Is Organic Sustainable?

The philosophy adopted while laying the foundations of organic agriculture was based on principles that no one would say no to, such as protecting future generations in agriculture, having water, saving energy, and protecting labor.

Transgenic (GMO) and organic farming have come to the fore in the last 30-40 years in world agriculture. The first occupies 15% of the cultivated land, the second 1.5%.

Organic farming markets are becoming more widespread as their contents are developed. European and US markets represent almost 95% of the world markets with 58 billion and 57 billion dollars.

Of course, all parts of these markets came to these parts with certain series. For example, a 12% scene was captured in Europe in 2021 compared to the previous season. The Covid-19 epidemic has certainly played a role in this. However, in 2022, there was a decrease, not a season. The situation changed, with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 having significant monitoring knock-on effects on EU school member economies. Trade disruptions and increased consumption caused by energy costs and food prices are increasing their consumption. To save money, many consumers chose to buy cheaper food products, and in 2022 the organic market forecast fell by 5%. Because of this event, our title “Is Organic Sustainable?” was formed.

This development may revise the long-term regulations of the EU organic market, and the European Commission’s Green Deal strategy. Aiming to fundamentally change the way EU agriculture works and food production for EU consumers, the EU’s scope of this strategy aimed to eliminate CO₂ emissions by Christmas 2030, reduce chemical pesticides by 50% to improve energy consumption, and eliminate the use of fertilizers by at least 20% by Christmas. It also planned to increase organic production and consumption to reach 25 percent of organic farmland in the EU by 2030.

A very dry summer, low fertilizer supplies, energy demonstrations, and a 12 percent and 16 percent drop in staple crops such as sunflower and corn, respectively, took the European agriculture sector by storm (1). Continuing food security protection through the war Poland, Spain, and Hungary have taken action to change the declines in the EU’s “From Farm to Fork” organic farming practices.

Organic farming is also being promoted in other parts of the world. In the USA, 15% of vegetables and fruits are obtained from organic farming. In fact, the end of the organic small family business has recently been adopted by medium businesses. The shift from organic agriculture to larger lands was almost regulatory. Larger farms have a big advantage over small farms from a tillage point of view. They are expanding their capital to invest in machinery necessary for the solution of small business labor and tillage. Already in the USA, 97% of large farms were mechanized, while businesses with these small numbers remained at 54%.

In the spring of 2021, President Rajapaksa took a poorly understood decision, despite warnings from a group of scientists and agronomists: He banned the import of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides almost overnight, forcing Sri Lanka’s millions of farmers to engage in organic farming in one place. NGOs that advocate the defense of organic agriculture and are actively influenced by many international groups have a great influence on this decision. However, this fertilizer-free and pesticide-free organic farming has resulted in product losses of up to 50%, especially in controls such as wheat and paddy.

In addition to the two-three-year land preparation, the state support is protective in organic agriculture, where less product is obtained than the conventional product. The commodities businesses made by the three researchers by scanning the publications around the world are displayed in the chart where the six categories of producers display a 3 to 33% difference according to the conventional-organic product difference percentages.

Provisions that put forward some suggestions on behalf of the said closure difference. So how can plant breeders’ clothes survive? With classical plant breeding, the construction of new, resistant varieties requires many years. Therefore, the new strategy for targets of suitable genotypes seems to govern the deployment of new technologies.

While the standards of organic bees were determined, non-GMO production, which was one of the controversial issues of that period, was added to the regulations. The use of GMO cultivars resistant to corn stem borer, which started in the USA in 1996, has increased to over 90% in the 2020s. Thus, 200 gr per hectare. the discarded drug has been reset. How can the “organic agriculture of GMO corn” be rejected with straight logic, which resets the use of chemical pesticides and compensates for the loss of yield in that organic agriculture? Both organic agriculture and agricultural biotechnology visionaries around the world have sought solutions to future food problems, arguing that some old and outdated guidelines should be renewed. For example, when Tijeniro et al. says “Genetically Modified Organisms Can Be Organic”, they state that there is no need for economic, environmental, nutritional, and food safety concerns about GMOs in organic agriculture. should present information and emphasize the added value of the use of GMOs in organic agriculture, the current policy that GMOs cannot be included in organic food production is outdated”. The legislation allowing GMOs in organic agriculture and the policy on this issue should be changed. It would be appropriate to make seed production at the same standards in GMO and organic agriculture. Genetically modified organisms should provide a sustainable solution to conventional farming by increasing crop yields and reducing the number of pesticides and herbicides used, allowing GMOs to fall under the definition of organic.

There is no GMO production in many countries. For this reason, even though these issues seem far from them, it is necessary to be ready to brainstorm on this subject. As a result, we have to embrace new technologies for the food security of tomorrow. In the first stage, it is necessary to enlighten society on this issue, and especially to inform the decision-making bodies.

Nazimi Acikgoz

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