Organic Farms Produce Less, but Are More Cost Effective, Study Finds

A decade-long study in Germany found that con­ven­tional agri­cul­tural pro­duc­tion is nearly dou­ble that of organic agri­cul­ture.

However, the research also showed that con­vert­ing to organic farm­ing might sig­nif­i­cantly ben­e­fit the envi­ron­ment while reduc­ing costs.

The study by Munich Technical University demon­strated that con­ven­tional agri­cul­ture costs up to €800 per hectare more than organic farm­ing.

For the study, the researchers accounted for the usual farm­ing expenses, includ­ing the costs related to the envi­ron­men­tal impact of the two dif­fer­ent farm­ing approaches, such as those derived from the effects of green­house gas emis­sions.

They deter­mined that tran­si­tion­ing to organic farm­ing could sig­nif­i­cantly reduce emis­sions and costs. For exam­ple, if 30 per­cent of farm­land is suc­cess­fully con­verted to organic prac­tices by 2030, as stip­u­lated by the cur­rent pol­icy in Germany, sav­ings will exceed €4 bil­lion, the researchers said.

The study fol­lowed the per­for­mance of 40 con­ven­tional and 40 organic farms, which sci­en­tists found more envi­ron­men­tally friendly.

The researchers attrib­uted this to the lack of chem­i­cal pes­ti­cides and nitro­gen fer­til­iz­ers used in organic farm­ing. Additionally, the humus of the soil in organic farms fixes a higher quan­tity of car­bon due to prac­tices such as crop rota­tion and plant­ing legu­mi­nous cover crops.

The researchers high­lighted how crop rota­tion could deliver sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits through car­bon diox­ide seques­tra­tion, with farm­lands func­tion­ally trans­formed into car­bon sinks.

Some of these prac­tices are included in the European Union’s new Common Agricultural Policy, which pro­vides addi­tional funds to farm­ers fol­low­ing advanced soil-pre­serv­ing tech­niques.

The research also found other crit­i­cal dif­fer­ences between con­ven­tional and organic farms, includ­ing fewer ani­mals in organic farms, the reduced use of fos­sil fuels and lower land use inten­sity.

Still, the study demon­strated that con­ven­tional farm­ing yields could almost dou­ble organic out­put. However, the researchers said this might change over time with fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion.

“There are many stud­ies con­firm­ing that if we con­sider the yield per hectare, per year, organic farm­ing tends to be from 8 to 25 per­cent less pro­duc­tive than con­ven­tional ones,” Maria Grazia Mammuccini, an organic olive farmer and pres­i­dent of the Italian organic fed­er­a­tion FederBio, told Olive Oil Times.

“Still, if you wish to cap­ture the exact pic­ture, you can­not stop at such mea­sure­ments,” she added. ​“Organic farm­ing aims to nur­ture the soil, whereas con­ven­tional agri­cul­ture aims to nur­ture the plant.”

According to Mammuccini, the key to cor­rectly read­ing data about organic farm­ing is the impact on organic farm­ing soil com­pared to con­ven­tional farm­ing regimes.

“Organic farm­ers work to give back to the soil… and they do that by nat­ural means, such as com­post or manure,” she said. ​“Conventional farm­ing uses arti­fi­cial fer­til­iz­ers to boost plant pro­duc­tion.”

“Therefore, organic farm­ing tends to pre­serve the soil, not only to pro­duce the food needed today but also to leave a fer­tile soil for future gen­er­a­tions,” she added. ​“Conventional farm­ing, includ­ing inten­sive farm­ing, is one of the engines of deser­ti­fi­ca­tion, which is why one can­not mea­sure organic yields only by look­ing at pro­duc­tion vol­umes.”

The European Union’s sus­tain­able devel­op­ment goals include con­vert­ing at least 25 per­cent of the bloc’s agri­cul­tural land to organic prac­tices by 2030. Currently, only about 9 per­cent of E.U. farm­land is organic.

A report from IFOAM Organics International, a non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion, found that organic agri­cul­ture is prac­ticed in 191 coun­tries. Additionally, more than 76 mil­lion hectares of agri­cul­tural land are man­aged organ­i­cally by at least 3.7 mil­lion farm­ers.

The report also found the global organic food mar­ket will be worth approx­i­mately €125 bil­lion in 2021, a 3‑percent increase com­pared with last year.

According to Mammuccini, expand­ing organic farm­land should result in a new approach to organic farm­ing.

“It should not be con­sid­ered a niche any­more. Instead, it should be treated as the most rel­e­vant con­veyor of inno­v­a­tive agro-friendly prac­tices,” she said. ​“Organic farm­ing inno­va­tions also can be used in con­ven­tional farm­ing oper­a­tions to reduce their envi­ron­men­tal impact.”

“We need to stop sim­pli­fy­ing the com­plex­ity of a var­ied ecosys­tem, leave behind inten­sive land use and adopt agro-eco­log­i­cal organic farm­ing prac­tices,” Mammuccini added, which she con­cluded would result in more spe­cialty local pro­duc­tion.

• German Ministry of Food and Agriculture
• IFOAM Organics International