The very worst thing about organic farming requires the use of a word that doomsaying environmentalists have practically trademarked: It's not sustainable. Few activities are as wasteful as organic farming. Its yields are about half of what conventional farmers expect at harvest time. Norman Borlaug, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his agricultural innovations, has said, "You couldn't feed more than 4 billion people" on an allorganic diet.
If organic-food consumers think they're making a political statement when they eat, they're correct: They're declaring themselves to be not only friends of population control, but also enemies of environmental conservation. About half the world's land area that isn't covered with ice or sand is devoted to food production. Modern farming techniques have enabled this limited supply to produce increasing quantities of food. Yields have fattened so much in the last few decades that people refer to this phenomenon as the "Green Revolution," a term that has nothing to do with enviro-greenies and everything to do with improvements in breeding, fertilization, and irrigation. Yet even greater challenges lie ahead, because demographers predict that world population will rise to 9 billion by 2050. "The key is to produce more food," says Alex Avery of CGFI. "Growing more per acre leaves more land for nature." The alternative is to chop down rainforests so that we may dine on organic soybeans.
