Excuse me, but doesn't organic grain production require tillage to control weeds and all the trials suggest bugs prefer chemical to steel. Your call!

TQF raises an interesting question, proper organic grain or animal feed production does not employ the use of tillage or chemicals to control weeds, in a true organic situation there are few if any weeds. The only soil disturbance that occurs is when the seed is incorporated into the soil by a very narrow tyne which does not affect the microbes and other good organisms any more than that which occurs in a balanced natural environment. What the Vegans and others fail to realise is that the very proucts they consume (vegies) are mostly grown using the worst farming techniques yet developed in the farming world, that is plenty of toxic chemicals, fertilizers and massive soil disturbance techniques. Sad really.

The usual weirdo science comment you would expect from the organic farming sector. They always portray conventional ag as "red necked" - the truth is the strategic use of modern fertilisers and ag chems promotes biological life of soils. Example is the broad scale use of knockdown herbicides which has led to huge increases in soil/carbon conservation in cropping areas.

Non-organic farming has contributed around half the atmospheric CO2 accumulation. The particular techniques that cause the problem are inversion tillage and as mentioned artificial fertilizers and various poisions. Australia should follow the Brazillian lead and use the sugarcane industry to supply ethanol, done organically would be even better. As Andrew Gaines put it in a submission to Prof Garnout... "Alex McBratney is Dean of the faculty of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources at the University of Sydney. He conducts research on monitoring soil carbon flows. In 2002 he asserted in an interview on Radio National that a less than 2% increase in fertility in agricultural soils globally would store enough carbon to bring us back almost to preindustrial levels. (http://www.abc.net.au/science/features/soilcarbon/) Independently, Alan Yeomans in (his book) "Priority One" makes the same assertion, and goes into detail about how to do it. [ http://www.yeomansplow.com.au/priority-one-contents.htm for a free online edition] His starting point of is the fact that his father, P. A. Yeomans, developed 10 cm of topsoil in three years on a depleted farm near Richmond west of Sydney. Professor Stuart Hill, Foundation Chair of Social Ecology at the University of Western Sydney, is an expert in soil microbes and has consulted to farmers converting to organic agriculture. He interviewed P. A. Yeomans on site, and verifies that Yeomans did develop 10 cm of topsoil in three years. By world standards this is a phenomenal rate of soil development. Ken Yeomans www.keyline.com.au

So we’ll have heaps of carbon and no food? Maybe then the first world middle class will become more educated and less ignorant but unfortunately millions more in the third world will be starving. Really and truly.

Who did the trials you refer to? I am assuming a chemical company gave you the data. Roundup destroys soil microbiology and I can't see how cultivation has done much damage over 100 of years compared to farming from a drum.

wow. can these people promoting the implementation of organic farming actually be serious? There are that many flaws that it is unthinkable they could be serious. - ploughing causes hardpans which limits plants root development therefore reduces the organic matter below the hardpan, not to mention the loss of yield by the plant not being able to utilize moisture or nutrients below the hardpan. - ploughing inevitably exposes moist soil, therefore losing moisture (again plants don't grow as well without moisture!) - soil microorganisms feed on organic matter in the soil - this is lost very quickly through constant tillage - not to mention that disrupting the soil and drying it out is definatley not benefitial to soil micro flora / fauna. - The lack of fertilisers in organic farms is short term and the equivalent of mining the soil. When you take product from the crop off the field, you have to replace it otherwise you are on a downward spiral of nutrition - If we are getting all concerned about the use of non renewable fuels, then we should think about the amount of diesel it takes to plough a field compared to the amount to spray a field (and the time saving!) - ploughing a field exposes it to all types of erosion as there is no standing stubble to protect it! Those who can't see how cultivation has done 'much' damage over 100 years should get out a bit more. There is very little actually going for organic farming especially if we have to feed an exponentially rising world population in an era of climate change and reducing farmig land due to urban and mining encroachment.

As in many areas, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Yes, I do admire the work of the Yeoman dynasty, and others mentioned, but a moderate approach incorporating some herbicides, steam weeding, integrated pest management, tillage if required periodically, occasional chisel plowing or similar tyning, additional organic materials - recycled organics, biochar or similar and a reversal of the movement of nutrients in food to the consumers in the city and its effluent. So incorporation of many organic type approaches, but not entirely. Some of the concepts espoused by classic figures of agriculture such as Justus von Liebig, and the traditional rotational management schools of "the european school" which seem to have been often forgotten might need reviving. Soil can sequester a lot of carbon and improve productivity....and most of Australia's soils will benefit if carbon is added.

All this conversation is great. 'Wow', organic farming does not promote tillage. 'really and truly', it has been shown many times that healthy soil with good C:N ratio and a high level of organic matter, provided careful farming practices are used, provides the farmer with a better bottom line that conventional farming. Holistic farming, will definitely require some more learning for conventional farmers but that is what farming is about, learning how to do the best by the land you are looking after. Have a look at: www.holisticmanagement.org

Let's deal with facts rather than emotion. During the time that I was farming, that is fifty years up to last year, the population of the world doubled. My generation of farmers, together with agricultural science can claim with some pride that, by and large, all of those people have been fed. The political challenge, not the agricultural challenge, has been getting food to all of those people. Had it not been for exceptional plant breeding that brought on the 'green revolution' then Paul Erlich's prediction of the 1960s that the world was going to starve would have been shown to be true. The population of the world continues to increase. As countries develop so their food tastes change. The challenge now for agriculture is to increase food production by 50% within a couple of decades. Who made this prediction? Nobel Laureate Dr Norman Borlaug, the man who with his team gave us the Green Revolution. Whether conventional agriculture can do that is problematical. So the challenge is simple, those who promote other systems must show how Australia can increase say, cereal production by 50% without using conventional fertilizers and pesticides. Show us the work, prove the claims that organic farming can achieve what the world needs. We should also remember that we are fortunate in that we are rich enough to have a choice what food we will buy. Already there are some who just don't have any food, never mind a choice. We would all do well to remember something that many tend to forget, that is that ALL farmers do, is grow food! That's all they do for goodness sake! The one thing, as far as I know, that nobody can do without. As for 'themule'. The stubborness of your species is only exceeded by your individual ignorance. Just read the independent scientific literature of the effect of tillage on soil structure and improve your mind by doing so. Then put up the evidence on 'Roundup' to back your claim. Not chatter, proof.