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This is the biggest cost of organic farming. Vaclav Smil of the University of Manitoba in
Winnipeg, Canada, estimates that if farmers worldwide gave up the 80 million tonnes of
synthetic fertiliser they now use each year, total grain production would fall by at least
half. Either farmers would have to double the amount of land they cultivate- at catastrophic
cost to natural habitat --or billions of people would starve.
K
That doesn't mean farmers couldn't get by with less fertilizer. Technologically advanced
farmers in wealthy countries, for instance, can now monitor their yields hectare by
hectare, or even more finely, throughout a huge field. They can then target their fertiliser
to the parts of the field where it will do the most good, instead of responding to average
conditions. This increases yield and decreases fertiliser use. Eventually, farmers may -
incorporate long-term weather forecasts into their planning as well, so that they can cut
back on fertiliser use when the weather is likely to make harvests poor anyway, says Ron
Olson, an agronomist with Cargill Fertilizer in Tampa, Florida.
L
Organic techniques certainly have their benefits, especially for poor farmers. But strict
"organic agriculture", which prohibits certain technologies and allows others, isn't always
better for the environment. Take herbicides, for example. These can leach into waterways
and poison both wildlife and people. Just last month, researchers led by Tyrone Hayes at
the University of California at Berkeley found that even low concentrations of atrazine, the
most commonly used weedkiller in the US, can prevent frog tadpoles from developing
properly.
Questions 1 - 4 Use the information in the passage to match the people (listed A-D) with opinions or deeds
below. Write the appropriate letters A-D in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.
A Vaclav Smil
B Bill Liebhardt
