Organic agriculture occupies only 1% of global agricultural land, making it a relatively untapped resource for one of the greatest challenges facing humanity: producing enough food. . .
That’s the conclusion . . . Jonathan Wachter and I reached. . . The study, Organic Agriculture in the 21st Century. . . is the first to compare organic and conventional agriculture across the four main metrics of sustainability . . .: be productive, economically profitable, environmentally sound and socially just. . . .
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Organic farming can help to both feed the world and preserve wildland. . . .[R]esearchers modeled 500 food production scenarios to see if we can feed an estimated world population of 9.6 billion people . . . without expanding the area of farmland. . . They found that enough food could be produced with lower-yielding organic farming. . . The existing farmland can feed that many people if they are all vegan, a 94% success rate if they are vegetarian, . . . and 15% with the Western-style diet based on meat.
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. . . .Organic farming . . . . produces adequate yields and better unites human health, environment and socioeconomic objectives than conventional farming.
John Reganold is a Regents Professor of Soil Science & Agroecology at the Washington State University.
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