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ECO-AGRICULTURE CAN FEED WORLD, WHILE HEALING EARTH
Lim Li Ching
FEBRUARY 2009 (IPS) - While few question that ecological agriculture is environmentally and socially desirable,
there are fears it is insufficiently productive. This is not the case, writes Lim Li
Ching, a Senior Fellow at the Oakland Institute.
In this analysis, the author cites recent studies showing that yields from ecological
agriculture are broadly comparable to conventional yields in developed countries and
significantly higher in developing countries, particularly where the existing system is
low-input, which is largely the case for Africa.
Organic methods could hypothetically produce enough food on a global per capita basis to
sustain the current human population, and potentially an even larger population, without
putting more farmland into production. Moreover, contrary to fears that there are
insufficient quantities of organically acceptable fertilisers, the data suggest that
leguminous cover crops could fix enough nitrogen in the soil to replace the amount of
synthetic fertiliser currently in use.
(*) Lim Li Ching is a Senior Fellow at the Oakland Institute and works with the biosafety
programme at Third World Network (TWN). (END/2009)
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