US Working Group on the Food Crisis

As awareness grows about our broken food system, and people are looking for alternatives, everyone has questions. Can small-scale, organic agriculture really feed the world? With global population projected to grow to 9 billion by 2050, won’t we need science to produce enough food?

The answer to both questions is YES—but that science may look different than you think.

We’ve been told that the only way we’ll be able to feed the growing population is through the science of genetically modified (GM) crops and chemical pesticides and fertilizers. But the latest scientific studies are saying just the opposite. In study after study, the message about agriculture is: 

Sustainable farming is the way to go. To feed the world we need to support diverse, local, family farms that work with nature.
 
Scientific evidence is telling us that we need much more investment in truly sustainable growing methods, locally-based knowledge, women farmers and farmer organizations, land access, and local markets. The science of sustainable agriculture is called agroecology, which joins modern scientific methods with local farming knowledge to build diverse and productive systems without relying on expensive seeds and chemicals.

In 2008, a major international study found that agroecology, not GM seeds, shows more immediate promise for ending hunger. The groundbreaking International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development (known as the IAASTD), sponsored by the World Bank and five United Nations agencies, calls for a transformation of the world’s food and farming systems. It was conducted by over 400 scientists and development experts from more than 80 countries, and its results have been endorsed by 58 countries.

“Business as usual is not an option,” was one of the major outcomes of the Assessment. It concluded that conventional industrial agriculture has significantly degraded the world’s soils and other natural resources, and now threatens water, energy, and climate security. The report warns that expensive, short-term fixes—including GM crops—are not likely to reduce long-term hunger and poverty, and could even worsen environmental and social problems in many communities.

The Environmental Food Crisis, a recent report by the UN Environment Programme, further confirms IAASTD findings. It predicts further food crises due to environmental collapse and recommends strong support for sustainable agriculture on small family farms. A 2007 study by the University of Michigan, comparing data from almost 100 studies of conventional and sustainable agriculture, concluded that a worldwide switch to organics could actually increase global food production by as much as 50%—enough to feed a population of 9 billion people without any additional land. And this research is not new: a 2003 peer-reviewed analysis of 208 projects (with almost 9 million farmers) in over 50 developing countries found a 93% increase in food production when farmers switched to sustainable methods.

Researchers have also looked specifically at the output of GM crops—and have found that they are not all they’re advertised to be. Recent research by the Union of Concerned Scientists, for example, concludes that GM crops do not significantly increase yields. The report finds that most of the major yield increases in the last 20 years were due to conventional breeding—that is, crossing different varieties of one species together, while genetic modification involves injecting genes from one species into another.

Even in Africa?

Nowhere does the problem of hunger and poverty seem more dire and intractable than in Africa. Can small-scale organic agriculture really help Africa to feed itself? Again, the answer is a resounding yes.

Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa, a 2008 study by the UN Conference on Trade and Development and Environment Programme, analyzed 15 organic agriculture programs in East Africa. It found that, “organic agriculture can be more conducive to food security in Africa than most conventional production systems, and... it is more likely to be sustainable in the long term.”  The study found that the conversion from traditional low chemical input farming to full organic practices did not result in loss of productivity—in fact, as the organic farms became more established, they out-produced traditional farms and matched the productivity of conventional farms that rely on fertilizers and other chemical inputs.

There is also much evidence to show that organic agriculture helps farmers adapt to and resist climate change, which is already affecting farmers both in Africa and elsewhere. After Hurricane Mitch devastated Central America in the late 1990s, researchers found that farmers using sustainable methods lost less money and less soil in the disaster, and were able to recover faster than their conventionally farming neighbors. Both the USDA and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have also noted the ability of organic methods to store carbon in the soil, which decreases the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The Wrong Path

All of these findings point towards a promising and very productive future based on agroecology. The studies may even underestimate the full potential of this path, given that so little relative funding has gone towards the research. Yet, rather than increasing investment in small-scale organic agriculture, the US government, the Gates Foundation, and others who comprise the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa are instead setting the stage for major investment in biotechnology—a strategy that scientific evidence is showing to be ineffective at best.

Scientific evidence gives us answers to the question: Can sustainable agriculture feed the world? The evidence clearly points towards the need for further investment in strategies that work: education and place-specific learning, local control of seeds and growing methods, local markets and fair global trade arrangements, access to land, and farmers to work it. Given these lessons, instead we should be asking:

How can we possibly feed the world with unsustainable agriculture?

Partially adapted from Food Rebellions! Crisis and the Hunger for Justice by Eric Holt-Giménez and Raj Patel with Annie Shattuck, Food First Books: Oakland, California, 2009; “Judgment from Johannesburg: ‘Business As Usual Is Not an Option,’“ Pesticide Action Network North America Magazine, Summer 2008; and “Agroecology and Sustainable Development: Key Findings from the UN-led International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development” by Marcia Ishii-Eiteman, Pesticide Action Network: San Francisco, California, 2009.