How can the spread of disease be controlled in organic crop farms and why aren’t GMOs an option to combat this issue?
By Sigurd Bjørn & Henry Stoner
The use of pesticides, fertilisers, and genetic modification in conventional farming is what contributes to high and consistent yields that can meet the demands of today. Organic farming, however, does not use any of these elements, leading to inconsistent crop yields that cannot always meet consumer requirements.
One of the main issues with organic crop farms is the spreading and control of disease within these farms. In conventional farming, this is combatted with the use of pesticides, fertilisers, and genetic modification, but if any of these methods are used, the crops produced can no longer be sold as organic.
Disease is one of the main contributors to the larger variation of yield from organic farms versus conventional ones, so finding a solution could help solve the problem and increase food security.
Not all hope is lost, though, as a method called intercropping has proven effective in reducing the outbreak of diseases.
Intercropping; A Potential Solution?
Not all farmer’s land needs to be devoted to a single crop; a patch of land can accommodate many different crops at once.
Asger Edlund, a student who is currently studying at Kalø Organic Agricultural College, said that “you don’t have to have a hectare of one thing, you can have that hectare split up into four.” This is called intercropping and is becoming increasingly popular with organic farmers to mitigate the spread of disease and pests.
The different sections of one hectare can have crops such as wheat and soybeans, and one of the many advantages of a system like this is that “they will help each other in pest and disease control,” said Edlund.
According to this article published in ScienceDirect, the way intercropping helps control pests is by limiting them to a smaller area, making managing them much easier. It also mentions that this method lowers the risk of total crop failure which is when marketable produce is lost and cannot be sold. In addition, in response to one species of crop failing, it is common that the other species begin to succeed much more than before; a phenomenon that is present because of intercropping.
There are a few different types of intercropping such as parallel cropping, where there is no competition between species, companion cropping, which in short reduces the chances of total crop failure, and multistoried cropping, which allows for maximum possible solar penetration under high planting density by having species that grow to different heights.
According to Natural Water Retention Measures’ website (NWRM), intercropping has many benefits other than pest and disease control, including enhanced precipitation, biodiversity preservation, which is a goal of organic farming, flood risk reduction, and better protection for ecosystems. NRWM is a pilot project funded by the European Commission that looks at efficient ways to use our freshwater resources. Intercropping is a good solution, but are there any others to combat viruses?
GMOs and Organic Crop Farming
A GMO is a genetically modified organism, and this is created when mutations in parent seeds are modified so they create the exact same offspring every time.
In Denmark, GMOs are not considered to be organic, therefore leaving out the use of genetically modified crops as a potential solution to the virus and yield variability problem on organic farms. According to Edlund, organic farming aims to conserve the genetic integrity of living organisms, so modifying them to behave in a certain way and produce certain offspring breaks this.
The other issue regarding GMOs is that they result in certain bacteria and virus genes that do not normally appear in nature or from traditional crossbreeding. The risk is that this could introduce new strains of a disease that are highly deadly and increasingly resistant, even to the pesticides used on traditional farms.
Will Organic Farms Be Able to Meet Modern Food Demand?
“Yeah, that’s the thing right,” said Edlund. “We don’t know,” he continued. In the present day, humans consume a lot of agricultural products, and this creates demand that traditional farms can keep up with, but whether organic farms can, we’re uncertain.
Even between two generations, there has been a large change in how many agricultural products people consume. This can be chalked up to factors such as increasing consumption of products sold within grocery stores and large increases in commercial demand, as mentioned in this study by John Kearney titled ‘Food consumption trends and drivers.’ Edlund also noted that, “the amount of ingredients that go into premade food is staggering.”
He then brought up a curious point, which is, “Two generations ago, people all had a garden, everyone had something like potatoes. A store could have some, a farm could have some, but it’s not enough.” Edlund is suggesting that a solution to the possible problem of not being able to meet demand might be to start growing some of our own food again and to use grocery stores to buy what we don’t grow ourselves.
With compact, urban living becoming increasingly popular today, it raises the question of whether we need to rethink city living and urban architecture to accommodate these potentially new requirements?
