Conference Day 1

Here we are at the beautiful Lakeside Center at McCormick Place! Folks are gathering, exhibitors are setting up their booths and buzz is being generated by timely conference topics. The All Things Organic™ conference’s 10:30 a.m. session, "Current Research on the Environmental Benefits of Organic Agriculture," ignited quite a few conversations on the potential far-reaching aspects of organic as a way to reduce the Earth’s carbon footprint.

Presenter Chuck Benbrook of the Organic Center led off the session with an historical timeline of the progression of organic research. From the 1980s focus on soil erosion to today’s concern over on global climate change, organic agriculture has emerged as an effective system with a sustainable relationship to the environment. Benbrook states that organic agriculture has been shown to improve organic matter and the quality of soil and is the most cost effective solution to reduce net greenhouse gases.

Carbon sequestering in the soil translates to reducing harmful carbon and the latest research findings assert that organic agriculture is a natural at doing so.

Kathleen Delate of the Departments of Agronomy and Horticulture at Iowa State University spoke next and presented the scientific results from a long-term study that showed how organic crop rotation versus conventional agriculture’s use of pesticides produced a soil quality higher in carbon, nitrogen and a host of micronutrients while sustaining similar yields.

Carbon is crucial for mitigating global climate change. After 9 years of organic management, the data indicate that organic soils have the ability to hold higher levels of carbon than soils used in conventional agriculture, with the added benefit of a price premium for farmers that averages 2-3 times higher than conventional crops.

Details of the study can be found at http://extension.agron.iastate.edu/organicag/ under the title Comparison of Organic and Conventional Crops at the Neely-Kinyon Long-term Agroecological Research (LTAR) Site, 2008.

Timothy LaSalle Ph.D. CEO of the Rodale Institute followed with a passionate presentation on why organic farming is a solution to global warming. The Rodale Institute’s Farming Systems Trial (FST) is the longest-running side-by-side comparison of organic and conventional farming systems in the U.S. It has documented the benefits of an integrated systems approach to farming using regenerative organic practices to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide by pulling it from the air and storing it in the soil as carbon.

LaSalle cautions that while organic agriculture intrinsically holds the key, the challenges it faces in the political arena are its most daunting. Although the acreage that uses organic practices has increased exponentially, it is still 5 percent of the total farm acreage in the U.S. At that level, he says, organic agriculture cannot be a major player.

Still, the hope for a paradigm shift awaits and, by consumers demanding more organic products and the infusion of research money thanks for the 2008 Farm Bill, there is momentum. The panel stressed that it’s up to the taxpayers, that’s you out there, to make sure the money allocated for this research is spent appropriately, so keep up with the news and stay tuned from more here at the Chicago Show.