Sustainability in global agriculture driven by organic farming 
 Eyhorn et al., 2019.

Agricultural practices need to change to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. How to achieve the SDGs is heavily contested. Here we propose a policy framework that triggers the required transition. Organic agriculture, although not a silver bullet, is a useful component in such strategy. 

Sustainable agriculture and food systems need to provide sufficient and nutritious food for all, while minimizing environmental impact and enabling producers to earn a decent living. Most agree that agriculture and food systems urgently need to change to make progress on several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) while staying within planetary boundaries1. However, the way to achieve this is intensely debated, with two narratives dominating the discussion: incremental steps to improve efficiency in conventional agriculture while reducing negative externalities, versus transformative redesign of farming systems based on agroecological principles.

The debate is polarized for good reason. Transformative systems such as organic farming have proven sustainability benefits, including improved soil quality, enhanced biodiversity, reduced pollution and increased farm incomes but in many contexts result in lower yields so that their sustainability per unit product is sometimes questioned. Intensive conventional systems, on the other hand, can be highly productive, but have substantial negative externalities including biodiversity loss, soil erosion, pollution, reduced human health and low farm incomes. In addition, powerful agribusiness and food corporations have vested interests in continuing the conventional agroindustrial model and in perpetuating ‘Feed the World’ narratives.

The SDGs offer an opportunity to reconcile these divisions by focusing on the sustainability contributions of different farming approaches and the policies that help to accelerate the required transition. Successful transformative systems, such as organic, push–pull and evergreen agriculture, offer inspirational examples and an innovation space for transformation because they are pursuing a radically different approach based on agroecological processes. Conversely, incremental approaches, such as precision farming and reduced-tillage, developed in conventional agriculture inspire transformative systems to further improve their performance. Here we argue that policies aligned with the SDGs are needed to promote this transition.

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https://go.nature.com/2Z1vTvQ
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