Organic farming and global warming. The balance between the ratio of gases emitted to those “saved” is positive, helpful in achieving the goals set at Cop21 in Paris. All the more reason to accelerate the conversion to organic, which is already underway in Italy. This is the finding of the conference “Organic farming: the global response to global warming” organized by Federbio and Kyoto Club at Sana 2016.
Together with livestock, according to the FAO, agriculture produces 5.3 billion tons of CO2, or 14.6 percent of the total from fossil fuels (7 percent in Italy). At the same time, organic agriculture itself-which uses 45 percent less energy compared to conventional agriculture-can mitigate global warming, thanks to the photosynthetic activity of plants, optimized by farming practices that cut greenhouse gases, produce bioenergy and sequester carbon in soil and biomass. Activities such as better management of land, rice fields (a source of methane), animal husbandry, irrigation (the recovery of organic soils), proper to organic and biodynamic farming.
