Organic agriculture and the global food supply
Organic agriculture and the global food supply
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DOI：
10.1017/s1742170507001640
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发表时间：
2007-06-01
影响因子：
2.7
通讯作者：
Perfecto, Ivette
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Badgley, Catherine;Moghtader, Jeremy;Perfecto, Ivette
有机农业可以对全球粮食供应作出重大贡献这一主张的主要反对意见是产量低，有机可接受化肥的数量不足。我们评估了这两种说法的普遍性。对于第一个主张，我们比较了293个例子的全球数据集的有机与常规或低密集度粮食生产的产量，并估计了发达国家和发展中国家不同食物类别的平均产量比(有机：非有机)。就大多数食品类别而言，发达国家的平均产出率略高于1.0，发展中国家的平均产出率仅为1.0。根据平均收获率，我们模拟了可以在当前农业土地基础上有机种植的全球粮食供应。模型估计表明，有机方法可以在不增加农业土地基础的情况下，在全球人均基础上生产足够的粮食，以维持目前的人口，并有可能养活更多的人口。我们还评估了豆科覆盖作物用作肥料的潜在固氮量。来自温带和热带农业生态系统的数据表明，豆科覆盖作物可以固定足够的氮素，以取代目前使用的合成化肥。这些结果表明，有机农业有可能对全球粮食供应做出相当大的贡献，同时减少传统农业对环境的有害影响。对这篇论文的评估和审查提出了关于有机农业和常规农业下的作物轮作和灰色文献来源的可靠性的重要问题。关于这些主题的持续对话见论坛关于这一问题的社论。
The principal objections to the proposition that organic agriculture can contribute significantly to the global food supply are low yields and insufficient quantities of organically acceptable fertilizers. We evaluated the universality of both claims. For the first claim, we compared yields of organic versus conventional or low-intensive food production for a global dataset of 293 examples and estimated the average yield ratio (organic: non-organic) of different food categories for the developed and the developing world. For most food categories, the average yield ratio was slightly < 1.0 for studies in the developed world and > 1.0 for studies in the developing world. With the average yield ratios, we modeled the global food supply that could be grown organically on the current agricultural land base. Model estimates indicate that organic methods could produce enough food on a global per capita basis to sustain the current human population, and potentially an even larger population, without increasing the agricultural land base. We also evaluated the amount of nitrogen potentially available from fixation by leguminous cover crops used as fertilizer. Data from temperate and tropical agroecosystems suggest that leguminous cover crops could fix enough nitrogen to replace the amount of synthetic fertilizer currently in use. These results indicate that organic agriculture has the potential to contribute quite substantially to the global food supply, while reducing the detrimental environmental impacts of conventional agriculture. Evaluation and review of this paper have raised important issues about crop rotations under organic versus conventional agriculture and the reliability of grey-literature sources. An ongoing dialogue on these subjects can be found in the Forum editorial of this issue.