Organic Farming Versus Conventional farming

This is perhaps the hottest debate in agriculture circles…organic or inorganic? First of all what is organic farming? Organic farming is the practice of agriculture without harming the land, water and people involved. It is the type of farming whereby you don’t use chemical fertilizers, herbicides rather natural and more conserving methods are adopted.

Organic farming methods include use of natural ways of solving issues like biological pest control and mulching to curb weed growth.

Differences Between Organic Farming and Conventional Farming

	The Organic Way	The Inorganic Way
To keep and build good soil structure and fertility	Growing legumes, use of manure and compost, crop rotation, bio-fertilisers	Chemical Fertilizers
Control pests, diseases and weeds	Biological pest control, crop rotation, use of resistant seed, natural pesticides and bio-pesticides	Chemical pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and insecticides
Animal Husbandry	Animals are fed organic feed and are allowed outdoors. Preventive measures are used to curb disease like rotational grazing, a balanced diet and hygienic housing	Animals are fed with growth hormones, antibiotics, medications and other chemicals to promote fast growth

Organics and the Environment

It is now obvious that organic farming is the way to go especially in Africa where there is a lot of food insecurity, drought and famine. Organic farming focuses on the environment and how to use it without deteriorating it like conventional means of farming. There is no use of toxic fertilizer, pesticides (fungicides, herbicides, insecticides). These dangerous chemicals threaten the safety of of our underground water systems at the same time causing all kinds of cancers to human people. These chemicals are mostly hydrocarbons thus increasing your carbon footprint by emitting greenhouse gases and applying inorganic substances to the earth.

Organic Food and Health

There is all kinds of information regarding this topic and it angers me to read or hear someone try to say that organic food is not better. This is very obvious, If you give me food with chemical pesticides/herbicides/fungicides/insecticides in it and food with manure, I am gonna take the latter, simple; what about you?

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