biodiversity, IRRI, PCAARRD, PhilRice Los Baños, Searca, and UP Los Baños. I am looking for a financial sponsor.

Of those 5 ha, 3 ha will be devoted to different organic farming methods; 1 ha to conventional chemical farming, and 1 ha to the organic layer initially created via rotavator (my OA origination since 1966).

Until then, eat your heart out with chemicals-laden farm crops & animals!@517