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Back in 2000, an interviewer asked Norman Borlaug, father of the “green revolution” of industrial farming that swept through Asia in the 1970s, what he thought of the idea that organic agriculture could feed the world. The Nobel laureate became apoplectic:

 That’s ridiculous. This shouldn’t even be a debate. Even if you could use all the organic material that you have–the animal manures, the human waste, the plant residues–and get them back on the soil, you couldn’t feed more than 4 billion people. In addition, if all agriculture were organic, you would have to increase cropland area dramatically, spreading out into marginal areas and cutting down millions of acres of forests.

The great man’s derision has clung to chemical-free farming ever since in elite policy circles.  USDA chief Tom Vilsack occasionally pays lip service to organic farmers, but when he addresses the hard question of how to “feed the world,” he reliably toes the Borlaug line.

And yet, Borlaug was evidently wrong. It turns out, when you actually compare chemical-intensive and organic farming in the field, organic proves just as productive in terms of gross yield-and brings many other advantages to the table as well. The Rodale Institute’s test plots in Pennsylvania have been demonstrating this point for years.