Organic farming
Organic farming is a form of agriculture that relies on crop rotation, green manure, compost, biological pest control, and mechanical cultivation to maintain soil productivity and control pests, excluding or strictly limiting the use of synthetic fertilizers and synthetic pesticides, plant growth regulators, livestock feed additives, and genetically modified organisms.[1] Since 1990 the market for organic products has grown at a rapid pace, averaging 20-25 percent per year to reach $33 billion in 2005. This demand has driven a similar increase in organically managed farmland. Approximately 306,000 square kilometres (30.6 million hectares) worldwide are now farmed organically, representing approximately 2% of total world farmland.[2] In addition, as of 2005 organic wild products are farmed on approximately 62 million hectares (IFOAM 2007:10).
Organic agricultural methods are internationally regulated and legally enforced by many nations, based in large part on the standards set by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements, an international umbrella organization for organic organizations established in 1972. The overarching goal of organic farming is defined as follows:
"The role of organic agriculture, whether in farming, processing, distribution, or consumption, is to sustain and enhance the health of ecosystems and organisms from the smallest in the soil to human beings."
"An organic farm, properly speaking, is not one that uses certain methods and substances and avoids others; it is a farm whose structure is formed in imitation of the structure of a natural system that has the integrity, the independence and the benign dependence of an organism"
—Wendell Berry, "The Gift of Good Land"
The term holistic is often used to describe organic farming [3], Enhancing
soil health is the cornerstone of organic farming [4]. A variety of
methods are employed, including crop rotation, green manure, cover cropping,
application of compost, and mulching. Organic farmers also use certain
processed fertilizers such as seed meal, and various mineral powders
such as rock phosphate and greensand, a naturally occurring form of
potash. These methods help to control erosion, promote biodiversity,
and enhance the health of the soil.
Pest control targets animal pests (including insects), fungi, weeds and disease. Organic pest control involves the cumulative effect of many techniques, including, allowing for an acceptable level of pest damage, encouraging or even introducing beneficial organisms, careful crop selection and crop rotation, and mechanical controls such as row covers and traps. These techniques generally provide benefits in addition to pest control—soil protection and improvement, fertilization, pollination, water conservation, season extension, etc.—and these benefits are both complementary and cumulative in overall effect on farm health . Effective organic pest control requires a thorough understanding of pest life cycles and interactions.
Weeds are controlled mechanically, thermically and through the use
of covercrops and mulches.
Due to the increased concern for the risk to human health, as well as the recent and ongoing development of pesticide resistance, need to reduce use of pesticides is well recognised but implementation for reduction and elimination of pesticide is technologically very difficult. [5] Most organic farm products use reduced pesticide claim but very few manage to eliminate the use of pesticide entirely.
While organic farming can, with extra cost, easily substitute chemical fertilizer with organic one, finding an alternative method for eliminating weeds as well as insects which feast on crops is difficult. Pest resistant GM crops are an alternative to pesticide use, but one which is unacceptable to many in the organic farming movement. [6]
One natural method to control pests is to introduce a natural predator in place of the pesticide, though this approach has various control issues. Another method is crop rotation, which restricts expansion of the insect population. For weed elimination, the traditional method is to remove weeds by hand, which is still practiced in developing countries by small scale farmers. However, this has proven too costly in developed countries where labor is more expensive. One recent innovation in rice farming is to introduce ducks and fish to wet paddy fields, which eat both weeds and insects.
