Dear friends
Dear friends
Welkom to the web-page of Belarusian working group on organic agriculture.
Today, agriculture is one of the main sources of contamination of Nature: about 1/3 of the total contamination falls upon the agrarian sector of the economics. Such situation is paradoxical, as this field of human activities consumes mainly free power the power of the sun. Power of fossil fuels is necessary for other types of activities connected with production of material objects. According to some assessments, all reserves of fossil fuels on the Earth, all oil, gas, and coal, contain the same amount of power as it comes to our planet with sun radiation in only 30 days (one month). About 95 percent of the dry substance of plants is synthesized with the help of sunlight.
However, contamination of the environment is not the only problem of today's agriculture. Despite growing investments, harvests are decreasing, the quality of the production is worsened, its costs increasing. Agricultural production remains one of the most labor intensive fields of activities, offering the least social protection of workers. Application of intensive economic methods leads to degradation of lands, contamination of soils, water, and air, decrease of biodiversity. Living conditions are made worse, health-care expenses are growing, renovation of the violated ecosystems becomes more expensive.
Organic agriculture is not only one of the methods of foodstuffs production. It is an alternative to today's intensive lands usage, which will not be able to exist in the nearest future. Global ecosystem cannot stand the increasing load. Organic agriculture is more compliant with natural cycles, it creates artificial ecosystems, which are maximally similar to the natural ones: a field is compliant with a meadow, a garden is compliant with a forest. Ecosystems management is the basic principle of environmental approach, and the ecosystem is meant in its broad meaning. It includes both social sphere and economics.
Organic agriculture is practical implementation of the principle of sustainable development in the agrarian field combining and harmonizing the development of environmental, economic, and social spheres of the society.