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Nitrogen Availability Is Likely To Challenge Organic Farming Production At The Global Scale

Barbieri, Pietro; Pellerin, Sylvain; Smith, Laurence; Seufert, Verena; Ramankutty, Navin and Nesme, Thomas (2021) Nitrogen Availability Is Likely To Challenge Organic Farming Production At The Global Scale. Paper at: Organic World Congress 2021, Science Forum: 6th ISOFAR Conference co-organised with INRA, FiBL, Agroecology Europe, TP Organics and ITAB, Rennes, France, 8 - 10 September, 2021. [Completed]

[thumbnail of OWC2020-SCI-352.pdf] PDF - English
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Summary

Organic agriculture is often proposed as a promising approach to achieve sustainable food systems but Its capacity to meet the global food demand remains debatable. Some studies have investigated this question, but they have missed a critical ecological phenomenon by not considering the role that nitrogen (N) cycling plays in sustaining food production in organic systems. Using a global spatial N cycling model, we show that a 100% conversion to organic agriculture would lead to a large gap in global food production compared to the current – i.e. non-organic situation. Organic food availability would thus not be sufficient to match global food demand. We also show that lower conversion shares would be feasible in coexistence with conventional farming when coupled with demand-side solutions, such as reduction of the per-capita energy intake or food wastage. These results are critical to explore the option space of the global food system in a sound and systemic manner.


EPrint Type:Conference paper, poster, etc.
Type of presentation:Paper
Keywords:Conventional farming, food security, modeling, nitrogen availability, organic farming, organic livestock
Subjects: Animal husbandry
Farming Systems
Research affiliation: International Conferences > 2021: Organic World Congress, Science Forum: 6th ISOFAR Conference co-organised with INRA, FiBL, Agroecology Europe, TP Organics and ITAB > Transitioning towards organic and sustainable food system
France
UK
Netherlands
Canada
Deposited By: rey, m. frederic
ID Code:42274
Deposited On:07 Sep 2021 13:12
Last Modified:07 Sep 2021 13:12
Document Language:English
Status:Unpublished
Refereed:Peer-reviewed and accepted
Additional Publishing Information:A book of abstracts of papers of the Science Forum at the Organic World Congress 2021, September 8-10, Online and on-site in Rennes, France '6th ISOFAR Conference co-organised with INRA, FiBL, Agroecology Europe, TP Organics and ITAB' has been published

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