Organic farming / farm visits

One of the lovely things about going to organic conferences is the farm visits. Here's some photos from yesterday's trip to working farms (that double as show farms) close to Bangkok. It was chance for me to see crops growing that I am normally only see on my table. While most people think that 'organic' means grown without artificial agrochemicals (which it does) this implies a whole lot more as these photos show.

Tree lines provide habitat for birds which act as predators of harmful insects

Flower borders host beneficial insects which eat rice pests

Ingredients for making fertiliser. Five of the six ingredients shown here are waste products from the farm / kitchen

On farm (non-food) processing unit

This farm was reclaimed swampland

Diversity is important in organic systems. (There are three different fruit trees in this photo) This makes systems more resilient (to pests and disease) and allows for a wider diversity of crops and thus diets) and spreads the harvest (and work load) throughout the year.

Thoughts about organic farming

Just back from IFOAM-EU’s 10th birthday party. A magnificent event – well done guys (and mostly girls). Big congratulations. This is not a comment(ary) on the event – but a thought that arose during the conference. Suzanne Padel (a former colleague from Aberystwyth University) drew our attention to the fact that organic producers are unusual /unique in that they draw their income from both consumers (willing to pay a premium) and the state (paying for public goods, such as biodiversity or clean water). In different countries the balance is different.

But I pursued this line of thought a bit further (during the ‘visioning organics in 2030’ session). The paradox runs deeper. In almost every survey of consumers’ reasons for buying organic ‘health’ is top of the list (the more so after a food scandal). No government subsidises organics because it is healthier. To do so would to place the conventional food system into question. In addition there are so many - environmental and behavioural - factors to take into account that proving the health issue is nigh on impossible. While logic suggests that avoiding pesticides and antibiotics is probably a good idea in health terms, it’s very difficult to judge the significance of doing so. By contrast state support for organic farming (where it exists) is almost entirely justified in terms of public ecosystem services. So this creates a kind of dichotomy or tension in the logic behind organic farming, even if it is only superficial. I’m wondering what the implications of this are.