Organic agriculture is a different sort of business. It is, of course, still a business, where profitability and productivity matter (how could they not, when feeding human beings is the end goal?) but it is a business of a different kind. That difference comes from its end goals: while the average view of a business makes it responsible to its shareholders and its customers, the view of organic businesses makes them responsible to their shareholders, customers and the society at large. They are responsible to the whole planet, and their responsible land stewardship practices are a display of that. It could simply be said that organic businesses do not aim to externalize their environmental, social and public health costs: they aim to have no such costs at all. Based on this inherent ethical outlook of organic agriculture, it makes sense for all organic businesses to have a set of common principles; guiding values that can articulate what the label ‘organic’ means at a global scale. The IFOAM (the umbrella organization that gives an international, common voice to organic agriculture) has sought to do just that, by producing a list of four main principles that can be said to represent the ultimate aims of the organic movement as a whole. The first of those principles (the rest of which we’ll explore in future entries) is health. Health understood not in the narrow sense of not being sick, but instead, as the IFOAM defines it, understood as: …the wholeness and integrity of living systems. It is not simply the absence of illness, but the maintenance of physical, mental, social and ecological well-being. Immunity, resilience, and regeneration are key characteristics of health. The commitment to health of organic agriculture is thus not only to the health of the people it feeds (which it also fulfills, by putting healthier food on the world’s tables), but also to the overall health of the societies in which it exists and the ecosystems within which it works. It commits itself even to the mental well-being of those that know, by its responsible (and accountable) commitment to this and the rest of its principles, that it is a system for producing food that will not harm the very humanity that serves as its end goal. The health of these organic heads of cattle is no less important for the farmer than the health of the soil they live in, of the people that are going to be fed by them, or of those who simply live near this land, and who might be affected by inadequate management practices. Health is a complex concept, and organic agriculture aims to embrace that complexity. Of course that, using such a broad definition, health as a principle for organic agriculture cannot be fulfilled without paying attention to other values as well. Ecology, care and fairness – none of them can truly be left out.

When promoting policies that support and stimulate organic agriculture, one common criticism is heard: that organic agriculture lacks the potential for scalability; that, in spite of its environmental and social benefits, it is unable to ensure enough food production for everyone in the world to be fed. While there’s a mainstream assumption that organic systems of food production result in lower yields, there is a couple of corresponding questions that, being hardly mainstream, are hardly ever are answered: Are the world’s soils already producing food at maximum capacity? Does our current food production reach the levels required to feed everyone? The answer to the first question is negative, and the second is positive. The world is already producing enough food to feed everyone, and the world’s soils are not producing as much food as they could. This last answer to that first question is, in fact, one of the strongest arguments in favor of worldwide adoption of organic agriculture – especially in the world’s poorest regions. Organic tomatoes grow using traditional zaï techniques in the village of Vathaba, Guinea, where a serious problem of chronic malnutrition affects up to 40% of the country's population. Not only is the claim that organic agriculture gives lower yields an oversimplification (on which crops? In which regions? During which periods of the year? Using Integrated Pest Management techniques or not?), but it is an outright wrong claim in zones of the world. Nearly fifteen years ago already (in 2007), a study by the University of Michigan found that, by reducing the average input costs, stimulating soil preservation and formation, and using nitrogen-fixing Bacteria cover crops in crop rotation, organic agriculture could rise the agricultural yields in developing countries by 80%. In a world where enough food is already being produced but not enough food is being distributed, increasing food production in the areas where it is most needed could provide a basis for eradicating hunger, one of the Development Goals of the Millennium. It could also bring a lot of economic benefits to producers in those same developing countries, by reducing their expenses and increasing the economic benefits that they extract from their land. The FAO speaks along the same lines, though giving a lower estimate (that it’s still significantly higher than the present distribution): Conversion of global agriculture to organic management, without converting wild lands to agriculture and using N-fertilizers, would result in a global agricultural supply of 2640 to 4380 kcal/person/day. Sustainable intensification in developing countries through organic practices would increase production by 56 percent.

Seen from the outside, agriculture may seem to be a magical process: things are planted in the soil, cared for during a season, and food is harvested eventually: from useless dirt, the world is fed. But when farmers go into their fields and harvest the year's crop of wheat, peppers, or watermelon, they know that they're not creating food out of anything. They know what came into their field (the work they put in, the bio-manure they brought as fertilizer, the insecticides they introduced for pest control), and understand that agriculture is not an operation of creation but of transformation. Food does not spring out of the ground: raw resources are transformed into food through a lot of work, and a lot of brainpower. And the root of this transformation happens within the plants themselves, who take nutrients from the soil and energy from the sun and support seven billion people and the whole of life on earth. But plants were not made by human beings: they appeared through natural processes millions of years before the first mammal even stepped a foot on our planet. As such, they are regulated by processes that were not made by us; we human beings merely channel and instrumentalize those processes to feed ourselves. Same as the natural processes underlying soil fertility, water availability, nutrient retention, soil structure maintenance, pest control, and even seed saving: all of them were active way beyond human beings began harnessing their power for their benefit. The basis of agriculture is, thus, ecology; the principles and processes that guide how ecosystems work. There is no agricultural activity that is not based on ecological processes: there is just agriculture that is consciously based on them and that, as such, becomes sustainable, and agriculture that unwillingly goes against ecological processes and, as such, is unsustainable and leads to hunger crises and environmental troubles of all sorts. Organic agriculture is agriculture practiced through the most scientifically-informed techniques for managing agricultural land as an ecosystem. It is a system of practices that collaborates with, rather than fighting against, the very natural processes that gave origin to live on earth — as such ecology is another of its principles, alongside health, fairness, and care. In fact, it might be said to form the basis of them all. A quick glance at the myriad natural processes underlying soil degradation, which organic agriculture takes into account to prevent the loss of fertile soil, gives a good impression of the connectedness of agriculture to ecology as one of its foundational principles.

It would seem counterintuitive that emphasizing nature would foster deeply human values – at least, from the perspective of human beings as different or separate from the natural world. This is the perspective of most of the modern agriculture, one in which the soil is there to be exploited for the production of food, and only secondarily and for that purpose it is fed inorganic nutrients in large quantities; large enough to overflow with them and send those nutrients into rivers, ponds, and seas. A study from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, however, suggests that behind alternative practices or agriculture lies an altogether different set of human values. In Empathy-Conditioned Conservation: "Walking in the Shoes of Others" as a Conservation Farmer, a research paper published by the University in 2011, researchers found that the main motivation behind adopting tillage conservation practices among farmers was an unexpected one: empathy. As this early summary of the research indicates, even though a potential increase in profits, the education received by farmers and the financial support of the government were counted among the variables that influenced whether the farmers adopted conservation tillage practices, a change in these influenced the probability of adoption by around 1% or less. In contrast, having an empathetic mentality (which the authors describe as “tempering the pursuit of self-interest with shared other-interests”) was the single most influential variable, increasing by around 10% the probability of adopting these techniques. The Blue River in Nebraska, looking downstream. The farmers that take care of the lands on the margins of this river formed the basis for the study's sample. The study, which used as a sample the farmers around Nebraska and Kansas, in the United States, that had lands surrounding the Blue River, found that empathy played a role depending on how much the farmers regarded that leached soil and nutrients, coming from lands managed without the adequate conservation practices, affected their neighbors downstream. When farmers realized how their neighbors downstream were being affected negatively, the majority of them received a strong motivation to implement conservation practices, which in some areas led to an adoption of no-till or low-till management schemes is up to 90% of all farms. To the authors, this is evidence of how “farmers pursue a joint and interdependent own-interest and not only self-interest as presumed in microeconomics”. To policymakers, it should make one thing clear: deeply human values such as empathy are key for the widespread adoption of organic agriculture, as a responsible and sustainable way of producing food for the world. Though economic benefits are certainly a motivation to switch to organic land stewardship, there are otherwise neglected benefits and values that must be brought into the calculations underlying a massive adoption of organic agriculture.

Around the world and throughout history, slugs are one of the most enduring and pervasive pests that plague plant cultivation. Slugs cause damages not only to crops, but to pastures, gardens, and, in some regions, even fruit tree plantations, resulting in around 60 million dollars in yearly damages in the United States alone. In the UK, that number ascends to 100 million sterling pounds, and with the potential expansion of the Spanish slug (Arion vulgaris) and other invasive slug species threatening the world's agriculture, those numbers could go much higher. To make things worse, the methods used until now to reduce slug damage have increased soil degradation, ultimately working against growers' best interests. A chapter of the Handbook of Vegetables Pests, published by Academic Press in 2001, recommends for example a finely textured or compacted soil, regular tillage, and the lack of residual organic matter (i.e. mulch) as means to prevent an expansion of the slug problem; all of the methods that also produce soil exposition to environmental degradation. The discovery of a biological means of control for slugs was, consequently, a major advantage for agriculture. Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita, the main agent for biological control of slugs. Enter the humble nematode Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita, only adequately studied in the 1990s, and now commercialized around the world as a safe and effective tool for slug control. Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita is a tiny nematode of barely less than two millimeters long (often visible only with a microscope) that enters into the bodies of slugs and parasites them, producing between 200 to 300 other nematodes in the process. Between the introduction of the first nematode into the body of the slug and its ultimate death, a period of 4 to 21 days follows in which the slug will feed gradually less, and at the end of which it will crawl into a secluded space before dying. The nematodes keep acting and reproducing throughout wet or dry weather, as long as slugs are active (especially when they are active, in fact!). These biological control agents such as pesticides and insecticides also fulfill one of the main conditions to qualify as such at a large scale, which is not becoming an invasive pest itself. Fortunately enough for growers, Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodite has also evolved to target only molluscs, and as such does not attack earthworms, insects, birds, spiders or humans. AGENT PROFILE Common name(s): Phasmarhabditis hermaphrodita, commercialized under the name Nemaslug® . Often-used species: Only the mentioned above. Type of predator: Not predatorial, parasitic. Potential damaging effects: Against non-damaging or beneficial freshwater snails; as such it should not be used near bodies of fresh water. Interesting literature on its usage: A general review on its usage and effects (2009), a brief study of the species in the scientific journal Nematology (2019), on the possibility of similarly useful species existing (2019), a case study on its effectivity on two slug species (2002).

Trichoderma fungi are an efficient, cost-effective, and selective means for the biological control of fungal diseases, bacterial diseases, and even nematodes, as through their own growth they outcompete, parasite, and create resistance in plants against damaging pathogens. Rather than being an agent of biocontrol, they conform a genus out of which around 25 species serve as agents individually or in distinct combinations, and all of the 25 species are used around the world as a weapon against the over 10,000 species of fungi that produce economically significant damage in crops. Together, Trichoderma fungi species constitute around 90% of the fungal species known to serve as anti-fungal agents in agriculture, and they form the basis for around 60% of the fungicides of biological origins currently available in the market. Trichoderma harzianum, one of the most widely used species of Trichoderma fungi, seen growing from spores under the microscope. Possibly the greatest strengths of Trichoderma fungi are both their capability to establish themselves permanently in an agricultural setting that is capable of sustaining fungal life (outlining once more the importance of integrating conservation techniques of biological control into the whole equation) and their incredibly wide range of techniques to combat fungal and bacterial plagues as well as nematodes. Trichoderma fungi act either directly against pathogens by mycoparasitism (parasitism of one fungus on another), aggressive competition and generation of antibiotics, or indirectly by improving the health of the plants that serve as their hosts, thus making them more resistant to pathogens (weakened as well through the more direct action of Trichoderma fungi). All of this makes them incredibly useful, dual-purpose creatures that at the same time increase yield, vigor and nutrient absorption as they combat disease and ensure a better overall health of the crops. Trichoderma fungi are also mycorrhizal fungi, and as such they present all the benefits of mycorrhizae. Above, a comparison between root systems not inoculated and inoculated with Trichoderma harzianum. AGENT PROFILE Common name(s): Trichoderma fungi. Often-used species: Depending on the region, species used are often non-native. Type of predator: Non-predatorial (parasitic at most). Potential damaging effects: On crops of edible fungi, such as Agaricus bisporus. Interesting literature on its usage: A general but very detailed overview on these fungi and their usage (2020), a general review of their usage alongside other fungi (2020), a review of their biocontrol mechanisms (2004), a study of their working alongside mycorrhizae and other fungi against nematodes (2020), divulgation material on their usage (2016).

The crown jewel of biological pest control, Bacillus thuringiensis is a species of bacteria that has become one of the most frequently used (if not the most frequently used) biological insecticides around the world. Its insecticide properties appear when this bacterium (bacteria is the plural) enters the phase of its life called sporulation, in which bacteria turn into something similar to spores by dividing within their own cellular walls, with one part of those who have divided consuming the rest and entering into a dormant state. This behavior is triggered by environmental factors like drought or a lack of nutrients available, which is often the case when Bacillus thuringiensis is applied artificially on a field. As part of that process of sporulation, these bacteria produce a certain type of protein that interacts with the gut of insects who have consumed leaves or stalks that were inoculated with Bacillus thuringiensis: the insects eventually have their whole digestive systems disrupted, eventually stopping eating and dying of hunger. This can happen as soon as a few hours after having consumed the inoculated plants, or take as long as a few weeks, according to an estimate of the National Pesticide Information Center of the US. These little creatures have saved millions of people from famine, among other achievements. Bacillus thuringiensis is an absolute juggernaut of biological pest control, targeting pests as diverse as moths (tent caterpillars, tomato hornworm, date moth, flour moth), nematodes, beetles (such as the Western corn rootworm, Diabrotica virgifera virgifera), mosquitoes, and fungus gnats. Furthermore, it does all of this while respecting beneficial insects such as bees, butterflies, or other biological control agents such as lacewings or predatory wasps (because none of these consumes enough plant matter to contract a Bacillus thuringiensis infection), as well as being safe for human beings. AGENT PROFILE Common name(s): Bacillus thuringiensis. Often-used species: Single species, with subspecies used to target specific pests (such as Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis for mosquitoes). Type of predator: Non-predatorial (parasitic). Potential damaging effects: No significant ones registered to date. Interesting literature on its usage: A fact sheet on Bacillus thuringiensis, from pages 109 to 113 (2020), use against mosquitoes (2020), use against nematodes (2003), against fungus gnats (2001), a detailed paper on how the bacterium functions and its derivative use in non-organic, transgenic agriculture (1998).

In past articles of this series we have covered with certain detail the thirteen micro and macronutrients that all plants need to survive and grow, as well as some traditional (inorganic and organic) methods of adding nutrition to the soil. The only question that remains for now is: how can the availability of these nutrients be assured? That is, how can growers ensure that, should they be unable to fertilize their fields for one growing season (let’s say), the land will not become a barren, inhospitable, infertile space? The answer to this lies in taking notice of other factors behind the measurable presence of nutrients in the soil. If a landscape is always in need of repeated fertilization to remain productive it is already in a very precarious state, in which most of the fertilizers are probably consumed during a growing season and the soil is, otherwise, inhospitable if not intensively managed. The only way to responsibly address this is to start building the soil, and here we will focus especially in two aspects of this: soil pH, and water content. All of the nutrients that we have talked about becoming more or less available according to the acidity or alkalinity of a soil. Soils that are more acidic have less availability of calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg), because these chemical compounds become less mobile and plants have more difficulty absorbing them. At the same time, iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), and zinc (Zn) become far more mobile and available to plants, while phosphorus (P) becomes more available at first and later is almost completely immobilized. An increase in alkalinity (that is, an increase in pH levels) reverses these processes. This is why the pH of the soil is a critical condition to be balanced and preferably adjusted to the requirements of most crops (6.0 to 7.0, but it may vary depending on the species). Here's a full pH scale, so we can contextualize that: And here's a table depicting the availability of most nutrients and micronutrients according to soil pH, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons: The water content of the soil is another major component, simply because it makes every chemical substance within the soil more soluble. Even though plants use water for other purposes as well beyond nutrient absorption, if we focus only on soil fertility it is, by itself, evident that constant presence of ideal water levels is essential for plants to actually be able to access the nutrients present in the soil. Same as with pH levels, the thirteen micronutrients and macronutrients may all be present in perfect amounts, but these two conditions deeply affect whether these nutrients are in a state that is actually useful for plants and, consequently, their keepers. Water content is measured in the percentage of water out of the total weight of a sample of soil, with results that may look like these excellent diagrams from the North Carolina Extension Gardener Handbook: Improving these two conditions passes as well through managing other chemical, physical and biological conditions of the soil, so keep an eye in our blog for future articles on those subjects. In the meantime, happy growing!

Out of all the water in the world, only 3.5% is freshwater, and around 70% of it is currently trapped in the form of permanent ice. This basically means that only around 1% of the existing water (1.05%, to be exact) is available for all sorts of things we humans need it for; from drinking, to showering, to watering the fields that keep supermarkets stocked and the food chain running. If that percentage weren’t small enough for the myriad uses of water, climate change and pollution are reducing it even further, with the contamination of freshwater bodies and more frequent droughts making it doubly essential to find ways to conserve water as much as possible in agricultural settings. Otherwise, the consequences for farming could be dire. Former agricultural land in Oklahoma, where incorrect techniques of soil management and a strong drought joined forces to create an ecological disaster. With this in mind, the ATTRA National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, located in the US and managed jointly by the National Centre for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) and the United States Department of Agriculture, produced a report underlying the simple principles that land stewardship should follow to maximize water conservation and soil penetration and reduce unnecessary water usage. In the report (which is certainly worth a read by itself) five main principles stand out, in particular, as the basis of water-friendly agriculture. These can be summarized as: Protecting the soil surface: a basic principle that involves not leaving soil uncovered; mulching or covering crops should always fill the space left after a harvest. Bare soil will grow weeds, erode, be exposed to faster temperature changes, and, above all, gradually lose all the water it contains through simple evaporation. Minimize soil disturbance of all kinds: another often-heard recommendation, as tillage that is performed frequently, will grind soil to a powder, resulting in sandy soil that is unable to hold water and is prone to wind erosion. A dust bowl, anybody? Plant diversity: a much less frequent recommendation, but very important. Not only a variety of plants’ roots can reach different depths and thus different water levels, making the complete death of all life on your soil-less likely in the event of a drought, but different plants also produce different root exudates and host different bacterial communities. This leads to healthier soil, with better structure and greater capacity to hold water. Continual live roots in the soil: a corollary of the first principle, specifically requiring live plants to remain present in the soil so that microbial strains communities can continue to exist. Livestock integration: another rarely-heard one, but essential for organically managing land. Instead of importing bio-manure all the time, why not have the animals that produce it? In the ATTRA’s words: “…thoughtful integration of livestock onto cropping land can reduce weed pressure, herbicide use, and livestock waste associated with confinement, thereby improving water quality and addressing nutrient-management concerns.” All of this might sound complicated, but consider: is it more complicated than facing an unexpected drought? Is it more expensive than the losses in water that less efficient systems entail? As the ATTRA says: "Investments, such as adding organic amendments, practicing no- or reduced tillage, leaving crop residue, planting cover crops, and diverse crop rotations, will help the soil efficiently cycle both water and nutrients, sustain plant and animal productivity, and maintain or improve water quality. The return on soil health investments will pay off year after year after year." Here we say: yes, indeed.

As a part of the collective efforts of the agricultural industry for finding ways of dealing with microscopic agents of disease, there has been an important amount of research devoted to identifying equally microscopic agents for the prevention of disease. Among these, a collection of the most effective bacteria for the prevention and combat of plagues in crops have been termed the 'plant probiotics', for these aforementioned capabilities of building resistance to disease in the plants that host them. Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria, or PGPR, belong to this group of little creatures. Pseudomonas putida, one of the most commonly used plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria. PGPR are bacteria that have co-evolved alongside the plants that host them across a timespan of millions of years, and as such, they have developed an astounding capability for mutual influence. Apart from their straightforwardly positive benefits as stimulants of plant growth, from which they derive their names, and apart from their passive increase of plant disease resistance by augmenting the strength of plants themselves and by out-competing other bacteria, these microorganisms actively perform work as biological control agents on two levels: 1) Producing compounds used by the bacteria to stifle the growth of competing, pathogenic microbes. This is done through the production of a variety of compounds, which a team of Canadian and Chinese researchers has narrowed down to antibiotics, antimicrobial peptides, bacteriocins metabolites, siderophores, toxins, and other microbial blends. These compounds have effects on dangerous microorganisms that go from inhibiting the synthesis of their cell walls (antibiotics) to depriving them of iron (siderophores). 2) Promoting the development of immune responses by the plant. PGPR are capable of triggering, in their host plants, systemic immune responses to disease that have long-lasting endurance and that do not even require the PGPR to interact with a pathogen in the first place! This (discussed here, with more bibliography provided in the source) means that plants do not need to actually get sick in order to develop immunity to broad groups of pathogens, with the PGPR functioning as a sort of plant vaccine. The common positive (both passive and active) effects of PGPR, as well as their diversity and its consequently large span of possible plant hosts and possible pathogens to target, make them a necessary option to consider (and to explore in more depth) for the implementation of any modern biological control scheme. AGENT PROFILE Common name(s): Plant growth-promoting bacteria, PGPR. Often-used species: A wide array, from an equally wide array of genera. Type of predator: Non-predatorial (mutualist relation with host plants). Potential damaging effects: Only registered in sugar beets. Interesting literature on its usage: A general review of the role of PGPR in agricultural sustainability (2016), use against diseases in tomato plants (2020), use against nematodes (2018).