Organic Farming

The Asian cosmetics industry needs to raise the bar for sustainability according to speakers at the 2nd Asia-Pacific Sustainable Cosmetics Summit held recently in Hong Kong. They say the region is lagging in many ethical and ecological areas, such as alternatives to animal testing, ecological packaging, green formulations, as well as consumer education. The growing importance of Asia to the cosmetics industry was highlighted by Sam McKay, CEO of Jurlique. In his opening keynote, he declared: “Asia has become our number one focus as a region”.

With the world’s human population now more than seven billion – and the prospect of nine billion by 2050 – the focus on agricultural yields is greater than ever. A comprehensive new analysis, published in Nature, is therefore bound to inflame the debate over organic versus chemically enhanced farming methods. Proponents of organic farming believe it is the best way to feed the world’s population without destroying the environment. In terms of productivity, however, the new paper comes down squarely on the side of conventional farming that uses man-made fertilizer and pesticides but the authors concede organic farming works quite well for some crops.