Large-scale organic farming is actually releasing MORE CO2 than large-scale conventional farming?

[Igel]

3. Well, d'uh.

Take my backyard patch of dirt. I've had one since I was in 4th grade, whenever I had a backyard.

My first few years I used inorganic fertilizers. No CO2 emissions. At the end of the growing season the dead plants that remained got pulled up and tossed out in the trash.

Now I compost, mulch, and nothing that grows on my property leaves my property unless it's passed through our digestive system. Plant-based kitchen scraps get composted, as well. It means a lot of organic "stuff" goes into the dirt. Check back a couple of years later most of it is gone: worm food, bacteria food, either way it's carbon's been put into the air.

The low-CO2 method was worse for the soil. I figure that most of the organic stuff that feeds the worms would wind up rotting anyway; it just rots in my patch o' dirt.

That's how organic farming is. You mulch and compost and you will have more CO2 per acre than if you use inorganic fertilizers. (It's unclear to me what happens if you take into account the CO2 emitted by the Haber process in producing the high-N fertilizers, processing, packaging, and transportation.)