Lurch said:
Yes it matters a great deal. If we are talking about animal poop then what are they eating, how is this fertilized.
If we are talking about plant grown to be fertilizer where is this grown and how is this fertilized?
In either case you need a whole heap of extra land to produce this, where is it coming from? You are going to need all your productive land for food growth and the non-productive land by definition isn't going to be much use for producing organic matter fertilizer.
Artificial fertilizer scores because it does not require land for it's production and it is easy to transport and apply, where natural product (animal waste) is available this is used in addition to artificial stuff not instead of in most instances (aside from Organic farming obviously).
But not all plants require fertiliser in the way it is understood via conventional farming. Organic fertiliser is
waste, it is not produced especially for the job. Compost, leaf-mould, bone-meal; they're all waste products or bi-products, which don't need extra fertiliser for their production (extra to the first purpose of producing goods). Also some plants fix nitrogen and add it to the soil, and some bring it up from deep below, where it is unavailable to other plants; this nitrogen is
free.
Also some fertilisers are 'free', in the sense that they can be harvested from renewable sources, like seaweed.
So your idea that everything needs fertilising to produce more fertiliser is wrong.
Lifthasir,
Organic farming does not require set-aside, fallow land. Crop rotation and addition of compost perform much the same functions.
And Organic farming may be seasonal, but so is conventional farming. I don't follow your logic.