What would it be like if all of the food grown on our planet was grown organically? If there were no more crop sprayers, if industrial agriculture went by the wayside and never came back? What would our planet be like if the birds, bees, bugs, and all creatures were flourishing because we had a healthy ecosystem?
Climate change is currently threatening our vast, diverse, robust planet, and we need simple, actionable, non-harming, viable solutions now to reclaim the planet.
One immediately actionable solution is to eliminate non-organic agricultural practices. I talk about organic agricultural practices a lot in my day-to-day conversations, and it’s a frequent topic in my writing. The reason that I speak about these practices so often is because organic agricultural practices can be used to reverse climate change. When we have a strong soil food web that has been generated through proper organic management techniques, we can train the soil to store the same harmful carbon that is causing the greenhouse effect on this planet, all the while enhancing our food growth. Organic farming can even be more profitable than conventional farming.
Organic agricultural practices can be used to reverse climate change.
Rattan Lal of Ohio State University argues that desertified and otherwise degraded soils could sequester up to 3 billion tons of carbon per year, or nearly one third of current emissions.
Every ounce of organically farmed or gardened land makes a huge difference. Every ounce of land that is deterring our carbon emissions from reaching our ozone layer due to organic agricultural practices will play a key factor in reversing climate change.
Other experts foresee even greater potential in organic farming techniques. According to research at the Rodale Institute, „If instituted universally, organic regenerative techniques practiced on cultivated land could offset over 40 percent of global emissions.“
I am confident that climate change can be reversed through organic agricultural practices, but for that to happen we all need to do our part. If you do not own land or have access to a garden or farm, make sure you are buying your produce and perishables from Organic Certified Farms and companies that provide certified organically-grown foods. The more success that organic farms have the more land they can buy and manage organically, which leads to more soil that can sequester carbon.
We unfortunately caused climate change through our collective actions, and the good news is that we have also have the power to fix it. If we all dedicated ourselves to garden, farm, and eat organically we will be doing our part. In this way, an organic possible is possible.
Photo by Sharon & Nikki McCutcheon
—
Michael Forman is a native of Bronx, New York, and has lived in New York City for almost his entire life. He is the executive farm director of Pure Love Organic Farms, an organic, urban farm that he and three other friends created in 2012 from a former garbage dump site. Michael also works as the North American account manager for Totally Green in the sustainable technologies field.