Currently, there is great debate about the benefits of organic farming. Critics have argued that its techniques, including the cyclical planting of a wide variety of crops, as well as the use of manure and bone meal as alternatives to chemical fertilizers, are inefficient. They have claimed that organic farming uses more land but produces less food than standard agricultural methods. Advocates of organic farming have insisted that its health and environmental advantages outweigh any shortcomings in output. Agricultural scientists have now demonstrated, however, that the perceived inefficiency of organic growing methods that exists on both sides of the debate is a misconception.
Based on a recent meta-study of almost one hundred farming case studies, researchers have concluded that organic farming is capable of producing sufficient food to feed not only current global populations but also projected future increases. The case studies showed that farms using organic methods were capable of producing 80 per cent of the food quantities achieved using intensive industrial techniques on a similarly-sized plot of land. These outcomes suggest that organic should be the preferred direction for future farming, especially considering the high energy costs of the industrial alternative and its negative effects on species biodiversity and soil quality. What remains to be seen, however, is to what extent organic methods will be taken up in developing countries, where farmers are often encouraged by governments and multinational companies to adopt chemical fertilizers and single-plant crops in order to maximize profit, without thought for the environmental consequences.