That's only true if you look at farming as an industrial large-scale process. And that's because of capitalism.
Organic farming doesn't need nitrogen from fossil fuel. Nor phosphor. And some of the processes can be employed on a large scale by using bio reactors.
Only, that research doesn't get any grants from the likes of Monsanto. There's no profit in it for them.
I've been working with organic farmers for over half a century. They are doing very well and they're not hit by profiteering from speculators. Even our supermarkets have realised that a lot of consumers like local, organic products. The move from farmer markets and farm shops has been going on for over a decade now.
Of course, the industry is trying to copy look and style, but they are losing that battle. They've turned to litigation now, threatening small farmers and the people around them with expensive lawsuits over trade marks etc. Even if these lawsuits cannot be won, they know very well a small farmer can't mount a defense because they don't have the financial means.
We've begun a fund, with the aid of several of our universities and for the time being, the industry seems to have given up that kind of attack. So the industry has turned to their usual co-conspirators: lobbying. That's why the EUs rules for nitrogen emissions into water are a problem for industrial and organic farmers alike. Only, the organic farmers are hit far less.
It's the large scale industrial poultry, porc and bovine producers that will go out. Some of them are trying to evade the problem by producing energy from the excess menure they produce. Probably that wasn't what the industry planned for.
And, of course, large scale farmers that use industrial fertilisers. It's the wash-off of these fertilisers that's the biggest problem. A funny side effect of the lobbying might be that the fertiliser producers are killing their own customers.
Even the much quoted methane problem from live stock vanishes once you change from large scale industrial farming to small scale organic. Did you know fi that adding a few percents of seaweed to the menu of cows reduces methane production by 95%?
Besides, the methane emissions from live stock in the USA are smaller than the methane leaks the oil companies still refuse to fix.
Also, termites, to name just one example, produce about twelve times the methane emissions that bovine live stock produces, if you take size into account. What should we do? Exterminate all termites?
And, Yes, organic farming is able to feed the world. That's provided we stop importing asparagus from Peru, or grain from Ukraine, or...
My grandfather, who was a farmer, predicted all of this in 1965. I was a little boy then. But I understood very well what he meant. And I've been watching and helping farmers to understand ever since. Our farmers are our lifeblood. The hardest part is getting our politicians to understand and cooperate. They are so easily corrupted by bankers...
