Small scale organic farming can feed the world

There is an American advertisement: “You have a vote; you vote 3 times a day; Change is possible.”

Following on from my last post on Chinese farmers, this next piece sprang to mind. Because organic, small scale, local farming CAN feed the world.
I was at a conference organised by The Faraday Institute last year and Peter Melchett was speaking of our eating habits. He has been policy director of the Soil Association, the UK’s main organic food and farming organization, since 2001, as well as running an 890-acre organic livestock and arable farm. He gave us plenty of cause for optimism and hope, by showing us examples of where our behavior has been changed, towards a more organic lifestyle. We are in the grip of a false assumption, he said, that we cannot control our current food situation – that cheaper foods, less wildlife, lower animal welfare, lower nutritional content, are inevitable consequences of our need to feed a growing world population. A sound ecological system can feed the world, and organic farming is a significant part of that model. A UN initiated report, not reported widely enough, shows us that organic farming can feed the world. We don’t need factory farming. We can change our food culture, change our shopping habits, educate the young in good food, show them how to grow it themselves...

The rest is very much down to us.

You have a vote; you vote 3 times a day; Change is possible.

The photo: Might look a mess to us but for the pigs it's heavenly bliss!

See Novak, Sara. "UN Report Released: Can Organic Farming Feed the World?" 03 January 2012. HowStuffWorks.com. 06 March 2012.


and the Report itself: Agro Ecology and the Right to Food.