My recent writings on GM food crops, including in The Land newspaper last Thursday, have resulted in some emails suggesting that I am wrong and that organics, rather than GM, really are the answer.
I received an email with a link to a paper titled ‘Organic farming stands the test of time’ by David Suzuki published on 5th August:
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/about_us/Dr_David_Suzuki/Article_Archives/weekly08050501.asp
Suzuki suggests that organics use less energy than conventional systems. But then states organics require more labour to remove weeds.
I understand about 70 percent of the labour spent in traditional subsistence organic food production systems in Africa involve women hoeing for weeds. If this type of manual labour is not counted in the energy budget then the calculations are worth nothing.
Suzuki makes mention of the Rodale Institute Farming Systems which are organic.
Their website is here:
http://www.newfarm.org/depts/NFfield_trials/0903/FST.shtml .
I can’t find any data that shows yields in organic versus conventional systems and relative to energy input.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.