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Choosing Organic Food for a Smaller Carbon Footprint
By Jason Ladock | Environment | Rating:

The going-green initiative has encouraged people to adopt simple changes in their lifestyle in order to protect the environment. One main focus for eco-friendly initiative in the present day is to keep a check on the carbon footprint by promoting the use of organic food.

Organic farming is very beneficial for the environment as the diverse organic crops help to sequester carbon. In addition, you should avoid using chemicals like herbicides, fertilizers and pesticides.

In general, organic farming techniques help to retain more organic content in the soil. Cover crops, animal manure and natural composts are great ways of nourishing the soil than using synthetic fertilizers which could result in the depletion of organic matter. While conventional cropping systems result in using huge amounts of fossil fuel, organic farming systems depend lesser on heavy machinery. In addition, there is a reduction in the amount of greenhouse gases expended to grow the same amount of food.

Organic farming methods are a great blessing to achieve a better climate solution, as it is one of the excellent methods to fight global warming. In the long run, this approach is sure to attack the problem of dynamic climate conditions which are affecting the countries today like storms, droughts, floods, extreme heat and cold as the amount of carbon dioxide emitted is significantly reduced. This also means that the crop loss due to the unpredictable weather conditions can be brought under control.

Organic farming promotes the decay of organic matter through the microbial activity which aggregates the organic content in the soil by producing a substance called glomalin. This in turn helps in maximizing carbon retention in the soil. But conventional methods involves applying soluble nitrogen fertilizers which stimulates rapid decay but sends carbon to the atmosphere than retaining in the soil. Hence, though the biomass is so similar, the retention rate of carbon content is significantly different as the carbon degradation is avoided in soil aggregates. Also, nitrogen content in the soil increases by this method. It should be noted that soil productivity depends primarily on the amount of carbon and nitrogen which are present.

Organic farming increases the health, fertility and productivity of the soil and also the plants. Hence, it gives better flavour to the vegetables and fruits cultivated. This also means that if you are going to buy organic food from our store, you would be able to contribute to shrink your carbon footprint.

Since the organic farming approach utilizes the natural carbon cycle, it is highly recommended than using synthetic inputs for farming in order to save money, increase the efficiency of energy resources utilized, improve returns at economic level for the farmers and reduce the harmful and hazardous toxins which could indirectly affect the health of the humans and also the environment. In addition, this method is a great answer to the depleting natural resources and aids well in the conservation initiatives such as improving the quality of water, air and soil, promoting wildlife habitat and also efficient use of natural resources.

Source: http://www.healthguidance.org/authors/324/Jason-Ladock
 
Jason Ladock

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