Reganold analyzed 40 years of available data and focused on how organic farming impacts several types of sustainability: productivity, impact on the environment, economic viability and social wellbeing.
“If I had to put it in one sentence, organic agriculture has been able to provide jobs, be profitable, benefit the soil and environment and support social interactions between farmers and consumers,” Reganold says. “In some ways, there are practices in organic agriculture that really are ideal blueprints for us to look at feeding the world in the future.”
Organic may even be our best bet to help feed the world in an increasingly volatile climate, he says.
At first, this might sound unlikely, given that the crop yields of organic agriculture are typically 10-20% lower than conventional. That’s because conventional growers can use synthetic fertilizers, most of which aren’t allowed in organic food production. “When farmers add fertilizers, those nutrients are immediately available to the plant, and the plants can grow faster,” Reganold explains. Organic crops, on the other hand, are fertilized by organic matter like compost or animal manure, which takes more time to decompose and release its nutrients. (This slow, steady approach is called building the soil.)