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Looks like a hit piece to me. "The result: (...) kerosene oil and cooking gas prices are surging" Hmm what the relation from cooking gas prices to organic far

by guerby 5y ago

Looks like a hit piece to me. "The result: (...) kerosene oil and cooking gas prices are surging" Hmm what the relation from cooking gas prices to organic farming? "According to the Annual Review of Resource Economics, organic agriculture generates more air pollutants and environmental emissions in the crop production process for a unit of food than chemical farming." Reading the paper : https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-resource-100517-023252#_i17 https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-resource-1... "The evidence suggests that organic agriculture uses less energy per unit of land, and to a lesser extent, also per unit of output than conventional agriculture " No mention of other air pollution I could find. Nice to point to a paper that says the exact opposite of what the press article says. I didn't check the rest, I'm assuming pesticide and chemical fertilizer producer saw a nice opportunity (fall of income due to COVID impact on tourism) to avoid organic contagion to other countries through cheap to corrupt journalists.

brandmeyer 5y ago
> Hmm what the relation from cooking gas prices to organic farming? Organic practices -> Lost productivity per acre + increased costs per acre -> Loss of export profits -> Currency devaluation relative to international currencies (USD, EUR) -> Increasing prices of imports All of that process is plainly stated in the article.
mardifoufs 5y ago
Probably because a bad harvest can have disastrous results that are felt across the economy? Shortages of foreign currency can usually mean shortages of goods inside a country, as governments either try to minimize forex outflows (and thus imports) or is just forced to after running out. And honestly that's a very very weird argument. You are saying that a real life result has to be discounted because of a... Research paper? Especially one that obviously doesn't take into account the particularities of Sri Lanka? Actually scratch that, the study you linked doesn't say what you are saying at all. It's much more nuanced and frankly it makes the "it's big agro corrupt journalists" narrative even more ridiculous. > These results should not be extrapolated, as unbiased evidence about organic yield effects under real-world conditions is limited (Kravchenko et al. 2017, Leifeld 2016). In any case, given the higher knowledge requirements for successful organic farming, it is likely that the average yield gaps would rise if an increasing number of farmers would adopt organic practices. >However, where modern inputs are available and more commonly used, organic farmers typically have lower yields than conventional farmers. Yield gaps tend to increase during the process of economic development (Valkila 2009).The yield gaps imply that more land would be required to produce the same quantity of output with organic methods >The conclusion that organic farming is not the global blueprint for sustainable agriculture does not mean that organic methods cannot be useful in specific situations. Under certain conditions, organic farming can be clearly positive for the environment, even when the effects are measured per unit of output. So that's exactly what it is saying : organic farming can be good, probably can't replace conventional methods, and if you want the yields to even start comparing somewhat favorably with conventional agriculture you need to build a lot of institutional knowledge, provide resources to farmers and time. It's better than traditional, very small scale agriculture, but if the inputs for "chemical" farming are there you should probably use them. That's a lot of caveats and they mostly don't apply to this situation.
jcranberry 5y ago
I find it hard to believe that you read the entire section on environmental impact, let alone the paper, if that single sentence in that section is all you could find. The quote from the press article does not disagree with what the paper says. "The evidence suggests that organic agriculture uses less energy per unit of land, and to a lesser extent, also per unit of output than conventional agriculture (Table 3). This difference is mainly attributable to the nonuse of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides in organic systems. Fuel use for agricultural operations is similar across systems. However, for certain crops (especially vegetables) more fuel is sometimes required in organic production, when repeated mechanical or thermal weed control becomes necessary (Lynch et al. 2011, Scialabba & Müller-Lindenlauf 2010, Smith et al. 2015). This may also lead to higher overall energy use in organic systems in certain situations (Lee et al. 2015). "Concerning GHG emissions, most studies conclude that organic farming has lower impacts when expressed per unit of land but not when expressed per unit of output (Table 3). Generally, organic systems are characterized by lower nitrogen inputs, and thus lower N2O emission potential. However, balancing nutrient supply and plant demand is typically more challenging in organic systems; oversupply of nitrogen from organic fertilizer may also lead to significant N2O emissions, while undersupply leads to lower yields (Clark & Tilman 2017, Lynch et al. 2011, Skinner et al. 2014). In crop production, soil carbon stocks and sequestration rates were found to be significantly higher in organic than in conventional systems (Gattinger et al. 2012, Lori et al. 2017). In livestock production, less intensive organic husbandry systems lead to larger quantities of manure per unit of meat, and thus higher methane and N2O emissions (Treu et al. 2017). Overall, the evidence does not support the widely held notion that organic agriculture is more climate friendly than conventional agriculture (WBA 2016)." Unfortunately that last citation is some 500 page document in German which I'm unable to read.
- guerby 5y ago
  Did you really read table 3? Per output organic vs conventional: Energy use 15–21% lower a,b Nitrous oxide emissions 8% higher a GHG emissions 0–10% lower a,b,c GHG emissions of organic diet equal to conventional diet d One 2012 paper (I did not track it) says nitrous oxide higher 8% but GHG less up to 10% or identical, so less air pollution overall. For reference Nitrous oxide is around 7% of all GHG in the USA, so the +8% by 70% by 7% doesn't amount to much vs 0-10% when you add up, source: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
mrosett 5y ago
The other comments point out that you skipped or ignored the relevant sections of the paper, but you also missed this in the abstract: > Organic farming is less polluting than conventional farming when measured per unit of land but not when measured per unit of output. Organic farming, which currently accounts for only 1% of global agricultural land, is lower yielding on average. Due to higher knowledge requirements, observed yield gaps might further increase if a larger number of farmers would switch to organic practices. In other words, forcing a ton of farmers to switch to organic farming over night would almost certainly lead to them being much less efficient than average organic farmers.

by guerby 5y ago

brandmeyer 5y ago

> Hmm what the relation from cooking gas prices to organic farming? Organic practices -> Lost productivity per acre + increased costs per acre -> Loss of export profits -> Currency devaluation relative to international currencies (USD, EUR) -> Increasing prices of imports All of that process is plainly stated in the article.

mardifoufs 5y ago

Probably because a bad harvest can have disastrous results that are felt across the economy? Shortages of foreign currency can usually mean shortages of goods inside a country, as governments either try to minimize forex outflows (and thus imports) or is just forced to after running out. And honestly that's a very very weird argument. You are saying that a real life result has to be discounted because of a... Research paper? Especially one that obviously doesn't take into account the particularities of Sri Lanka? Actually scratch that, the study you linked doesn't say what you are saying at all. It's much more nuanced and frankly it makes the "it's big agro corrupt journalists" narrative even more ridiculous. > These results should not be extrapolated, as unbiased evidence about organic yield effects under real-world conditions is limited (Kravchenko et al. 2017, Leifeld 2016). In any case, given the higher knowledge requirements for successful organic farming, it is likely that the average yield gaps would rise if an increasing number of farmers would adopt organic practices. >However, where modern inputs are available and more commonly used, organic farmers typically have lower yields than conventional farmers. Yield gaps tend to increase during the process of economic development (Valkila 2009).The yield gaps imply that more land would be required to produce the same quantity of output with organic methods >The conclusion that organic farming is not the global blueprint for sustainable agriculture does not mean that organic methods cannot be useful in specific situations. Under certain conditions, organic farming can be clearly positive for the environment, even when the effects are measured per unit of output. So that's exactly what it is saying : organic farming can be good, probably can't replace conventional methods, and if you want the yields to even start comparing somewhat favorably with conventional agriculture you need to build a lot of institutional knowledge, provide resources to farmers and time. It's better than traditional, very small scale agriculture, but if the inputs for "chemical" farming are there you should probably use them. That's a lot of caveats and they mostly don't apply to this situation.

jcranberry 5y ago

I find it hard to believe that you read the entire section on environmental impact, let alone the paper, if that single sentence in that section is all you could find. The quote from the press article does not disagree with what the paper says. "The evidence suggests that organic agriculture uses less energy per unit of land, and to a lesser extent, also per unit of output than conventional agriculture (Table 3). This difference is mainly attributable to the nonuse of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides in organic systems. Fuel use for agricultural operations is similar across systems. However, for certain crops (especially vegetables) more fuel is sometimes required in organic production, when repeated mechanical or thermal weed control becomes necessary (Lynch et al. 2011, Scialabba & Müller-Lindenlauf 2010, Smith et al. 2015). This may also lead to higher overall energy use in organic systems in certain situations (Lee et al. 2015). "Concerning GHG emissions, most studies conclude that organic farming has lower impacts when expressed per unit of land but not when expressed per unit of output (Table 3). Generally, organic systems are characterized by lower nitrogen inputs, and thus lower N2O emission potential. However, balancing nutrient supply and plant demand is typically more challenging in organic systems; oversupply of nitrogen from organic fertilizer may also lead to significant N2O emissions, while undersupply leads to lower yields (Clark & Tilman 2017, Lynch et al. 2011, Skinner et al. 2014). In crop production, soil carbon stocks and sequestration rates were found to be significantly higher in organic than in conventional systems (Gattinger et al. 2012, Lori et al. 2017). In livestock production, less intensive organic husbandry systems lead to larger quantities of manure per unit of meat, and thus higher methane and N2O emissions (Treu et al. 2017). Overall, the evidence does not support the widely held notion that organic agriculture is more climate friendly than conventional agriculture (WBA 2016)." Unfortunately that last citation is some 500 page document in German which I'm unable to read.

guerby 5y ago
Did you really read table 3? Per output organic vs conventional: Energy use 15–21% lower a,b Nitrous oxide emissions 8% higher a GHG emissions 0–10% lower a,b,c GHG emissions of organic diet equal to conventional diet d One 2012 paper (I did not track it) says nitrous oxide higher 8% but GHG less up to 10% or identical, so less air pollution overall. For reference Nitrous oxide is around 7% of all GHG in the USA, so the +8% by 70% by 7% doesn't amount to much vs 0-10% when you add up, source: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...

mrosett 5y ago

The other comments point out that you skipped or ignored the relevant sections of the paper, but you also missed this in the abstract: > Organic farming is less polluting than conventional farming when measured per unit of land but not when measured per unit of output. Organic farming, which currently accounts for only 1% of global agricultural land, is lower yielding on average. Due to higher knowledge requirements, observed yield gaps might further increase if a larger number of farmers would switch to organic practices. In other words, forcing a ton of farmers to switch to organic farming over night would almost certainly lead to them being much less efficient than average organic farmers.