The Food and Agriculture Organization’s chief scientist has refuted the idea that organic farming risks worsening the global hunger crisis, telling Devex in a wide-ranging interview that “an agroecological approach with technology could save us, but we don't have really enough appetite for it.”
Earlier this year, Erik Fyrwald, CEO of the agrochemicals group Syngenta, sparked controversy by claiming that “people are starving in Africa because we are eating more and more organic products.” Fyrwald argued that, depending on the product, organic farming generates lower yields.
Asked to respond, Ismahane Elouafi, a Canadian-Moroccan scientist who became FAO’s first chief scientist in 2020, told Devex last week that the science paints a different picture.