Let Them Eat Organic.(organic farming)(Brief Article)

Baron Wolfgang Von Munchhausen gets a premium price for his premium crops. Ten years ago, after getting ill from some of the 125 different pesticides he was spraying on his 300 acres of wheat, rye and other grains, he converted his farm in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein to organic agriculture, eschewing chemical fertilizers and toxic pesticides in favor of crop rotation, farmyard manure and other traditional measures. Today he delivers his produce to "bio" bakeries, where well-heeled Germans pay extra for the privilege of eating organic bread. So what if Munchhausen's yields are 50 percent lower than those of chemical-happy colleagues'?

At least that's how critics of organic farming see it. Organic farmers are just skimming the cream. Agrochemicals, the argument goes, were an essential part of the "green revolution" of the 1950s and 1960s that made it possible for Third World countries like India to feed their fast-growing populations. But is this really true? No, say scientists at two Swiss agricultural research institutes. Their study, published recently in the journal Science, shows that organic farming may make more economic sense than conventional farming for medium and small farms.

For the past 21 years, the researchers closely monitored four different cultivation methods, from organic to full-blown chemically fertilized to mixtures of the two. Organic methods, they say, turned out to be "more efficient and more sustainable" than conventional farming. Crop yields were lower, but by less than anticipated--about 20 percent. The organically grown plants needed disproportionately fewer resources: 40 percent fewer nutrients and 97 percent fewer pesticides (a limited use of chemicals was allowed). Since fewer chemicals were needed, the organic crops required 56 percent less energy. Microbes present in the soil helped the plants take in nutrients more efficiently, which meant about half the nutrients were needed to produce the same amount of crop. Soils appeared to be healthier--they contained more fungi that help plants take in water, and earthworms and spiders were more prevalent. "In the end, organic farming is more economical," says Andreas Fliessbach of the Research ...