Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Organic Farming Sustains Increased Biodiversity


Biodiversity is one of the key factors that affect the productivity and sustainability of an ecosystem.  A high variety of species typically indicates a higher array of functions within the environment.  Due to increased use in insecticides and fossil fuels in the past decades, the many links within our richly diverse biosphere have been negatively affected.  Ecologists estimate that as many as 30% of all species may be lost over the next four decades. Therefore, many aim to find ways to prevent species extinction, increase species evolution, and fill in the gaps in the ecological web that have already been created.  A recent study done at Oxford University has shown that organic farming has been established as a stable solution to biodiversity threats.  Their study showed that species richness on organic farms is on average 34% higher than on conventional farms.

Organic agriculture is a system of farming that either rejects or strictly limits the use of insecticides, herbicides, and synthetic fertilisers, whereas conventional farming heavily relies on these extermination methods. Organic agriculture relies on complex crop rotations to deal with weed and pest issues and relies on organic compost for fertilisation.  By using more natural methods of production, not only does the crop and land benefit, all the biodiversity within the ecosystem does as well.  The study showed that among the different categories of life, plants and pollinators (such as the current dwindling bee populations) showed the greatest increase in species richness compared to conventional farms.

An abundance of organic food also goes a long way for the humans that are consuming it.  Organic farming has little to no pesticide use, therefore these humans are are not being exposed to the chemicals that are put on their food to kill other species. Biodiversity is also interwoven with medical biology.  Biologists often study the mechanisms and proteins from other organisms' genome, therefore the richer the diversity, the more opportunities for scientific and medical advancement. These examples are few of the many reasons why biodiversity is important.

Since all organisms, including humans, are connected within earth's biosphere, an increase in biodiversity not only benefits its local ecosystem, it affects us all. The more species extinction, the more vulnerable the earth and its organisms become.  Organic farming is one method to help boost our environment and create more species diversity in the battle against insecticide use and global warming.

Posted by: Nicole Boisvert (1)

7 comments:

  1. I find this article to be very interesting. This is defiantly a very important topic because species extinction is most likely looming with the state of the world today. What would possibly be another benefit of biodiversity though?

    -Posted by Jacob Geier

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    1. As far as science is concerned, the higher amount of biodiversity, the more opportunity we have to research and gain valuable knowledge about how species work together, evolve mechanisms, produce and consume resources, and more. For example, one small species of spider can spin a silk that can maintain higher amounts of stress without breaking than some alloy steels even though the silk is only made out of proteins. This knowledge is useful to engineers because they can learn more about physics and possibly mimic their web structure to ensure stronger architecture in the future.
      You can also follow the link on my blog if you're still interested in learning more about the positive effects of greater biodiversity!

      Posted by Nicole Boisvert

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  2. I agree that biodiversity is very important. I believe that insecticides do limit the number of species and make certain species more common, reducing biodiversity. I wonder if organic farming will become more popular in the future.
    Posted by Amber Vien

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  3. I think organic farms help to sustain the biodiversity, and yet, one major problem for organic farms is very high cost to run the farms. Since the organic farms are not using pesticides or synthetic fertilizers, how can the farms do to increase their profits?

    Posted by Yim Hui

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    1. A big issue with farming these days is that majority of government funding for farming efforts is only going towards the growth of five staple crops (rice, wheat, and corn are a few) and the rest of the farms barely receive any help. That is why processed foods that are made from by-products of these staple crops are cheaper than of any other vegetable. I think that the more efforts we put into getting more funding for all foods coming from organic farms, the closer we can be to make organic farming the front runner among all types of agriculture as well as have healthier, cheaper options in our food markets.

      Posted by Nicole Boisvert

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  4. Biodiversity almost seems expendable at the level of a single farm, but multiply that one farm by all the farms across the country, across the world, and the increased biodiversity could actually be significant. Rather have species diverging, speciating, than becoming extinct. Like you mentioned towards the end of your blog, the more biodiversity, the more organisms to be researched and used as models. Cool topic, especially because organic produce is becoming such a big market.
    Posted by Steven Yu

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  5. I agree with Yim, maintaining an organic farm is high cost and takes a lot of extra work. That being said, I do think it's extremely important not only for biodiversity, but for the human body to have these organic farms. We have definitely seen a huge increase in organic farms over the recent years and I think the trend will continue to grow and grow once people realize how important they are to our biodiversity and human body.

    -Samuel Ustayev

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