Food Security in the Era of Sustainable Organic Farming: A Comparison Between the Visegrad Group and India

Abstract

The agriculture industry has undergone many developments that embraced automation, agro-chemical fertilizers, genetically modified organisms etc that brought exponential growth in productivity post industrial revolution. This growth resolved the food availability issues on a global scale, but rapid climate change has brought about a shift in production practices to more sustainable organic farming techniques from the conventional methods. The climate change effects and increase in greenhouse gas emissions adversely affected the overall agricultural output. The widespread perception is that adoption of organic farming can reduce the harmful greenhouse emissions and be less damaging to the environment, although expecting the same level of productivity as conventional farming is challenging. This gradual shift can cause future food security problems such as availability and affordability of food in developing countries. This article compares and analyses such trend in the Visegrad group (V4) and India. The comparison between a group of developed nations and a developing nation is of exploratory interest because V4 countries are regarded as high-income countries and they are leaders in organic cultivation practices since the 1980s, whereas India as a developing country has seen substantial conversion of agriculture land area from conventional to organic farming in the past decade.