Organic Farming vs Conventional Farming - the benefits and differences of farming organically

Hello and welcome to another episode of C&M Explores. My name is Mike Murphy and today we're in the English countryside in the county of Kent and we're going to explore the wonderful world of organic farming and we're going to contrast that with conventional agriculture. We'll look at some of the techniques and practices that are used in organic farming and we're going to compare that with modern day farming practices that are used to produce much of the world's food today. The farm that we're actually filming from is owned by the London-based restaurant called Farmacy, spelled with an F. It's a biodynamic farm and they serve a 100% plant-based menu and the organic produce that is grown on this farm actually provides that restaurant with wonderful fruits and vegetables and herbs and today we get to see vegetables and herbs that are in season on the farm at the moment. So let's take a look. Most people have a basic understanding of what organic farming is. I guess you could say it's growing food as close to the way that nature intended as possible. It's farming that sees the land as a connected whole and that means everything from the soil to the plants to the birds to the insects. It's all one and there's a commitment to growing things with as little interference as possible and it kind of goes without saying that with organic farming the use of chemicals such as synthetic fertilizers and pesticides and herbicides are prohibited as is growing anything that has been genetically modified or what's called GMO. And in organic farming there's also a commitment to sustainability and not harming the environment by conserving natural resources and promoting an ecological balance. Just being conscious of the footprint that's left behind. Soil is nature's unsung hero. You could call it the silent foundation of life because virtually all life on earth depends on soil in one way or another. Soil is a complex mixture of minerals, organic matter and literally countless microorganisms. It's very much alive and it uses intelligent microbiology to provide a medium for plant growth by anchoring roots and supplying nutrients and water. Believe it or not soil is home to about a quarter of the planet's biodiversity. In fact it's estimated that there are more than a billion and a half microorganisms in a single teaspoon of soil. And these bacteria and fungi and protozoa are crucial components that play a variety of roles including breaking down organic matter, the recycling of nutrients, improving soil structure and also locking away carbon. Soil has a remarkable ability to capture and store CO2 or carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Plants absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis and they release it into the soil as organic matter and the microorganisms living in that soil then convert the organic matter into stable forms of carbon locking it away for long periods. In fact our soil can store three times more CO2 than all the plants and trees on the surface of the planet. With organic farming the long-term health and fertility of the soil is prioritized and maintained through practices such as crop rotation and cover cropping which is where farmers plant a crop during the off-season that isn't intended to be harvested but instead protects against soil erosion and can be plowed under as a form of nourishment for the next crop. It's called green manure sometimes. It's so important to feed the soil but synthetic fertilizers don't come into the picture with organic farming. Instead the soil is enriched using things like composting, mulch and humus which is broken down decayed organic matter as well as manures from animal grazing. All these things give back to the soil and help preserve soil structure and feed the microbial activity in the soil and without that biology plants lose their ability to take in nutrients from the soil so the microbes play an essential role. Now if you've ever grown your own vegetables you'll know that insects and weeds can be a problem and with organic agriculture instead of using chemicals we rely on natural methods like physically removing weeds by hand or covering crops or what's called biological controls which is when a natural enemy of a particular pest is introduced or maintained in proximity in hopes of achieving a degree of control. Owls for example can help to control the gopher population. Frogs eat slugs and I saw a program recently where an organic farm used their ducks to keep the snail population under control and as a bonus the ducks turned the snails into fertilizer. Companion planting is also a tactic that is used which is essentially growing certain plants close to each other so that they protect each other from other pests essentially one plant helping another. Nasturtiums are sometimes planted next to cabbages to help protect them from caterpillars. Marigolds attract ladybirds that love to eat black fly aphids that otherwise can infest broad beans and the allium family like garlic and chives and spring onions put off a scent that can deter certain pests like the carrot fly or in this case here we have leeks planted amongst celeriac which can play a role in warding off pests like the celery fly but there's another perhaps more important benefit of companion planting and that's around the microbiology that I talked about by planting different crops in and amongst each other you encourage the growth of a more diverse range of microbes in the soil which is beneficial to the plants and to those who eat them. There was no such thing as organic farming there was just farming because of course it was all organic there were no chemical pesticides or insecticides farmers had to be creative to protect their crops and get the highest yields which meant that they had to be good to the soil they had to take care of the soil because if they did that the soil would take care of them. It's also interesting to consider that when we say conventional farming this of course refers to modern day methods of intensive farming that rely on chemical fertilizers and chemical herbicides that are derived from petrochemicals that in many respects work against nature. When you think about it the word conventional means in accordance with what is generally done or believed so when this sort of farming first emerged shortly after the second world war it was anything but conventional in fact so-called organic or let's say traditional farming was the convention and had been for thousands of years. When we look at conventional agriculture we see a system of farming that ultimately puts crop yields and profit above things like the environmental impact and sustainability. These intensive farming practices make extensive use of synthetic fertilizers instead of prioritizing the long-term health of the soil and needless to say they also leverage chemical pesticides to control for insects that may damage the crops or impact yields and they also use toxic herbicides that are sprayed to kill weeds that otherwise compete for nutrients and again reduce the yield but these chemicals come at a human cost. Since world war ii we've created and introduced nearly a hundred thousand toxic chemicals into the environments that we live in and although every one of these chemicals have been approved by the various regulatory agencies around the world that are in place to protect human health these chemicals end up in our water our soil and of course on our food and there's no question that they've had a negative impact on human health but one of the problems is that these agencies typically look at individual chemicals and the safety assessments are carried out one pesticide at a time and this misses the fact that these chemicals are more often than not used in combination so we rarely are exposed to just one pesticide or one herbicide and they also stick around they don't just disappear so they accumulate in the environment and in our bodies and this is a phenomenon known as the cocktail effect. Government testing in the UK found that 25% of all food and over a third of the fruit and vegetables contain pesticide cocktails knowing what we know about the effects of chemical herbicides and insecticides on human health and their impact on mother nature it really makes you stop and think about where our food comes from and you got to ask yourself if a piece of food has come from an environment that is working against nature can it really be good for me in the long run? Humans evolved in and around nature in fact we are nature and I believe that the further removed we get from nature itself the sicker we become as individuals as a society and as a species seeing how beautiful this farm is and how farming can work in harmony with nature it has definitely made me recommit to eating organically and yes it might cost a bit more but how we fuel our body is perhaps the most important decision we can make regarding our health and if we don't pay now something tells me we'll pay later information is power and the more educated we are on how our food relates to our health the better and this is the core mission of the college of naturopathic medicine their courses cover nutrition herbal medicine and an array of other natural therapies and their aim is to train practitioners to empower individuals to take control of their own health naturally we hope you enjoyed this episode if you did please give it a like and subscribe to the channel and we'll see you next time thanks for watching