From the Ground Up? The Principles of Australian Organic Agriculture - Re-Thinking Organic Food and Farming in a Changing World - page 223

Organic organizations also argue that organic methods are a solution to high-
energy consumption that also contributes to climate change. Organic growing
techniques are more energy efficient methods of food production. They require
less fossil fuel and contribute less to global warming and resource depletion. Large
amounts of energy are required to manufacture artificial fertilizers therefore organic
farming techniques, which do not use manufactured fertilizers, are a less fossil
fuel intensive method of agriculture. Organic farming systems also generate fewer
greenhouse gases, such as nitrous oxide, produced by soluble nitrogenous fertilizers
used in conventional farming (Lal 2004 ).
Therefore, the importance of humus-rich soil to human health is now as much
a question of ecological wellbeing as it is to the production of nutritious food.
Although some organic growers remain uncertain of the nutritional superiority of
food grown in humus-rich soil compared to conventional produce, the contribution
of organic soils to improved human health remains secure by way of its contribution
to ecological wellbeing and combating environmental damage through global
warming.

11.4 Conclusion

Returning to the question posed at the beginning of this chapter: are the key
principles of Australian organic growing still relevant for organic farmers today?
Researchers of current organic farming who return only to the recent past of the
1970s and 1980s as the source of organic principles would inevitably conclude
that the ideological basis for organic growing today has deviated from its original
principles. Australian organic farmers now grapple with many issues not faced in
the mid-twentieth century, such as genetic modification, climate change, a plethora
of commercially manufactured organic products, certification and the existence of
organic aquaculture, issues which organic growers of the 1940s and 1950s would not
have recognized. Common organic practices from the 1940s, such as composting
human sewerage is no longer part of organic agricultural practice and commercial
organic production is now controlled by standards and, as a result, can command a
premium for their produce.
However, it is not possible to understand organic agriculture in Australia today
without examining the emergence of its key principles. Comparing the defining
principles of organic growing in the 1940s and 1950s with Australian organic
growing today reveals that the original key principles remain fundamental to organic
agriculture today. Australian organic farming continues to be characterized by the
production of humus-rich fertile soil, chemical free production and the maintenance
of ecological wellbeing. The explanation of the term 'organic agriculture' in