Organic farming provides long-term benefits to people and the environment.

Namely, organic farming (agriculture) aims to:

• increase long-term soil fertility,
• control pests and diseases without harming the environment,
• ensure that water stays clean and safe,
• use resources which the farmer already has, so the farmer needs less money to buy farm inputs,
• produce nutritious food, feed for animals and high quality crops to sell at a good price.

Harvesting the benefits of organic agriculture

The benefits that organic food systems provide to farmers, consumers and the environment are well documented. The goal of ORCA (Organic Research Centre Alliance) is to support further expansion in order to improve opportunities for more producers in more countries.

For example, organic agriculture:

• gives smallholders a fair chance to access an economically attractive market while also improving household food security;
• optimizes farm output while using fewer capital inputs, and increasing labour productivity and employment in marginalized market areas and those with low-potential;
• attracts women farmers who build on their traditional and indigenous knowledge and take advantage of engaging in commercial food production while also producing food for their families;
• produces nutritious and diversified food and celebrates culinary traditions;
• uses biodiversity to decrease agricultural inputs and increase outputs, thus supporting broader environmental conservation goals at gene, species and landscape levels and ensuring that organic producers receive premium market
• value in return for their environmental efforts;
• stabilises the farm ecological balance, which increase the adaptive and risk management capacity needed to cope with climate change;
• reduces greenhouse gas emissions and increases soil carbon sequestration, thus contributing to climate change mitigation and reducing fossil-based energy requirements.

In our other articles on our ESENSEE web, you can read more on systems of organic agriculture, methods and materials used in organic agriculture, international standards, organic agricultural research, economics of organic agriculture, productivity and profitability of organic agriculture.