Question

Write an Article on Scarcity of organic Vegetables

Answer 1

Food security. Food security is not only a question of the ability to produce food, but also of the ability to access food. Global food production is more than enough to feed the global population, the problem is getting it to the people who need it. In market-marginalized areas, organic farmers can increase food production by managing local resources without having to rely on external inputs or food distribution systems over which they have little control and/or access. It is to be noted that although external agricultural inputs can be substituted by organic management of natural resources, land tenure remains a main constraint to the labour investments needed for organic agriculture. Organic farms grow a variety of crops and livestock in order to optimize competition for nutrients and space between species: this results in less chance of low production or yield failure in all of these simultaneously. This can have an important impact on local food security and resilience. In rain-fed systems, organic agriculture has demonstrated to outperform conventional agricultural systems under environmental stress conditions. Under the right circumstances, the market returns from organic agriculture can potentially contribute to local food security by increasing family incomes.



Organic agriculture and yields.

The performance of organic agriculture on production depends on the previous agricultural management system. An over-simplification of the impact of conversion to organic agriculture on yields indicates that:

In industrial countries, organic systems decrease yields; the range depends on the intensity of external input use before conversion;
In the so-called Green Revolution areas (irrigated lands), conversion to organic agriculture usually leads to almost identical yields;
In traditional rain-fed agriculture (with low-input external inputs), organic agriculture has the potential to increase yields.