GARDEN ROUTE NEWS - The well-known George specialist on organic farming and food sustainability, Prof Raymond Auerbach, will be off to China to address two conferences next month.
The first will take place at Suzhou on 7 September and will be a comparison between organic and conventional dairy farming in Southern Africa.
The Ulanbh desert, in the adjacent Mongolia, is home to 100 000 dairy cows that are managed in the largest organic dairy project in the world.
This will be followed on 10 and 11 September by the Asian Organic Conference hosted by Xichong County, that will be attended by researchers from all over the world. The paper will be on organic developments throughout Africa.
Auerbach is chairperson of the Network of Organic Agricultural Research in Africa (Noara), and a few months ago he was elected president of the Technology Innovation Platform of Organics International (Tipi).
As president of Tipi, it is his job to get researchers of organic farming around the world to work together strategically. They will be planning collaboration, reviewing progress and assessing research priorities.
Auerbach says organic farming is gaining momentum and more and more countries are getting involved. Especially in Africa and Latin America, it is becoming a grassroots movement, spearheaded by the younger generations.
In Asian countries such as India and South-Korea, whole provinces are converting to organic farming while China is very keen to get more involved. Many people in government in Asia are concerned about high poison levels in the environment and poison residues in food. In South America, agroecology has become a major movement, where farmers are moving towards organic farming.
With representatives from around the world, the conferences will be enriched by the opportunities to learn from the varying environments and cultural contexts.
On the African continent, East African countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania are the leaders.
In countries such as Sweden, Austria and Denmark, organic production makes up some 20% of agriculture. In South Africa it is still small and represents less than 1% of the overall agricultural production.
However, it is gaining momentum here, and he believes it can grow up to 10% in the next five years. "We have a lot of small-scale farmers who are already using organic farming," Auerbach says. "They just need help to access markets, as well as research support; for the first time, the Agricultural Research Council has undertaken to start research aimed at supporting organic farmers."
With intelligent support and far-sighted agricultural policy, organics in South Africa could supply up to 50% of the market in the next 20 years. "Given climate change and declining health, without such a trend, we are in big trouble."
He stresses that organic farming is a reality. It is not a question of if we are going to do it, but when. "It is essential for the sake of the health of humans, animals and the environment."
Auerbach is positive about the future. More and more farmers are realising organics is the way to go. Also, more young people are getting involved in organic agriculture, realising that the future holds challenges, both political and climatic.
He says that the coming summer will be mitigated by the current good winter rains, but the 2024/25 summer is likely to be a different story, given the combination of El Nino and man-made climate change. "Expect a really bad drought."
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