Benefits of Organic Farming and Organic Foods

Organic Farming

Organic farming is a kind of farming practice where there is no use of pesticides, insecticides, antibiotics or even any use of inorganic chemical fertilizers. Organic farming enhances the condition of an agro-ecosystem and improves the health of an ecosystem, biodiversity of that area, biogeochemical cycling of nutrients and biological activity. Organic farming ensures the sustainability of the environment. It protects the 3 vital elements of environment: Soil, Water and Air. The uses of inorganic chemical fertilizers and pesticides damage the activity of many beneficial insects and thus hamper the function of ecosystem. Organic farming produces foods in a preventive way and protect the environment through establishing a balance between the elements of the environment and ecosystem. 
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In this post I will emphasize on the organic farming and organic foods.

 

Organic foods and organic farming - environmentalmanagementandsystem.blogspot

What are the environmental benefits that we get from organic farming?

The benefits of organic farming can't be described so easily. As I said earlier, organic farming protects the 3 vital elements of environment. Inorganic farming practices include the use of chemical fertilizer, pesticide, insecticide. All of us know that these chemicals are neither good for us nor for the environment. Now we will see, how organic farming saves our environment and inorganic farming practices destroys it.

Soil: First of all, you should remember that organic farming builds a healthy soil. Organic farming practices improve the soil health by increasing the biological activity in the soil. But the use of chemicals in inorganic farming practices restricts the biological activity in soil. Organic farming maintains the quality of the soil for a long period and this is the major benefit of organic farming that we get. On the other hand, overuse of chemical fertilizers, pesticides can instantly deteriorate the soil quality. Organic farming maintains the ecological balance whereas inorganic farming practices don't maintain it. Many investigations have proved that the use of chemicals deteriorate soil structure which in turn causes soil erosion, an extremely dangerous phenomenon that destroys a land and food support.

Water: The excess use of chemical fertilizers often enters into the groundwater through leaching and enters into the surface water body through runoff. These nutrients deteriorate the quality of drinking water. Because excess amount of nutrients in surface water helps in the occurrence of Eutrophication and the excess amount of nitrate and phosphate in groundwater cause various diseases to human. In organic farming practices there is no excess amount of chemical nutrients present in soils, so there is no chance of water pollution in this farming practices. Organic farming conserves water and maintain water quality.

Air and climate change: Organic farming practices mitigate the emission of greenhouse gases from soil. We know that soil is a sink of carbon dioxide gas. Whenever you disturb this through cultivation, those gases will escape. In this era, the lack of organic carbon in the soil indicates that we are practicing inorganic farming more than organic farming. In inorganic farming practices, we don't give our land to sequestrate the carbon in the atmosphere. We just start cultivating after getting our yield from last crop.


Without the protection of environment and the improvement of soil health, there are several other benefits of organic farming.

First of all, when you will start to grow your desired crops or vegetables through organic farming, they will be free of pesticides and other harmful chemicals. Though these medicines help the plants to get rid of pests and other bugs, they cause environmental pollution through polluting soil and water.

Secondly, organic farming is an effective way that can help us to get a healthy and nutrient rich soil. A study reveals that an organic soil hosts around 1 to 600 billion helpful soil microbes. Most importantly, this farming practice will help you to combat the deadly soil erosion that ruins 500-7000 years of nature's work by washing the soils.

Can organic farming fight with the effects of global warming?

Still, you will find several articles out there that state "organic farming doesn't help to reduce the effect of global warming". Surprising, isn't it?

Well, my answer is "YES". Organic farming can fight against the effect of global warming.

To prove this, let us first look at the basic science and basic knowledge. The concentration of carbon dioxide is increasing day by day - it is true, and the uptake rate of carbon dioxide by plants are increasing too which means they store more carbon content in their body. So, in a way plants are taking away the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. When these plants die, they get decomposed and the carbon content in their body slowly is stored to the soil. Now, let us face the two phase: 1. You are farming with using chemicals and pesticides and 2. You are not using any chemical fertilizers or pesticides.

In the first phase, most of the beneficial microbes will die, which will cease the rate of the decomposition process and thus, lesser carbon will be stored in the soil and when this undecomposed material comes in contact with the air, they will be oxidized and convert into carbon dioxide. Furthermore, in the first case, you are using the nitrogen fertilizer when can convert to N2O gas which is another greenhouse fatal greenhouse gas.  Moreover, using nitrogen fertilizer is a conventional practice for farming and extensive utilization of this fertilizer results in the formation of greenhouse gases.

In the second phase, there is no pesticides, so, in this case, the microbes will be active and busy in decomposing the dead materials. In this process, they will store more atmospheric carbon to the soil and supply essential nutrients to the plants abundantly.

This is how organic farming can help to reduce the concentration of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Without this, organic farming reduces the losses of fertilizers through runoff and leaching and reduces the pollution of water bodies and environment.

Organic foods and its benefits - environmentalmanagementandsystem.blogspot

Organic foods and why it is important for us?

It is a bitter truth that both in under-developing and developing countries, there is a severe use of antibiotics on animals so that animals can grow more quickly and become diseases resistant. Have you ever thought what can happen to us when we eat the meat of these animals? This haphazard intake of antibiotics make the bacteria and viruses more resistant to antibiotics. Later on, only a simple fever or flu can kill us due to this resistance power of bacteria and viruses. The spray that is used on leaves, vegetables and fruits can also cause severe damage to our body. According to Natural Academy of Sciences, 90% of the chemicals that are used in inorganic farming practices are not safe for human.
Nowadays, a few people are trying to produce organic foods through organic farming and some others want to buy organic foods to be healthy. Organic foods possess more and quality nutrients, vitamins, antioxidants and build up your immune system. They contain no harmful hormones or drugs.

A research conducted by Hurtado-Barosso et al. (2019) showed that organic foods maintain an optimal health status and reduce the risk of several chronic diseases. They added that this may be due to the presence of higher bio-active compounds. Besides, these foods contain little amount of unhealthy substances like cadmium, lead, chromium and synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.
  All the discussions above make a clear vision that organic foods are healthy and good for us. At least, it contains no harmful chemicals.

Another research conducted by Kapoor and Kumar (2018) showed that the adoption of modern farming practices is causing soil erosion and environmental pollution.

Conclusion

Lots of question are needed to be answered and more researches should be carried out because the population is increasing, food demand is increasing, and lands are becoming limited. 

• Can organic farming provide foods to support every mouth and be enough to feed the whole world?

• Can organic farming be economically beneficial and supportive for the farmers?

• To produce organic foods, does it need more land and result in more deforestation?

What do you think?? Please let us know and let's have a discussion in the comment box.