Sustainable Farming: How to Make the Transition

In which ways does agriculture affect our environment and our daily lives? Read the introductory post to this series here. Part 1 explored the theme of water, part 2 focused on soil fertility, part 3 investigated biodiversity under organic & conventional farming systems while part 4 controversially discussed climate protection through conventional vs. organic farming. In part 5, I shed light on the question of climate adaption as a key technology of the future and part 6 focused on resource efficiency under conventional vs. organic farming. Finally, part 7 addressed the issue of animal welfare in today’s farming systems. Now let’s found out how to transition towards more sustainable farming!

Concluding the matter

If you’ve been following this series from the beginning, you’ll probably know what I’m about to conclude in this comparison of organic & conventional farming. I truly support organic over conventional farming. Organic farming offers a solution to not only one, isolated part of our modern-day environmental (and social) problems. Rather, organic farming is about a whole different system approach. Its set of principles helps to prevent environmental damage and regenerate our planet.

Organic farming is not a flawless system. Nothing on this Earth is perfect! But it definitely gives answers to the urgent problems we are facing today.

So, how do we transition to organic farming? And how do we choose what’s right for us?

Does organic equal organic?

Just a few words about the different organic labels that exist today. Some common labels include the EU organic label and the USDA organic label. These are sometimes criticized for their low standards compared with the original idea of organic farming. This is true to some extent. If it’s available to you, buy organic products that are labelled by stricter organizations, such as Bioland, Naturland, Demeter (mainly in Germany) or the soon to come regenerative organic certification. Also, I recommend sourcing your organic products from farmer’s markets. Or, even, better, from a farmer you know and trust (maybe even a Community Supported Agriculture?). But by any means: buy organic, even if it’s “just” labelled EU or USDA organic. I believe it is almost always better to buy organic than conventional products.

Ultimately, increasing demand for organic will eventually motivate more farmers to transition towards organic farming. More farmers also means more experience and knowledge shared, which shoud improve farming methods.

Why is organic more expensive?

If it’s that clear and scientifically proven that organic is better for the environment, then why aren’t more people producing or buying it? One reasons certainly is the price.

Organic products are generally more expensive than conventional ones. But why is that so?

The reason for this is that yields are lower in organic farming (by about 25%).

And the reason why yields are lower is that organic farmers do not use synthetic fertilizers to boost their crops – which, as you might remember, leads to cleaner drinking water. Also, organic farmers are not allowed to use synthetic pesticides. This can significantly reduce yields in case a parasite attacks. More abundant weeds in the field (due to a lack of herbicide use) also lead to lower yields. But the positive „side-effects“ of this are cleaner water, soil and air, less toxics in our food & environment and more biodiversity.

Something that is, in my opinion, not only worth the additional cost, but absolutely necessary for a sustainable future on our planet.

Why is conventional so cheap?

Which brings me to my next point. The well-being of people and nature are evidently at risk from the exploitative and unsustainable farming system as we often see it.

And the cheapness of our current production system is only possible because it builds on cheap energy, fossil fuels (of which we will run out sooner or later), cheap labour and quick fixes such as synthetic pesticides. The economic damage to our environment is not counted into the prices we see on supermarket shelves.

Cheap groceries are, so to speak, a short-lived illusion. They fail to represent the true cost of food production.

But eventually, we will have to transition to more sustainable, and more expensive ways of production.

Public money for public goods

Therefore, governments must aid this transition by paying public money (our money as tax-payers!) for public goods such as clean water & air, soil fertility, biodiversity, climate protection & adaption, natural resources, animal welfare… all that we’ve discussed so far.

In other words, if people aren’t able (or willing) to pay the full, true, and fair price for groceries, governments have to pay farmers to be able to produce sustainably. Because farmers, too, have to make a worthy living from what they grow on their farms and for what they do for our planet’s wellbeing!

Basically, policy-makers can create stricter regulations to enforce more sustainable & fair farming methods (this is sometimes necessary, but is a less efficient method and creates a heavy load of bureaucracy for the farmers). In addition, governments can invest in scientific research to help promote more sustainability. And of course, they can reward particular eco-friendly practices and incentivize farmers to transition from conventional to organic farming.

How to transition towards organic?

Governments are increasingly becoming aware of these issues and are particularly supporting the transition towards organic farming. But not enough, yet!

Just one example is the fact that 99% of all spending for farming-related scientific research is directed towards conventional agriculture. Just 1% is invested in researching & improving organic farming.

Yet, scientific research is the precondition for expanding and enhancing organic farming!

Until governments realize their full responsibility for transitioning towards more sustainable farming, we can do what only the people can do:

What can we do?

Vote with your dollars (or euros, or whatever): buy organic as much as possible (in the final part of this series, I’ll write about creative ideas on how to save money while food shopping, if organic is too expensive for you)
Vote for people who take environmental & social concerns seriously
Pray for wisdom for decision-makers, governments, and people in authority
Share your knowledge with others. If these articles have inspired you, share them with friends or talk to them about what you’ve learned
Campaign for organic
Use your influence: if you are able to influence decisions on whether organic or conventional products are bought, make the case for organic (be inspired by Copenhagen’s public canteens, where 89% of food is organic, without the budget having increased)
Support and get to know your local farmers: many farmers would like to work in a more sustainable way, but cannot afford it
Lastly, be inspired by those who already made the transition towards organic!