EcoWarriorMe

There are moves afoot to begin uplifting food waste separately from other waste to allow energy to be extracted through the use of anaerobic digestion. On the face of it this sounds like a very good idea – not only does it extract energy but the residual waste can be used as a commercial grade compost, unlike the low grade compost extracted from Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) systems. This would see large reductions in material going to landfill. My concern is that large scale adoption of this technology will encourage more waste or, at best, stop any further reduction in the food we waste. Here is why.

I'd like to think that it can, but I have often wondered wether organic agriculture could feed everyone or whether we need more intensive agriculture. There are many environmental benefits to organic methods including reduced use of herbicides and pesticides such as neonicotinoids which are implicated in the decline of bee numbers. Another benefit is the greater diversity of vegetable varieties also associated with organic farming. This is for two reasons: to use varieties with greater natural resistance to pests and to use more flavoursome varieties to differentiate from non-organic produce.  A recent study of studies of yield from organic methods compared with so-called conventional methods has recently been published in Nature and reported here by the BBC. From the BBC report: The headline conclusion is pretty unequivocal; across the board, organic farming produces lower yields than conventional methods, by about 25%. For fruit, the difference is marginal, just a few percen...