An Organic Recipe for Development
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Organic agriculture is a potent tool to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, but also to alleviate poverty and improve food security in developing countries, many experts now believe.
Organic agriculture’s use of compost and crop diversity means it will also be able to better withstand the higher temperatures and more variable rainfall expected with global warming.
“Organic agriculture is about optimising yields under all conditions,” says Louise Luttikholt, strategic relations manager at the International Federation of Organic Agriculture (IFOAM) in Bonn, Germany. IFOAM is the international umbrella organisation of organic agriculture movements around the world.
For example, a village in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia that had converted to organic agriculture continued to harvest crops even during a severe drought, while neighbouring villages using conventional chemical fertilisers had nothing, Luttikholt told IPS.
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