Organically managed soils could reverse effects of climate change
The Rodale Institute has done some amazing science supporting the benefits of organic agriculture, and its new report, entitled “Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change,” maintains this high quality of investigation. The report takes an in-depth look at how farming systems affect greenhouse gas emission and illustrates the benefits that organic agriculture can have on climate change. Specifically, the publication focuses on the ability of soil to mitigate climate change when managed organically.
Findings include a decrease of annual greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent if management of all current cropland transitioned to regenerative organic agriculture. Transitioning global pasture would add to carbon sequestration by 71 percent. “We could sequester more than 100 percent of current annual CO2 emissions with a switch to widely available and inexpensive organic management practices,” the report states.
As the director of science programs at The Organic Center, Jessica Shade concerns herself deeply with finding ways to communicate to the public all of the research-backed health and environmental benefits of organic food and farming.
She’ll be part of a discussion on the science behind organic happening at Natural Products Expo West 2015 in Anaheim, California.
In the meantime, she’s sifted through the literature and collected five studies published this year that have added to the aresenal of evidence supporting organically grown foods.
