The problem with organic farming is that the number 1 most limiting input in the world today is not fertilizer, it’s arable land area. And that is the input (if you can call it an input) that organic farming is the least efficient at converting into food. It doesn’t matter that organic farming is x times more efficient energy wise or fertilizer wise if it can’t feed the world on the current arable land area we have available. And right now conventional farming is massively outyielding pretty much every farming system in every part of the world. If the first world would totally switch to organic so we can feel good about ourselves the ones suffering would be third world countries who today are totally dependent on cheap western food exports.
Also some of the info in your quote are straight up made up lies. Like how it says industrial farming uses 10 times more energy than it produces. If we just look at US Corn ethanol the current energy balance is around 2-3 times the energy produced than inputed. That would mean 0,33-0,5, not 10. Your quote is literally off by a factor over 20. And that’s including the whole corn to ethanol industrial process. Imagine how high it is if you calculated on just the straight corn.
Source: https://ethanolrfa.org/file/2214/Ethanol Energy Balance Update April 2022.pdf
And depleting the soil. Depleting the soil of what? Nearly every single yield world record location are on soils that have been conventionally farmed for decades. When you start conventionally farming in a previously unworked plot of land you tend to see yield increases year after year, the soil literally benefits and is improved in its capacity to deliver yield by farming it as we farm today. If you lack something in the soil you add it back in with fertilizer, that’s the point of fertilizer. “Depleting the soil” and not mentioning what is depleted is like alternative medicine people saying that you need to detox but not specifying which toxins. Even soil humus doesn’t have to be a problem in conventional farming. It’s mostly a factor of which crop you grow and how hot and wet your climate is. Where I’m at in northern Europe nearly all soils are above 10% humus, even the intensively cultivated ones while in say Indonesia not even the pristine rain forest soils have more than 1% humus. Ironically enough some of the poster examples of ways to increase humus in the soil, like no-plow farming, necessitates the use of glyphosate for weed control with organic farms using these soil working techniques LESS than conventional ones.
The problem with organic farming is that the number 1 most limiting input in the world today is not fertilizer, it’s arable land area. And that is the input (if you can call it an input) that organic farming is the least efficient at converting into food. It doesn’t matter that organic farming is x times more efficient energy wise or fertilizer wise if it can’t feed the world on the current arable land area we have available. And right now conventional farming is massively outyielding pretty much every farming system in every part of the world. If the first world would totally switch to organic so we can feel good about ourselves the ones suffering would be third world countries who today are totally dependent on cheap western food exports.
Also some of the info in your quote are straight up made up lies. Like how it says industrial farming uses 10 times more energy than it produces. If we just look at US Corn ethanol the current energy balance is around 2-3 times the energy produced than inputed. That would mean 0,33-0,5, not 10. Your quote is literally off by a factor over 20. And that’s including the whole corn to ethanol industrial process. Imagine how high it is if you calculated on just the straight corn. Source: https://ethanolrfa.org/file/2214/Ethanol Energy Balance Update April 2022.pdf
And depleting the soil. Depleting the soil of what? Nearly every single yield world record location are on soils that have been conventionally farmed for decades. When you start conventionally farming in a previously unworked plot of land you tend to see yield increases year after year, the soil literally benefits and is improved in its capacity to deliver yield by farming it as we farm today. If you lack something in the soil you add it back in with fertilizer, that’s the point of fertilizer. “Depleting the soil” and not mentioning what is depleted is like alternative medicine people saying that you need to detox but not specifying which toxins. Even soil humus doesn’t have to be a problem in conventional farming. It’s mostly a factor of which crop you grow and how hot and wet your climate is. Where I’m at in northern Europe nearly all soils are above 10% humus, even the intensively cultivated ones while in say Indonesia not even the pristine rain forest soils have more than 1% humus. Ironically enough some of the poster examples of ways to increase humus in the soil, like no-plow farming, necessitates the use of glyphosate for weed control with organic farms using these soil working techniques LESS than conventional ones.