I found this interesting.
From Sustainable Ag. Newsletter: College of Agricultural, Food, and Environmental Sciences__Volume 10, Issue 6___June 2002
http://www.extension.umn.edu/newsletter ... D1987.html
Organic farming is more efficient, Swiss study finds
Organic farming may produce lower yields, but in the long run it's more efficient and much easier on the environment, Swiss researchers reported in the May 31, 2002 issue of "Science." Organic farms have more fertile soil and a higher biodiversity, both of which have been shown to increase efficiency, the Swiss researchers reported.
Paul Mader of the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture in Frick, Switzerland, and colleagues at the Swiss Federal Research Station for Agroecology and Agriculture in Zurich spent 21 years comparing conventional farming to organic farming, which uses no synthetic pesticides or fertilizers. "Mean yields are 20 percent lower, depending on the crop," Mader said. For example, organic wheat yields were 10 percent lower and there was a 40 percent reduction for potatoes.
"But mean energy input per hectare was about 50 percent higher (in conventional plots). As a consequence, energy input per crop unit is lower in organic." Energy input includes fuel used to produce fertilizer and pesticides and their actual ingredients. Mader's team found 34 to 51 percent less nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrients were added to the soil in the organic systems than in the conventional ones. So because the crop yields from the organic systems were 80 percent as large as conventional yields, the organic systems use resources more efficiently, they concluded.
Farmers reap the benefits. In Europe, Mader said, consumers are willing to pay 10 percent to 30 percent more for organic produce. They also often get government support.
At the start of the study, only one percent of Switzerland's farms were organic, but that has grown to nine percent, Mader said. "There are farmers converting to organic." Overall, he said, 3 percent of all farms in the European Union are organic, and the numbers are increasing by about 25 percent each year.
Mader said he believed the study to be free of bias, although he works for an organic institute. Government scientists also worked on the project, he said. "Of course, I try to have an objective view," Mader said. "But I have become a big fan of organic because I have seen the positive effects of organic."
Some of the processes that make organic more efficient are going on at the microbe level, he said. "The microorganisms in organic plots work more efficiently than in conventional plots," he said. The tiny organisms make carbon into a form that can be used by plants, for instance. "If there is less stress caused by fertilizers, caused by pesticides, the microbe community works more efficiently," he said.
Mycorrhizae, root-colonizing fungi that help plants absorb nutrients, fared better in organic systems as well. Such fungi were also at least partly responsible for the more stable physical structure of the organic soils, the researchers said. Insects such as pest-eating spiders and beetles flourished in the organic systems.
--Adapted from a Reuters/Environmental News Network article.
