Can organic farming be scaled to feed Asia?
By Ng Wai Mun
Industrial farming, which relies on chemical fertilisers and pesticides, was once regarded as the backbone of food supply chains. But its productivity has plateaued due to widespread soil degradation, and the practice has damaged ecosystems, causing biodiversity loss.
More soil-friendly methods are now being explored, among which is organic farming, which aims to reduce and ultimately eliminate synthetic inputs. But going 100 per cent organic is not easy. Farmers are resistant, and there are just not enough buyers for the more expensive produce.
Recently, a botched attempt by Sri Lanka to ban the import and use of chemical fertilisers raises more questions about the viability of large-scale organic farming.
Can organic farming be scaled in Asia? Is there a middle road to take where a gradual shift can be managed, while ensuring that the livelihoods of farmers are taken care of?
In May last year, Sri Lanka issued an abrupt nationwide ban on synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, requiring that the two million farmers in the country go completely organic. It was a disaster. Paddy and maize harvests plunged. The government eventually lifted its fertiliser ban and provided price subsidies to certain sectors, but the damage was done. Reduced domestic supply led to high food prices and acute shortages, resulting in a humanitarian crisis.
Sri Lanka’s story proves that the total elimination of agrochemicals alone is not enough to support a shift away from conventional farming. But despite its difficulties, the transition to alternative modes of food production is urgently needed, as chasing crop efficiency and yield using aggressive chemicals is no longer delivering desired results.
In Asia, there is growing evidence that land productivity has reached a plateau for advanced agricultural economies such as Malaysia, Vietnam and China. The Indo-Gangetic plains, which have the most fertile soils in India, are also undergoing severe land degradation. For the majority of farmers in Asia who are smallholders and operate on less than a hectare of farm area, many are seeing stagnating yields even as they apply more chemical fertilisers and pesticides.
Still, it is a challenge to get farmers in Asia to return to pre-industrial methods or adopt more nature-led approaches to farming. The primary reason is the lack of financial motivation to do so – consumer demand for organic produce is restricted to a few affluent markets such as Singapore, and market incentives are distorted such that chemical inputs get more subsidies than organic ones. Even if farmers opt to transit to organic farming, they need to be prepared to manage the “yield gap” – usually a period of four to five years when croplands are not as productive, producing less crop per acre than conventional farms.
Muhammad Firdaus, professor from the Faculty of Economics and Management at IPB University, Indonesia, said that when smallholder paddy farmers switch to organic farming, they would lose about two tonnes per hectare, or a third of their usual output.
To encourage more farmers to take up organic methods, Dr. Firdaus, who is also part of the World Trade Organisation agricultural products negotiation expert team, says that governments design policies to help farmers reduce crop reliance on chemical fertilisers. The aim is to incentivise a gradual transition rather than implement sweeping reforms.
Smallholder farmers are driven by survival and economic returns. They are smart and they follow price signals, and will transition to organic as long as the conditions are right.
Omer Zafar, who specialises in agriculture policy in Southeast Asia at the Asian Development Bank, believes that when there is demand from consumers, farmers will respond. “Right now we do not see the signal from consumers yet, and as smallholder farmers are risk averse, there is no push for them to drastically change their methods.”
Zafar says that what regional financiers like the ADB can do is work with governments to build institutional structures, improve agricultural governance and drive capital towards technology that can help farmers manage the transition yield gap, once they switch to organic when there is significant market demand. This includes helping to train farmers, enhancing their knowledge of more nature-led approaches to food production, as well as promoting the use of organic fertilisers.
In the Philippines, the ADB has worked with the state to set up a participatory guarantee system — where local farmers assure the quality of each others’ produce — to certify organic producers, especially smallholder farmers. It has also funded development of new facilities such as “organic agriculture hubs”, which will be learning centres for farmers and marketplaces for organic produce.
'Organic' should not be used as a buzzword or a political stance. We need to think like scientists.
The practical alternative: low-input hybrid solutions?
In Banyuwangi, a regency in East Java, Indonesia, rice farmers have been struggling with infestations of the brown planthopper, an invasive insect that feeds on their rice plants. Previously, it was a relatively minor pest, but the indiscriminate increase in insecticide use had destroyed its natural predators, making the problem worse. Farmers face one pest season – where large swarms of insects come to attack crops – at least once a year.
Yet these smallholder farmers resist going organic because of the low reliability of organic inputs that are available in the market. “The farmers do not like that they cannot see immediate results, like they would if they were to use synthetic fertilisers,” said Kukuh Roxa, chief executive of Pandawa Agri Indonesia (PAI), a life science startup that had provided the Banyuwangi growers with its reductant, now supplied to plantations across Indonesia, in provinces such as Sumatra and Kalimantan, as well as in Malaysia. The reductant product is applied with pesticides and help cuts pesticide use by half. “Stakes are high for farmers, because if their harvests are affected when they change their methods, they lose their incomes and livelihoods.”
PAI avoids branding its product as “organic”, as it believes that the word has become an overused buzzword.
Brown planthopper infestations have become endemic across Java after extensive outbreaks in 2011. Image: IRRI Photos / Flickr
Brown planthopper infestations have become endemic across Java after extensive outbreaks in 2011. Image: IRRI Photos / Flickr
“The farmers need to see to believe, and we have to deliver the results so that they can change their mindset and accept that they need to limit pesticide use,” said Kukuh.
Hybrid solutions, which are a halfway-point between organic and conventional farming methods, are gaining traction in Southeast Asia. In Indonesia, the history of such methods stretches back to the 1980s, when the country attempted to transform its farming sector by adopting an ecosystem-based strategy known as the Integrated Pest Management (IPM) system. A combination of techniques, including biological control, use of resistant crop varieties and habitat manipulation, was encouraged.
A rice farmer field school in Indonesia. Image: Widyastama Cahyana / UNFAO
A rice farmer field school in Indonesia. Image: Widyastama Cahyana / UNFAO
However, when the country entered a new era of democratic reform, support for the programme wavered and it was terminated in 1999. Pesticide producers and traders took advantage of the policy vacuum to mount an aggressive marketing campaign in the countryside. Pesticides became commonly used, and related pest problems appeared.
Dr. Firdaus believes that proponents of the organic movement are sometimes too “caged in” by the concept, and ignore the fact that farmers need time to transit, if they were asked to cut pesticide use. PAI's approach, an example of low input sustainable agriculture (LISA) which looks at minimising but not entirely eliminating the use of synthetic pesticides, is thus commendable, he said.
“It might not be fully organic, but it means so much for sustainable agriculture.”
PAI has since turned its attention to the Mbay sub-district in Nagekeo, East Nusa Tenggara, where Kukuh identifies as an area with high potential, as there are currently no multinationals or commercial companies operating in its agricultural sector. “It has 120,000 hectares of irrigated rice farms, but their productivity is only half of those in the western part of Indonesia, because there has been no transfer of technology. We want to help them enhance their yield to about 6 to 7 tonnes per hectare.”
Since 2021, PAI has been working with farmers in the region. It also engages smallholder farmers working on coffee plantations in South Sumatra. Field assistants are deployed to work closely with the farmers, advising them on the type of products and how to apply them. Other than herbicide and insecticide reductants, PAI provides these farmers with certified seeds, micronutrients, silica fertilisers, as well as straw-decomposing microbes to increase the organic elements in the soil. In PAI’s recently released impact report, a 40 per cent increase in crop productivity was registered; farmlands also saw improvement in soil fertility.
Kukuh notices that funding is now flowing towards upstream solutions in agriculture within Europe, where the focus is on improving the quality and efficiency of material inputs. Downstream ventures and investments, meanwhile, are consumer-facing and involve the setting up of marketplaces for efficient distribution and sales of food products.
He is optimistic that PAI will have a first mover advantage once more investors set their sights on Asia, and as long as the company continues to grow its product pipeline. Currently, PAI's annual production capacity is about 2 million litres of pesticide reductant. It aims to increase it to 25 million litres over the next five years, and also targets to expand its product range beyond pesticide reductants, to help farmers cut down on the use of other synthetic agricultural inputs in the next 10 years.
Field assistants are deployed by Pandawa Agri to help farmers improve the efficiency of agricultural inputs and reduce rates of herbicide use. Image: Pandawa Agri
Field assistants are deployed by Pandawa Agri to help farmers improve the efficiency of agricultural inputs and reduce rates of herbicide use. Image: Pandawa Agri
Financing the yield gap
Rather than looking to organic ways of crop cultivation, there is also now a growing regenerative farming movement, which gets farmers to plant in a way that improves soil health and restores natural ecosystems. Crop rotation is practised, as varying the types of crops planted improves biodiversity; animal manure and compost are used to return nutrients to the soil; ploughing of the land is discouraged to lock in carbon dioxide and improve water absorbency.
This approach has seen interest from venture capitalists and financiers around the world, though it is still a new field in Asia. Sangam Paudel, project officer at international sustainability non-profit Forum for the Future, says that farmers who employ regenerative agriculture methods also need to overcome the yield gap.
“It might take seasons or years before their yield get to conventional agricultural levels, and the yield gaps can be different for different crops in different agri-ecological zones,” he said. “There is a need to have lending facilities and products that can support farmers through this transitionary period.”
Agriculture in general has been seen as a riskier area to invest [in comparison to other sectors], and within that, regenerative agriculture is newer and less understood.
Commercial food companies wishing to adopt more sustainable practices can be the ones initiating change. In a horizon scanning exercise carried out in July, Forum for the Future’s Asia Pacific team said food companies should co-create solutions with farmers and provide fair prices for their produce.
Statistics show that by 2050, up to 10 billion people will live on the planet, with more than half residing in Asia. This will require a 70 per cent increase in today’s food production, and the supply in the region is largely reliant on smallholder farmers, one of the most vulnerable groups to the exacerbating impacts of climate change.
What might work in the push to scale organic farming is if the expansion is limited to a specific locale and crops. There also needs to be proper management of the transition, said Sukhpal Singh, professor at the Centre for Management in Agriculture at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA).
This is so that public financing can be focused and results maximised, said Dr. Singh. In Sikkim, a state in Northeastern India, all of its 75,000 hectares of agricultural land have been converted to certified organic land by implementing practices and principles according to guidelines laid down in a national programme. Then, the sale of chemical inputs was banned to push smallholder farmers towards a full switch.
Asian countries with largest organic agricultural area, according to 2019 statistics. India and China leads the pack. Image: Asian Development Bank
Asian countries with largest organic agricultural area, according to 2019 statistics. India and China leads the pack. Image: Asian Development Bank
India has the largest share of organic agricultural land in Asia, but for now farms which are fully organic are mostly commercial ones which can afford to take higher risks. Dr Singh says that “smallholder farmers will not put all their eggs in one basket”, so any successful organic transition needs to be state-driven and state-supported.
Farmers in India are also not part of a cooperative or a producer alliance, and hence enjoy no economies of scale if they engage in organic production. There are various organic certifications schemes and systems that they have to navigate, said Dr. Singh, and that makes for a very confusing landscape. “On the one hand, there are participatory guarantee systems where farmers in close-by villages just need to vouch for each other and engage in peer monitoring to be certified organic; on the other hand, if farmers want to export their produce, they have to adhere to stringent conditions, continual soil and product tests are carried out, and getting a certification takes about three years, which is a long wait.”
In Indonesia, plots are scattered and efforts to implement organic farming are not concentrated in a single large area, said Dr. Firdaus. It strategically chooses organic methods of production for certain crops to meet consumer demand. Vegetable crops such as cabbage and carrots are grown organically in West Java, as they see regular buyers in Singapore. The network for selling fair trade organic tea is rather established, said Dr. Firdaus. The nation has also been successful in increasing the proportion of organic cocoa it produces from 10 to 30 per cent such that it can export them, though farmers still face obstacles in field maintenance and have to find ways to offset the high costs of biopesticides.
The ban on synthetic fertilisers has been lifted since November last year, but the U-turn comes too late. At one point, the price of imported fertilisers shot up so high and we could not afford them.
Weaning farmers off agrochemicals
For most developing countries in Asia, the most pressing task is not to go organic, but to reduce the use of agrochemicals first. But there is an entrenched belief by certain governments and agri-companies that soil needs chemical nutrients.
According to ADB, in both Indonesia and the Philippines, average nitrogen fertiliser use per hectare of cropland from 2010 to 2019 was more than double the average use between 1970 and 1989; nitrogen fertiliser use likewise intensified in other Southeast Asian economies.
The use of nitrogen fertiliser has intensified in developing countries in Asia. The amount of fertiliser inputs applied per hectare by farmers in Sri Lanka is significantly lower than that in other Asian countries. Source: ADB
The use of nitrogen fertiliser has intensified in developing countries in Asia. The amount of fertiliser inputs applied per hectare by farmers in Sri Lanka is significantly lower than that in other Asian countries. Source: ADB
In Indonesia, the truth is, intensified fertiliser use has not delivered intended results and yields have stagnated. “While fertiliser use has contributed to past improvement in agricultural production and food security, its fiscal and environmental costs have outweighed its benefits. The primary beneficiaries of fertiliser subsidies have also generally been larger, better-off farmers,” said the regional financier.
Indonesia has seen a strategic policy change this year: subsidies for urea and NPK (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) fertilisers now cover only a limited range of commodities, including paddy, corn, soybean and sugarcane, down from a total of almost 70 commodities. The government is also considering subsidies for organic fertilisers, with the surge in cost of chemical agricultural inputs.
In Sri Lanka, before the government’s outright ban, chemical fertilisers, highly-subsidised, were “literally given free of charge to paddy farmers”, said Jeevika Weerahewa, agricultural economist at Peradeniya University. Among established organic producers, who make up about 2 per cent of the farming population in Sri Lanka, access to biofertilisers or biopesticides is difficult. Farmers need more help to secure the necessary inputs, said Weerahewa.
Defining Asia's own standards
Finally, obtaining organic certification, whether global or local, has been seen as logistically complex and costly for farmers. Asian markets are looking to enhance the process – some by entirely dropping the “organic” label altogether.
Between fully organic and conventional methods, there is what is now globally known as Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), which accepts that a certain level of chemical nutrients is still needed for crops to thrive. Often, farmers focus on getting rid of pesticide residue in the produce.
In Singapore, the national food agency awards its urban vegetable farms with a newly-developed Clean & Green (C&G) certification if it adopts both GAP and sustainable practices with the efficient use of resources. The aim is to reward farms for producing safe and nutritious vegetables with no pesticide use, even if they are not strictly organic, say authorities.
Peter Barber, chief executive of Comcrop, one of Singapore’s pioneer companies in urban farming that wants to feed the population with home-grown leafy vegetables produced from its rooftop greenhouses, highlights that in the United States, there has been a fierce debate going on about whether hydroponic crops should be granted organic certification, given that the soilless system is exempt from soil fertility checks. In contrast, he thinks that Asia is a little more pragmatic, though he does not see the local standards as a compromise.
“For me, they are actually an upgraded version of what we understand organic to be. The focus should be on good quality produce,” he said.
There are those who also believe that the pursuit of any form of organic farming should be focused on granting farmers independence and making them less reliant on large industrial companies that provide synthetic fertilisers.
But the reality is that farmers need to deal with markets, because that is the only way their incomes can be enhanced, so fairer trading mechanisms need to be in place to protect them, said Dr. Singh.
“Realistically speaking, farmers in Asia still need and want subsidies and financial help from the government,” said Dr. Firdaus. “But as we scale any form of sustainable agriculture, it is crucial to remind ourselves of the concept of food sovereignty, such that the agricultural sector is not held hostage by vested interests.”
This story was published with the support of Pandawa Agri Indonesia.
Image credits: Pat Whelen; Elizabeth Lies; Marc Hasten; Joel Vodell / Unsplash
Built with Shorthand