What Is The Contribution Of Organic Agriculture To Sustainable Development? Results Of 10 Years Farming Systems Comparison In The Tropics (Syscom)

Summary

Tropic will be the epicentre for food production as population will sore from 7 billion to 10 billion by the end of century. It is imperative to explore the potential of different food production system in tropics.  In 2006-07 FiBL started the ‘Long-term Farming Systems Comparison in the Tropics (SysCom) Program’ in collaboration with local partners in three tropical countries to produce scientifically sound data on the agronomic, ecological and socio-economic performance of organic and conventional production systems over a long-term. The program comprises of a network of four long-term experiments (LTEs) in Kenya, India and Bolivia, in concert with participatory on-farm research (POR) aimed at developing locally adapted sustainable technologies. Our research in the tropics shows that organic agriculture and agroforestry systems have large potential to contribute to sustainable development especially in the field of soil fertility and biodiversity conservation while productivity and profitability are usually equal. Yet, for full exploitation of the benefits of organic agriculture major efforts are needed to tackle agronomic/ technological challenges (lack of input, pest management), capacity development for farmers (technical know how) and institutional/governance challenges (markets, agri-business).