You report that the campaign group RePlanet has called for the European Union to ditch its organic targets “in favour of conventional and intensive farming techniques for higher productivity” (Halt use of biofuels to ease food crisis, says green group, 13 July).
However, its call is based on a myth: despite receiving less than 1% of global agricultural research funding and just 5% of the $700bn in annual agricultural subsidies, agroecology practices such as organic farming are associated with as good and often higher productivity as well as enhanced biodiversity, resilience to climate shocks such as drought, reduced operating greenhouse gas emissions (a third of which are now produced by the food system) and higher levels of atmospheric carbon absorbed back into soils.
With chemical fertiliser prices doubling or trebling, condemning European food systems to dependency on hyper-expensive chemical inputs – much of them imported from major global chemical fertiliser exporters such as Russia and Belarus – makes about as much sense as tying our energy system to hyper-expensive fossil fuels from the same countries when renewables have never been cheaper and solar power is now, according to the International Energy Agency, “the cheapest source of electricity in history”.
Richard Ewbank
London
• Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication.
