> Greetings to SANET,
I have been off this list for about 9 months and just recently signed on again.
Hello! Anyway, I wanted to respond to the comment below and I apologize for missing
other discussion on this point and for any redundancy. In a publication that I wrote
last year for Friends of the Earth entitled "Fair Agricultural Chemical Taxes FACT:
Tax Reform for Sustainable Agriculture" (can be found on-line at www.foe.org/fact), I
looked at about 25 years of studies on the yields of organic vs. conventional
production. The gap in yields especially in more recent years has closed to about
1-3% - basically there was no major difference. Conventional showed greater costs in
the application of inputs and organic showed greater costs in hands-on management and
labor - it was pretty logical. This argument that organic will require twice the
acreage is disingenuous and not demonstrated in the research. These studies are
cited in the document I wrote for easy reference along with many other places. Check
them out - I was inspired by this knowledge. (In case you are wondering, I am
currently a Marketing Specialist/Community Liaison for a Whole Foods Market in
Vienna, VA, but I do not represent the company in any way - I am commenting from my
experience only).
Valerie Frances
>
>
> Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2000 12:11:17 -0600
> From: Russ Bulluck <lrbulluck@ucdavis.edu>
> Subject: Re: Beyond 20/20
>
> Hook Family wrote:
>
> > Organic farming seems intuitively better for the environment due to the lack
> > of chemicals used, but the reduced yields compared to conventional farming
> > are an important trade-off in deciding if this is really an improvement.
> > Organic farmers justify higher prices because they have lower yields; weeds
> > and insects compete with the crops more effectively. It has been estimated
> > that twice as much land would have to be farmed with organic methods to
> > produce the same amount of food we currently grow. That much farmable land
> > does not exist.
>
>
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