Organic agriculture and fight against global warming
Across Europe, about 90% of the biological activity of the cultivated soils has been destroyed by intensive agriculture. The most affected areas are the tree and the vine. However, the biological activity of soils is essential to the ecosystem. Soil is a living being: about 30 cms. thick, concentrated 80% of living beings on the planet. In themselves, worms outweigh all other animals on the planet together.
FAO has just officially announced at its last congress in early May 2007, that "Organic agriculture can feed the entire planet!”
According to FAO, not just agriculture can feed the entire planet, but without causing any impact on the environment constraints and the problem of global warming.
How will different governments act facing similar assertion?
One of two:
1. Either the leadership of FAO's totally lost their head and the experts have succumbed to an acute crisis "back-to-last" or were bribed by a hidden power that seeks to destroy the foundations of Western society, modern, progressive and civilized. In this case, it seems extremely urgent that member states immediately cease funding this institution whose ramifications spread across the planet and could destabilize the civilized world. Indeed, the FAO or the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture, representing 189 member states (plus the European Community), was funded by contributions from its members, employs 3600 people throughout the planeta.
2. Or FAO is absolutely right. This possibility gives chills because it implies that from 60 years ago, the multinational agro-chemical with the complicity of corrupt governments in some states are lying and deliberately struck the area to promote a global agriculture that led to highly toxic:
- The poisoning of domestic animals and humankind for thousands pesticides.
- Poisoning the groundwater and rivers.
- The destruction of almost all food biodiversity.
- The production of a food devoid of nutrients.
- Establishment of a widespread food insecurity, particularly in poor countries.
- The destruction of the small peasantry.
- The destruction of rainforests for installing monocultures.
- An irreversible erosion and desertification processes of planet.
- Depletion of water resources.
- The release of huge quantities of C02 in the atmosphere.
If FAO is right, then we understand that the president of the National Academy of Sciences, Roger Heim, declared in 1963 in his preface to the French translation of the work of Rachel Carson "Silent Spring": "They arrested the 'gangsters', shooting against the perpetrators of' hold-up 'is the guillotine murderers were shot at the despots, or course, but who will put in jail those that instill poison every day in products to get profits?"
Who will go in prison for poisoning public?
In the hope of finding an answer, hopefully quickly, FAO stipulates statements which constitute a veritable declaration of war to the agro-chemical.
According to this venerable institution, the benefits of organic agriculture are innumerable. Indeed, this type of farming allows you to:
- Feed the entire planet with healthy food, highly nutritious and free from poisons.
- Save water reserves.
- Limit soil erosion and allow for percolation of water rain.
- Preserve biodiversity maintenance guarding the traditional varieties that are more resistant and thus more capable of adapting to climate disruption.
- Short circuit to generate and promote safety food.
- Safeguard the traditional small farmers.
- Regenerate the traditional agro-forestry.
- Combat global warming by getting rid of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and in fixing carbon in the soil by increasing its organic matter content.
Agriculture sector will be one of the most weakened by drastic weather conditions when the glaciers melt, the temperatures go up, some oceans cannot absorb more C02 and food reserves of the planet reaches its lowest root level of repeated droughts, a widespread shortage of fresh water and promotion of the necro-fuels.
What is the responsibility of modern conventional farming on the problem of global warming?
According to agronomist Claude Bourguignon "Because of the carbon dioxide it expels, intensive agriculture is contributing to one third part to global warming."
According to Jean-Marc Jancovici, "If one takes into account all the effects of greenhouse gases referred to in international negotiations, and not only the C02, then the distribution changes: it's agriculture which comes first! (26%). Thanks in particular to lower emissions of gases (CH4, N20) are respectively due to the raising of cattle and use of pesticides. "
Some scholars believe that the loss of 1% of organic matter in soil is equivalent to a release of 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide, or C02 per hectare. Thus, loss of organic matter in the Great Plains of the USA since the beginning of agriculture, generated more C02 than all the cars produced in this country.
According to Professor Pimentel of Cornell University in the USA (specialist in soil erosion), the American agriculture produces every year 420 million tons of C02 (about 6 million tons annually discharged into the atmosphere).
According to the CITEPA5 in France, agriculture and forestry would be responsible for 16% of the 534 million tons of C02 released into the atmosphere in 2005, or 86 million tons.
Not only soils of intensive agriculture can no longer store the C02 but also they are one of their main source. Why? Very simply, because they are dead. According to the French agronomist Claude Bourguignon:
"Across Europe, about 90% of the biological activity of the cultivated soils has been destroyed by intensive agriculture. The most affected areas are the tree and the vine. However, the biological activity of soils is essential to the ecosystem. Soil is a living being: about 30 cms. thick, concentrated 80% of living beings on the planet. In themselves, worms outweigh all other animals on the planet together. But the soil also harbors bacteria, fungi and a myriad of organisms that feed on organic matter. Well, in Europe the rate of soil organic matter increased from 4% to 1.4% in fifty years.
In France, 60% of soils are affected by erosion. Currently, we lose on average 40 tons of soil per hectare per year
In fact, in certain soils beet France, for example, lost 100 tons of soil per hectare per year. This means that 2000 years are needed to repair 20 years of intensive agriculture, imposible let nature resume its rights.
Modern Intensive agriculture generates cancers, desertification and global warming.
Does really organic agriculture can reduce global warming?
We must look to the U.S. and the Rodale Research Center 1 in the heart of Pennsylvania for a scientific answer to that question. The Rodale Research Center in 1981 launched an experiment in 3 plots: the first in conventional chemical agriculture, organic agriculture in the second and third with legumes in farming with manure. Published its first results after 23 years in 2003:
There was no increase of carbon in the soil chemistry of the land in agriculture.
An increase of carbon varies from 15 to 28% in other areas, where the soil with manure that had the largest increase.
Rodale Research Center concluded that organic agriculture has the potential to fix 3.7 tons of C02 per year per hectare. And that without the reductions in C02 emissions due to lower energy needs of organic agriculture that Professor David Pimentel of Cornell University in New York, USA, estimated at 63% of energy needs agricultural chemistry.
According to his calculations, if all the agricultural land in the U.S. (i.e. 200 million hectares) would be converted to organic agriculture, this will reduce C02 emissions of 158 million tons each year.
The French agricultural area extends over 33 million hectares (i.e. 60% of the territory), with 62% occupied by arable land and more than one third of permanent grassland.
According to those data for France, the conversion to organic agriculture of 20 million hectares of arable land would generate a fixation of the order of 74 million tons of C02, where conventional agriculture and forestry are now accredited an emission of 86 million tons of C02
The British Royal Society estimated that 1.2 billion hectares of arable land on the planet can sequester 6.1 to 10.1 billion tons of C02, of course, subject to practice sustainable forms agriculture.
The Australian agricultural writer Sait Gram believes that "if we could increase 1.6% from organic matter on the 8.5% of the global cultivated area, we could sequester the problem without extra 100 ppm of C02 released into the humanity the atmosphere "
Let us also remember that in agriculture is needed about 100 000 liters of water to produce 1 kilo of beef and Latin America is ruined by the cultivation of transgenic soy for the production of meat consumed by the wealthy planet.
In conclusion, although the C02 is not the only effect of greenhouse gas due to intensive agriculture, sequestration by organic agriculture allows not only to limit global warming but also an incredible increase fertility of soils. We can develop this in the limited framework of this paper but we refer the reader to a technical Amazonian known as Terra Preta, the antenna Kokopelli could experiment with spectacular results in the south of India and allows in addition to "sequester" carbon over long periods of time 10.
We should thank FAO for its radical position taken regarding the need to convert the organic agriculture practices. It's true that cost a few tens of years to reach this conclusion!
Working papers prepared by the FA0 has published in its May 2007 international conference on organic agriculture are an excellent basis for work for any institution wishing to sincerely implement a sustainable agriculture.
Why not promote the protection of biodiversity and food? Thus enabling the Association Kokopelli breathing a little and not be harassed with repeated demands that distributes seed varieties not registered in the national catalog.
Dominique Guillet.
Notes:
1.http://www.newfarm.org/depts/NFfield_trials/1003/carbonsequest.shtml
2.http// cequilfautdetruire.org/article.php3? Id_article = 907
3.http://www.lecho.be/actualite/telex/article.asp?Id=2940888
4.http://www.manicore.com/
5.http://www.citepa.org/emissions/nationale/Ges/ges_C02.htm
6.http://www.strauscom.com/rodale-whitepaper/
7.http://www.fao.org/organicag/SFO/docs_fr.htm
8.http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta
9.http://www.annadana.com/actu/new_news.cgi?id_news=166
10.http://www.annadana.com/actunew_news.cgi?id_news=159
11.http://www.liberterre.fr/gaiasophia/agriculture/desertification/index.html
12.http://www.lelivre.com-pesticides/
13.http://www.fao.org/index_en.htm
14. Acres. USA. June 2007. The cruel winds of change
Source: Ecoportal