Are alternative forms of agriculture, such as organic farming, better suited to improve agricultural practice in developing countries?
4.4 Farmers in many developing countries currently practise a form of organic farming. They are unable to afford artificial fertilisers, insecticides and pesticides. Some people in developed countries view this situation with approval and think that it is a particularly natural and desirable form of agriculture. Often, they are unaware of the intensive inputs which are supplied by organic farmers in developed countries. But organic farmers in developing countries are usually not able to provide the continuous enrichment of the soil with fertiliser. On closer inspection organic farming in developing countries takes on a different meaning. Most crop yields are too low to provide leftover material to replenish the land. Livestock produce poor quality manure which is mostly burned as fuel. Moreover, cattle are absent from large parts of Africa. Organic manures are little used as fertilisers, and exhaustion of soil nutrients is therefore widespread, leading to rapid soil degradation. Infest
