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Organic and global warming
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<blockquote data-quote="badaxemoo" data-source="post: 346735" data-attributes="member: 3926"><p>Got a link on that one, Dun?</p><p></p><p>I think the key word in that paragraph is that organic farming might be worse in <strong>some</strong> cases. </p><p></p><p>In the area where I live, the organic dairy farms generally really on pasture to a greater degree than the conventional dairy farms that feed out more grain. Pastures sequester carbon. The production of annual grains releases more carbon than is sequestered by growing plants.</p><p></p><p>There are gigantic confinement dairies like Aurora Dairy in Colorado that are certified organic that feed a heavy grain and stored forage ration, and I doubt that their CO2 footprint is any lighter than a conventional farm. The growth of <em>Industrial Organic</em> is a challenge to people like myself who care about sustainable agriculture.</p><p></p><p>Organic farms around here rely more on animal power to harvest forage than conventional farms that mechanically harvest forage and bring it to the animals. They rely less on commercial sources of nitrogen that take large amounts of fossil fuel energy to produce. On the negative side, production of annual organic crops might require more tillage (which releases CO2), but overall organic farms produce a lot less CO2 than conventional ones.</p><p></p><p><a href="http://www.newfarm.org/depts/NFfield_trials/1003/carbonsequest.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.newfarm.org/depts/NFfield_tr ... uest.shtml</a> </p><p></p><p>While I'm sure many organic farmers started farming this way for ethical reasons, they can continue to do it because the organic price is nearly twice that of conventional and their input costs tend to be lower. Where I live, it makes sense from an economic and environmental perspective.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="badaxemoo, post: 346735, member: 3926"] Got a link on that one, Dun? I think the key word in that paragraph is that organic farming might be worse in [b]some[/b] cases. In the area where I live, the organic dairy farms generally really on pasture to a greater degree than the conventional dairy farms that feed out more grain. Pastures sequester carbon. The production of annual grains releases more carbon than is sequestered by growing plants. There are gigantic confinement dairies like Aurora Dairy in Colorado that are certified organic that feed a heavy grain and stored forage ration, and I doubt that their CO2 footprint is any lighter than a conventional farm. The growth of [i]Industrial Organic[/i] is a challenge to people like myself who care about sustainable agriculture. Organic farms around here rely more on animal power to harvest forage than conventional farms that mechanically harvest forage and bring it to the animals. They rely less on commercial sources of nitrogen that take large amounts of fossil fuel energy to produce. On the negative side, production of annual organic crops might require more tillage (which releases CO2), but overall organic farms produce a lot less CO2 than conventional ones. [url=http://www.newfarm.org/depts/NFfield_trials/1003/carbonsequest.shtml]http://www.newfarm.org/depts/NFfield_tr ... uest.shtml[/url] While I'm sure many organic farmers started farming this way for ethical reasons, they can continue to do it because the organic price is nearly twice that of conventional and their input costs tend to be lower. Where I live, it makes sense from an economic and environmental perspective. [/QUOTE]
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