Can the Polyface Approach Feed the World?

By far the most common question people ask me is, “Can the Polyface approach feed the world?”

Yet another big op-ed piece in the New York Times on Sept 28 took this position to marginalize non-chemical agriculture, using the oft-quoted idea that we would need three times as much farmland to produce the food the world needs if we quit using glyphosate and chemical fertilizer.

Let’s take a walk into history and see where this kind of “scientific studies show” originated.

When Mason Carbaugh was Virginia Agriculture Commissioner more than 30 years ago, he issued a “state of the Commonwealth’s Agriculture” each year. I’ll never forget opening it and reading his dire predictions about what would happen if we went to organic farming. Half the world would starve; organic farmers needed to pick which half they wanted to starve.

This was long before the government organic certification program, but the rumblings toward non-chemical approaches were already rattling the establishment narrative. They had to nip this rebellious notion in the bud.