Sales of premium-priced organic food have slumped this year, with demand for organic vegetables down more than a third, and for fertiliser-free fruit falling nearly 16%. But while that's bad news for the sellers of vegetable box schemes, not to mention Tesco (who sell over £1bn worth of organic food) it might just be good news for humanity. Not only are there no demonstrable health benefits from organic food, it is also incapable of feeding the world.
Organic food yields less per acre, which means you have to plough up more land to produce just as much food. Indeed, "A total abolition of pesticide use would result in an average drop in farming yields of between 10% and 25%", according to a 1999 study by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency. On farms with specialist crops such as sugar beet and potatoes, it comes closer to 50%.
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