> Citation? I can't imagine they would use little or none unless they were farming something specific, like rice, which can grow under water or if it's grown indoors.
I don't really have a source for that more than anecdotal evidence. I've been involved with local farms that don't use any pesticides, however they were on the scale of ~5-15 acres. On a commercial scale it's probably not really possible. And organic food you'd buy in a supermarket is definitely not grown in this way.
The link you provided also only mentions two types of organic pesticides when there are thousands of USDA approved organic pesticides. I'm sure there are some USDA Organic pesticides that are just as harmful if not more so than some conventional pesticides but that's really just an argument for better USDA regulations.
>So I'm having trouble finding the study I read a few years back but it essentially found that large, centralized farms are the most efficient because our transportation has gotten so good and many plants grow better in specific climates versus growing everything locally. So if you have enough scale then centralized, huge farms seems to be the way to go.
I'm sure that large, centralized farms are most efficient in the short term. But long term effects on food production and soil could offset that. If in 50 years the soil is nutritionally drained and farms have to continue to pump more nutrients in then the cost and effeciency is going to drop. [1][2]
I think near-term, some combination is required because the level of food production needed is so high. Long-term, incorporating more sustainable practices into commercial scale farms or moving production into greenhouses like you mentioned is a better idea.
I'll add that after doing more research today, the label "Organic" doesn't mean better for the environment. That much is now clear to me. However, sustainable farming practices that can usually be found a small-local farms and backyard gardens are more environmentally friendly. Though scaling that for worldwide production is a difficult problem.
I don't really have a source for that more than anecdotal evidence. I've been involved with local farms that don't use any pesticides, however they were on the scale of ~5-15 acres. On a commercial scale it's probably not really possible. And organic food you'd buy in a supermarket is definitely not grown in this way.
The link you provided also only mentions two types of organic pesticides when there are thousands of USDA approved organic pesticides. I'm sure there are some USDA Organic pesticides that are just as harmful if not more so than some conventional pesticides but that's really just an argument for better USDA regulations.
>So I'm having trouble finding the study I read a few years back but it essentially found that large, centralized farms are the most efficient because our transportation has gotten so good and many plants grow better in specific climates versus growing everything locally. So if you have enough scale then centralized, huge farms seems to be the way to go.
I'm sure that large, centralized farms are most efficient in the short term. But long term effects on food production and soil could offset that. If in 50 years the soil is nutritionally drained and farms have to continue to pump more nutrients in then the cost and effeciency is going to drop. [1][2]
I think near-term, some combination is required because the level of food production needed is so high. Long-term, incorporating more sustainable practices into commercial scale farms or moving production into greenhouses like you mentioned is a better idea.
I'll add that after doing more research today, the label "Organic" doesn't mean better for the environment. That much is now clear to me. However, sustainable farming practices that can usually be found a small-local farms and backyard gardens are more environmentally friendly. Though scaling that for worldwide production is a difficult problem.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4552827/ [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20160305010056/https://nature.be...