Benefits of Organic Farming

The benefits of organic farming are significant for you and the environment. Healthy food trends include growing organic food and understanding the advantages of organic farming.

Environmental health is damaged by intensive farming. The benefits of organic farming are significant, and over time can repair the damage done.

This is no longer an opinion. Research has been carried out that identifies intensive farming's destructive effects on land, water, animals and humans.

Growing organic food, rather than commercially produced food (grown with chemicals and pesticides), is the environmentally healthy choice; and the advantages of organic farming are significant to your health and the health of your family too.

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) concludes that:

...the expansion and intensification of conventional farming is harmful not only to the environment, but also to the very resources essential to farming.

Over the past two decades, some 15 million hectares of tropical forests are lost each year to provide land for agriculture, and at a tremendous loss of genetic diversity ... [2] ISIS.

Organic farming is a fast growing agricultural segment in North America. In the United States, organic farmers dedicate more than 4.8 million acres to organic food production. California leads other states in certified organic lands with more than 430,000 acres producing organic fruit and vegetables. For more information on US organic production data, visit the USDA Economic Research Services site.

In Canada, land dedicated to organic farming is in excess of 1.3 million acres, with the province of Saskatchewan leading the country with .75 million acres. The organic agriculture centre of Canada is engaged in numerous scientific studies on the benefits of organic farming and strategies organic farmers can use to build more profitable farm businesses.

Organic farming faces challenges such as higher management costs; the risks of learning new farming methods, a fragmented industry that is still young; the high cost of marketing the value of organic foods and farming; and the high cost of consumer engagement.

However, those organic farmers who commit to this agricultural segment find that the pay-offs in higher value added markets and in the conservation of non-renewable resources, along with lower input costs of using natural production systems, are worth it.

Such damage to, and loss of land, is caused by the use of chemical inputs; pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, as well as monoculture (the production of a single variety of crop on a piece of land).

The monoculture system itself forces the need for chemical input, as pests and disease thrive in a one-plant environment. This results in the depletion of the nutrients and minerals in the soil, making it less fertile.

The consequence of this is, of course, the use of more chemical input. It is a vicious cycle that, in the end, destroys the soil itself.

There are several knock-on effects to this. One of these is that the Earth's forests are pulled down in order to obtain land for farming, which eventually is destroyed like the land it had replaced. And so it goes on.

Another effect is the pollution of rivers as a result of chemical fertilizers leeching into them from intensively farmed land. Environmental health is attacked on many fronts.

Compaction of the soil by excessive cultivation inhibits the absorption of rainwater, forcing it to run off the soil, carrying chemical inputs with it into rivers. This causes pollution and heightened risks of flooding.

Excessive cultivation also destroys the structure of soil:

Annual crops, grown in conventional systems, demand that the soil is cultivated. The very act of cultivating the soil serves to destroy organic matter, kills much of the soil fauna and leaves the soil at risk of erosion from wind and rain.

The soil structure is damaged and, with continued cultivation, the sub-soil becomes very compacted and is unable to drain properly or allow roots to penetrate and obtain their nutrients. When it rains soil is washed away. Plants for a future.

Add to this the removal of hedgerows and other natural barriers (removed to increase the size of crop fields and make it easier to farm), then soil erosion becomes, indeed is, a major problem. Wind and rain are able to move freely, taking topsoil with them.

The Fenlands, for example, are losing 30 mm of topsoil every year. Plants for a Future

Growing organic food is a viable and beneficial alternative; for you, your family and the environment.

Additional Reading Related to the Benefits of Organic Farming

• Visit Meat Farming.

• Visit Crop Rotation.

• Visit Organic Chicken Farming.

• Visit Organic Chicken Feed.

• Visit Environmental Health Issues: Organic Arable Farming.

• Visit Environmental Health Risk

• Visit Environmental Health Hazards

• Or return from Benefits of Organic Farming to Organic Food For Everyone Home Page.