1. Organic Farming
LESSON OBJECTIVE
To be aware of the ethics and principles of organic farming and explain why organic products are
more expensive than non-organic produce.
Organic farming is a method of farming that doesn’t involve the use of artificial ________________ or
fertilisers which means pollution of local soil and rivers is_____________. Instead, organic farmers use
traditional____________. Theses include using ______________ instead of fertilisers to improve the
soil structure. A disadvantage of this is that ___________is difficultto apply and cannot control the
mineral content.
To reduce disease and damage to the soil composition, organic farmers use crop __________ method
which means they change where the crops are__________. The problem with this is that it decreases the
productivity and is _______ efficient to grow different crops.
Conventional farmers use ____________ to kill weeds which can damage the environment and be a health
risk to consumers. Organic farmers choose to weed ___________ to reduce the risks and damage, but this
requires a lot of hard labour. They also refrain from _________ machinery to collect their crop which
means they have to do it manually which takes________.
Organic farmers do not use nitrogen fertilisers which are__________, they use nitrogen fixing
_____________ such as legumes (peas and beans) which add __________ to the soil which is good for
the crop. By using pea plants the nitrogen that is __________to the soil is long lasting.
Organic farmers control __________ by using natural predators. For example using ladybirds to eat the
greenflies which are ________the crops. This is _________ biological control.
Conventional farmers may use battery farms to reduce the animal’s movement to get the best out of them
so they grow__________. Organic farms have animals that are free, this is known as free________.
Conventional farmers may also give cows antibiotics to _________the quality of milk and genetically
__________organism to make them bigger, ________ tasty of to give ________ a special feature such
as resistance to pesticides. Organic farmers will ____ use these methods. They choose to use traditional
methods of selective ____________ to get desirable characteristics in their livestock.
So in summary organic farms produce less food per acre, which makes food more expensive and
organic food tends to not be as pretty as non-organic food.
Organic farming techniques (Crop rotation*Nitrogen-fixing plants *Manure * Biological control * Weeding)
Technique Replaces Advantage Disadvantage
Fertiliser Recycles waste, improves soil
structure
Difficult to apply and cannot control mineral content
Single crop Reduces disease and damage
to soil composition
Less productivity. Less efficient to grow different
crops.
Herbicides Less environmental damage, or
health risk
Labour intensive
Nitrogen
fertilisers
Cheaper, longer lasting Reduces area available for growing crops if part of a
crop rotation
Pesticides Cheaper, longer lasting Will not completely exterminate the pest, often
unpredictable, slow results, can disrupt food chains
Pesticides * modify * reduced * more * less * bigger * nitrogen * added * using * planted
methods * expensive * longer * manure * plants * herbicides * manure * rotation * manually
breeding * pests * eating * not * called * range * improve * them