Contributions of Organic Farming to a Sustainable Environment

Lukas Pfiffner

Sponsor(s)/Partners:

The study relies mainly upon a previous study, Stolze et al. 2000, which was carried out with the financial support of the Commission of the European Communities, Agriculture and Fisheries (FAIR) specific RTD programme, Fair3-CT96-1794, "Effects of the CAP-reform and possible further development of organic farming in the EU."

Purpose

To determine whether one of the basic assumptions underlying political support for organic agriculture can be upheld. Specifically, is organic farming a more environmentally sustainable system than conventional agriculture?

Methods

The analysis was conducted in the 15 EU countries plus Norway, Switzerland and the Czech Republic through a questionnaire in which experts summarized their respective national literature on the environmental impacts of organic methods. This led to a qualitative analysis of organic and conventional systems based on relative scales for production and non-production habitats. On a per hectare basis the farming systems were compared by the following indicators: biodiversity and landscape, soil, ground and surface water, climate and air, and farm input and output.

Results

Among all indicators, organic famring was deemed at least equal to conventional farming and in most cases was clearly superior to conventional systems. Although there is ambiguity in the climate and air category the results validate the public policy efforts in support of organic farming as more ecologically sound.