Organic food not enough to feed world hungry-

[S.Annadana]

Organic food not enough to feed world hungry-FAOReuters Monday December 10 2007
MILAN, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Organic farming makes healthy food and boosts farmers' income but it is not enough to feed the world's billions of hungry people, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Monday.
"We should use organic agriculture and promote it. It produces wholesome, nutritious food and represents a growing source of income for developed and developing countries," FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf said in a statement.
"But you cannot feed six billion people today and nine billion in 2050 without judicious use of chemical fertilizers," Diouf said responding to unspecified media reports which have said FAO backed organic farming as the solution to world hunger.
Organic farming, which usually bars the use of any chemical inputs, occupied in 2005 nearly 31 million hectares, or roughly two percent of the world's farmland, and generated about $24 billion worth of sales in the European Union, the United States, Canada and Asia in 2006, the FAO said.
But costly organic products are beyond the reach for many people in developing countries because growing them requires considerable investment and efficiency along the production and marketing chains to meet high quality standards, it said.
In Africa, much of soil needs amendments and nutrients as it suffers from acidity and lowered fertility, the agency said.
Judicious use of chemical inputs, especially fertilizers, could help boost food production significantly in Sub-Saharan Africa, where farmers use less than one tenth of the fertilizer used by their Asian counterparts, Diouf said.
For instance, Malawi, long a recipient of food aid, has recently boosted its maize production after it started providing small-scale farmers with seeds and fertilizers.
"However, chemical inputs must be used with care," Diouf said. "You have to choose the right inputs, right amounts, and apply them in the right way and at the right time."
(Reporting by Svetlana Kovalyova; editing by Michael Roddy) More on…
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