BOOK REVIEW: Global Development of Organic Agriculture: Challenges and Prospects
Article (PDF Available) · December 2007 with 22 Reads
(PDF) BOOK REVIEW: Global Development of Organic Agriculture: Challenges and Prospects. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/277233936_BOOK_REVIEW_Global_Development_of_Organic_Agriculture_Challenges_and_Prospects
--
John Paull
University of Tasmania
BOOK REVIEWGlobal Development of Organic Agriculture: Challenges and ProspectsEdited by N. Halberg, H. F. Alroe, M.T. Knudsen and E.S. Kristensen. CABI Publishing, Wallingford, UK. <www.cabi.org>. May 2006. 380 pages, £55, ISBN 1 84593 078 9.
--
Journal of Organic Systems – Vol.2 No.2, 2007, 57-5857 ISSN 1177-4258
--
“ … the organic standards and control systems themselves can be a barrier that hinders the potential growth and spread of organic farming” (p. 77).
Global Development of Organic Agriculture is valuable for its both explicit and implicit championing of the diversity of organic agriculture systems - and in particular, its acknowledgment of the legitimacy and value of both certified and non-certified organics. In this, it serves as a useful foil to the fortress organics mentality that sees non-certified organics as some kind of impostor or threat to “the brand”. This book takes as a starting premise the legitimacy and value of both strands of organics, and proceeds from there.One of the remarkable, as well as exemplary, things about this new publication from the Danish Research Centre for Organic Food and Farming (DARCOF) is that five of the twelve chapters are available for free download <www.ecowiki.org/GlobalPerspective>. Brief summaries of a further two chapters are available at <www.orgprints.org>.
Despite the ambitious title, this book presents a Eurocentric view of the topic. Global Development of Organic Agriculture is the fruit of what the editors call a “knowledge synthesis” (p. xi) workshop by DARCOF (the acronym is generated from the Danish). Two of the chapters are written by congregations of six authors; in total there are 33 contributing authors, half are from Denmark, most are from continental Europe, none are from Asia, Oceania or the Pacific.
The editors report that Global Development of Organic Agriculture was “initiated by five key questions”:1. “Can organic production contribute to global food security? How?2. Can organic production in developing countries contribute to a sustainable development? How?3. Can organic certification protect natural resources, improve work conditions, etc.? How?4. Can a fair global trade with organic products be realized? How?5. Can organic research in high-income countries benefit organic agriculture in low-income countries? How?” (p. xii).
Chapter 1 reports that Oceania accounts for 42% of the global area under organic management; and that Australia leads the world with 11,300,000 organic hectares (p. 27) - that is nearly four times the area reported by number 2, Argentina, and twelve times the area of USA organics (the authors use Willer & Yussefi, 2005 data, available at <www.soel.de>).
Other than this fleeting mention, Oceania, Australia and New Zealand are noticeable by their absence, and do not figure in the index - in contrast, Bhutan receives three index-entries. This chapter includes interesting case studies of the beef trade/deforestation nexus in Brazil, and of GM soy crops in Argentina and the concomitant rapid rise of herbicide usage - with Fig 1.8 showing the increases of GM soy hectares closely tracked by glyphosate usage increases from 1996 to 2004.
Chapter 3, a web-available chapter, Organic agriculture and ecological justice: ethics and practice could instructively be read by those in Australia currently proposing mandatory certification. Alroe et al. write that: “… non-certified food systems may be more in line with the organic values and principles than certified systems, because the latter face direct pressures of market
competition and globalization that threaten to move organic food systems towards conventional systems, or in ways that are similar to conventional systems, and away from its original values and principles” (p. 102).
In Chapter 6: Certified and non-certified organic farming in the developing world, Parrott et al. present two informative SWOT analyses of organic farming, one from “a small farmerʼs perspective” and the second from “an institutional perspective” (p. 173, 174). They suggest that uncertified organic farms, especially in the developing world, lead to under-reporting of organic statistics, a kind of iceberg effect.The final chapter observes that: “The two strands of OA, certified and non-certified, offer different opportunities and prospects, which should be dealt with consciously by the organic farming movement” (p. 364). The rather cumbersome acronym NC-OA (non-certified organic agriculture) is proposed, “as a concept specifically suited for promoting and protection of organic agricultural production, which is marketed locally without premium prices” (p. 358) - confounding localness and price.Cosmologists will be tickled to read of “worldsʼ … ” (p. 330), geographers to learn that “Ukraine and China are the major certified organic producers in Asia” (p. 28), and grammarians may choke on the cringeworthy: “possibility for premia prices” (p. 173).
Some readers will be irritated by chapters chopping and changing between OA (organic agriculture) and OF (organic farming) without apparent distinction. This “knowledge synthesis” tome is further synthesized for readers in Chapter 12: Synthesis: Perspectives for organic agriculture in a global context - and there is a recommendation in the Preface (p. xi) to begin with the Chapter 12: Synthesis (which is available on the www).
Global Development of Organic Agriculture is a worthy contribution to the organics literature. However the tone is timid rather than bold, and the conclusions (p. 363-365) tentative and insipid, rather than vibrant and challenging. For example, a “challenge” is: “The major challenge in livestock production systems is to think the organic principles into a wide range of of diverse systems with very different conditions” (p. 364). A “prospect” (called “promise” in the www version) is: “Non-certified OA methods should be developed to accommodate the specific agro-ecological conditions including soil types” (p. 364). Absent is a full-frontal account of such biting challenges, to both local and global organics, as GMOs, nanotechnology, cashed-up chemical companies, green-revolution technocrats, corruptible bureaucrats, the consumer-inadequate (sometimes misleading and deceptive) food labelling, the migration of standards to government, the erosion-of-concept (e.g. USDAʼs organic = 95% organic rule and the EU 0.9% GM rule), and the corporatisation of the supply chain, just to mention a few. And this vis a vis the hopes and desires of Mr. & Mrs. Ug Boot the world over, who are trying, and sometimes desperately, and in the shadow of malfeasance by omission and commission, to feed their children, with preferably and demonstrably wholesome food and beverages.Five interesting questions have been raised to precipitate discussion and debate - to be addressed and explored rather than be definitively answered - and in this regard the book is successful. Global Development of Organic Agriculture, despite having an out-of-Europe feel, is an interesting and useful contribution to the literature of organic agriculture, and it is a worthy addition to any library with an agriculture, organics or world-development focus.
John Paull1 Journal of Organic Systems – Vol.2 No.2, 2007, 57-58
=============
“Global Development of Organic Agriculture: Challenges and Prospects”
Mrinila SINGH Masters Student
Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation Hiroshima University, 1-5-1 Kagamiyama Higashi Hiroshima, 739-8529 singh_mrinila@hotmail.com
Keshav Lall MAHARJAN Professor
Graduate School for International Development and Cooperation Hiroshima University, 1-5-1 Kagamiyama Higashi Hiroshima, 739-8529 mkeshav@hiroshima-u.ac.jp
The book titled ‘Global Development of Organic Agriculture: Challenges and Prospects’ is published by CABI Publishing in the year 2006. N. Halberg, H. F. Alroe, M. T. Knudsen and E. S. Kristensen are the editors of this book. This book is mainly the outcome of an international workshop: ‘Organic farming in a global perspective – globalization, sustainable development and ecological justice’ which was held in Copenhagen in 2004. On the basis of presentation by experts from USA, Sweden, Austria, The Netherlands and Denmark; and the discussions and group work which followed; Danish experts along with other international experts synthesized the knowledge on organic agriculture from a global perspective in this book.
As the title of the book implies, the purpose of reading it was to understand the global scenario of organic agriculture: how the practices are similar or differs given the socio-economic, political and ecological variation; what are the opportunities and challenges brought by globalization; who are the beneficiaries and payer of such market development; and finally what are the constraints in the overall scenario of organic agriculture development.
The book, in my opinion, has been able to satisfy the expectation readers will have given its splendid title. It includes vast
aspects of organic agriculture system and emphasizes on how it is experiencing technological and structural changes in the face of globalization. Surely organic agriculture has been expanding in both developed and developing countries, owing much to the environmental and health concerns or simply to take benefit from the high-priced niche market. Even so it faces tremendous challenges which vary from high-income countries with modern farming techniques and growing preferences, to low-income countries characterized by smallholder farmers and resource-poor consumers. This book tries to highlight the issues surrounding organic agriculture in the modern world from the perspective of ‘sustainability, food security and fair trade’.
The book starts off with the global trend in agriculture and food system. In order to clarify its stance on the damage brought upon by industrialized food production system, it presents cases of soybean-soil depletion effect in Argentina and beef productiondeforestation relation in Brazil. The fact that the compensation rate for Argentina for the depleted soil nutrients as a result of increase in soybean production and fertilizer use with mineral fertilizers will be ‘around 1.1 million t of phosphorous fertilizers and an amount of 330 million American dollars to buy it in the international market’ (p.23) is quiet alarming. It is particularly interesting when it is simultaneously claimed that it exports around 3.5 million t of nutrients without actually reflecting the ecological cost in the market prices.
Numerous other examples from across the globe has been provided to shed light on the kind of problems countries have been
facing given their specific characteristics. A case in Uganda shows how two Ugandan companies benefited by consolidating in a fair trade arrangement with Danish/European market to process and export organic fruit. It also provides an insight on the
Journal of International Development and Cooperation, Vol.19, No.1, 2012, pp. 51-53
---
complications which are pointed out as lack of adequate financing, management skills, consistency in workforce, logistics, difficulty in partnership and cooperation, and cultural differences. It can be of specific interest as it reflects on what kind of difficulties smallholder farmers in developing countries is likely to face when integrated into global market.
In case of recycling nutrients from urban wastes, the book provides couple of examples from various countries such as China, India, Botswana, South Africa, Malaysia, Australia, Sweden and Norway where applied cost effective technologies along with the barriers are also explained. This will benefit other developing countries to replicate the technology or modify it according to their specific context and get the glimpse of the associated problems beforehand, which probably will help them to prepare better.
The book also argues about political ecology, ecological justice, ecological economics and free trade and relates with how
organic agriculture can contribute to each of these aspects. Ecological justice is a concept wherein social and ecological justices are given high priority than market liberalism and economic growth. The idea of shared responsibility for livelihoods and environments or commons-based government, as termed in this book, has been proposed to resist the pressure of globalization and associated structural and technological developments. Commodification of commons, externalization of environmental and social costs, and the growing distance of trade and ownership has been identified as three key challenges in the light of ecological justice. Ecological justice can be put into practice through organic agriculture by way of fair trade, following nearness principle, identifying organic production zone and produce to create awareness and bolster community, creating sustainability and justice through ecological footprint approaches and measures of socio-ecological performance that are built on principles of equity and sustainability through the creation of series of social institutions, and prioritizing non-certified organic agriculture as well to avoid imposing the burden of Western-style certification. Another concept of ecological economics (EE) has also been conceptualized in this book which is basically the interrelationship between the ecological, economic and social systems. These should be the basis for future policy tools but the authors claim to have done very little globally in harmonizing and sustaining these interrelations.
It also reflects on importance of certification to get access to price premium in an international market but also criticizes that such global uniform standards might not be designed to blend with different cultural and natural conditions in different regions, thus concluding that ‘organic standards and control systems themselves can be a barrier that hinders the potential growth and spread of organic farming’ (p.77). With this it moves on to emphasize on non-certified organic production for local consumption. At present long distance trade and large corporate retails‘ control dominates the global food market. ’Low price, demand for larger quantity, standardization, specialization and high production efficiency and productivity` has been the essence of globalization. But such system has a repercussion through pollution of surface and groundwater with nitrates and pesticides, increased emission, loss of biodiversity, soil degradation and declining animal well-being. Certainly it has benefited food security of industrialized countries and few developing countries like China; but has also increased agricultural system and population gap, especially when compared to developing countries like Africa. The local farming system of developing countries are unable to compete with subsidy backed, lower priced surplus food production from market such as Europe. Thus, organic farming (OF) offers a more sustainable practice in this regard. OF is in a growing trend where about 100 countries are already practicing it. Trade in organic food throughout the world has been increasing, especially from South to North where developing countries like Brazil, Egypt and Uganda are now exporting to Europe and North America. Even though this provides a good prospect for developing countries, OF is in a greater risk than ever before of being pushed towards a conventional farming model backed by specialization, capital intensification, export orientation rather than local, increased processing, packaging and long-distance transporting. This has jeopardized the very fundamental elements of OF. Besides if not for export-orientation, OF can also improve production of marginalized smallholders as an uncertified production for local consumption. Prioritizing this aspect of organic system will, to some extent, lessen the environmental burden through less transportation, thus keeping up with the core feature of organic farming. Thus, the book prioritizes both certified and non-certified organic farming which holds its own priority in different section of the market.
It has also shed light on dynamic growth of organic sector both formal and informal, by specifically emphasizing on the unknown
extent of the latter to realize that organic share is far more greater than presently realized. Thus the authors call for prioritizing on knowledge synthesis over identifying new research programs with active involvement from the South. This will help to generate information from those who already have prior knowledge of local networks, practices and priorities to address the most pressing issues for organic research in developing countries and disseminate the information who need it the most, i.e. resource-poor farmers.
Another aspect of organic farming, as mentioned in the book, is its potential to contribute to sustainable development by recycling domestic and household waste through the integration of urban settlements with rural communities. Although there are
---
some limitations to ecological sanitation system, it also demonstrates already proven technologies that can be adopted or improved in a new management system along with associated risks. It also discusses the pragmatic solution to revive the soil fertility in subSaharan Africa (SSA) through OF along with other approaches like high external input agriculture (HEIA), low external input sustainable agriculture (LEISA), or integrated soil fertility management (ISFM). Applying one solution to all will not bring same results throughout the diverse circumstances of SSA and so it has been suggested to adopt HEIA and certified organic system in areas that have favorable agro-climatic conditions and market access and follow LEISA or ISFM approaches in areas having lower potential or poor access. Moreover the best solution would be the one through which farmers can make profit, accept risk, feasible to specific context, and economically, environmentally and socially sustainable.
The book also discusses about organic approach to livestock production systems with particular focus on veterinary treatment
and disease control. Animals should be allowed to perform in their natural behavior and it has argued on the use of indigenous breeds, role of vaccination, traditional medicine and alternatives to biomedical treatment and other methods to manage disease. Conversely it also mentions that the development of OF must not threaten local and regional disease control programmes especially when diseases are zoonotic in nature, highly infectious and have huge economic significance. The major challenges in terms of disease control are endemic diseases, large flocks/herds and how they use land under the given conditions and other economic, political, cultural, historical, climatic and vegetation factors. This is backed by the cases in Uganda and Bhutan where organic system (mainly default or traditional system) of livestock production are implemented but are also challenged with outbreak/ transmission of disease because of the natural setting or free movement of animals.
One of the most pressing issues of the potential of OF to contribute to food security has been discussed as well. It argued that the relative yield of OF will depend on socio-economic and agro-ecological factors, and the characteristics of farming system before conversion. As indicated by the food policy model IMPACT, approximately 50% conversion of Europe/North America (E/ NA) agricultural land will result in 35% lower yields after conversion, 50% higher yield growth rate compared to conventional crop yield and will have 6-10% impact on world prices of non-meat agricultural commodities. But in case of SSA the result seems quite positive where the same percent of land conversion will have increased self-sufficiency and decreased net food import to the region if non-certified OF is supported by capacity building and research programs. With this point the book concludes by emphasizing on importance of research for organic food and farming, especially in the South which is severely under-researched compared to the North where organic farming policies, practices and institutions are comprehensively studied. It calls for studying the social conditions under which organic farming is evolving in the South and how national or regional policies and regulations are contributing to it. It also highlights how the course of movement in the South is highly driven by Northern institutions which might not actually reflect the Southern realities and thus needs to be seriously reformed. It is worth noting at this point that out of 33 contributing authors, about half are from Denmark and most of the others from continental Europe, with none from Asia, Oceania or Pacific (Paull, 2007). This implies that the book itself lacks representative authors from various parts of the world, thus limiting their opinions to some extent as well. However, it also provides brief information on international organizations working for promotion of this sector which will probably help readers to refer to for deepening their knowledge.
Organic farming though has different set of principles from the mainstream farming, is not completely free from the chaos of
globalization. This book gives us insight on various aspects of organic agriculture throughout the world. It provides a fine picture of the ground-reality of OF from developed as well as developing countries. It has tried to provide pragmatic answers to the given problem by assessing the situation therein and called for a more extensive study in other areas. Moreover it makes the reader realize that there is no one-solution-fits-all to the vast areas which are characterized by their unique natural, social, environmental and political setting. In this regard research has been given a high priority which should be context-specific for making the approach sustainable in every way possible.
Paul (2007) has also provided the links through which five of the twelve chapters can be accessed and brief summaries of further two chapters which are respectively listed below: • www.ecowiki.org/GlobalPerspective • www.orgprints.org
Work Cited
Paull, J. (2007). Book Review-Global Development of Organic Agriculture: Challenges and Prospects. Journal of Organic Systems, 2(2), 57-58.
