Organic Farming

*Link to the Ted Talk video*

The resource I’m using is based on a Ted Talk given by Ali Partovi and the video is titled, “Why is Organic Food so *#!@ Expensive??”.  This video enlightened me on how beneficial organic farming is. I have always been aware of the broad reasons as of why organic food is healthier for an individual and how the farming process is better, but I never knew the specifics. I learned that Organic farming increases productivity by crop and livestock rotations, in which nutrients are recycled into the soil, multiple crops grow at the same time, which increases revenue of the land, and it utilizes natural synergies. Partovi used a clear example in the Ted Talk by talking about sheep and asparagus. He mentioned how sheep love to graze, but don’t like the taste of asparagus so when the asparagus farmer has a weed problem, rather than spending a lot of money buying chemical herbicide to spray on the field, they can invite in a sheep farmer. The sheep would clear the weeds and the sheep farmer would get free pasture for his animals while the asparagus farmer gets free weed control AND the sheep add free fertility to the soil. It’s a natural cycle that could easily be used to replace how mechanize farming is now. He also mentioned that industrial farming has an “illusioned, short-lived efficiency”. An example he used on how industrial farming isn’t as efficient as organic farming is it wastes nutrients; nutrients are supposed to come from the soil, go through the body of a plant, into the body of an animal, and back into the soil. That isn’t how northern American agriculture is today at all. Instead, we’re feeding our livestock corn instead of allowing them to range freely eating grass, which is natural and where the animals get their nutrients from.