Future of Farming is Organic and Solar

In his farming column Ian Pettyfer states that organic farming uses more fossil fuels due to the extra cultivations necessary for rotational farming and organic weed control (“Exhaust used as a fertiliser”, January 16).

It’s certainly correct that organic farming employs more people and requires a wider range of skills to manage the greater diversity of enterprises and crops. Recent research showed that on average organic farms provided 32 per cent more jobs than equivalent non- organic farms.

However it is not true that organic farming uses more fossil fuels. Organic farming is generally a more energy-efficient system of food production than non-organic, mainly because it does not use inorganic nitrogen fertiliser, which is produced from petro- chemicals.

Overall, UK organic farming uses 26 per cent less energy per tonne of food produced.

Non-organic farming takes oil or gas, turns it into nitrogen and then into food – in a sense, we “eat oil”. That was viable before climate change and the end of “cheap oil”. Organic farmers use the sun’s energy to grow clover, fixing nitrogen naturally from the atmosphere.

The sustainable future for food production is neither hydroponics nor genetically-modified, as Ian suggests, but solar-powered, organic food and farming.

Clio Turton

Soil Association

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