Fruits of Success

Organic Food Better than Conventional

New Scientist 18apr01

Organic food is better tasting, better for the environment and better business, says study

Organic food is not just tastier and better for the environment, it also makes better business sense. That is the conclusion of scientists who have compared the economic efficiency and environmental impact of conventional, organic and "integrated" apple orchards.

John Reganold, a soil scientist at Washington State University in Pullman, and his colleagues ran a detailed comparison of factors such as soil quality, apple yield and environmental impact at the three types of orchard between 1994 and 1999. The organic orchard relied on manure as fertiliser and used natural methods to deal with parasites. The integrated farming system is not totally organic, but uses some organic methods to reduce the reliance on chemicals.

The team found the soil fared best in the organic plot. It held water better, and resisted degradation at the surface. Previous studies have shown that the build-up of sulphur, commonly used as a natural fungicide, could be a long-term problem, but the team found no evidence of this. "The incidence of pests was very low on all the plots," says Reganold.

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Apple Growing

To their surprise, the researchers also found the organic orchard was more energy efficient than the conventional and integrated systems, requiring less labour and less water per apple produced. It even made more money, mainly because organic apples command higher prices.

It is not clear whether the study holds a lesson for farming in general. Some past attempts to compare conventional and organic farming methods have suggested that organic farming may be less economic and energy efficient than conventional methods. Some studies even suggested that it might be worse for the environment.

But until now, "there've been almost no studies looking at the overall sustainability of both methods", says Reganold.

Sweet taste

Critics point out that if everyone farmed organically, organic food might not command a premium. "Why should consumers pay so much more for what is essentially a comparable product?" asks Dennis Avery of the Center for Global Food Issues in Churchville, Virginia, which campaigns on the environmental impact of agriculture.

Reganold counters that consumers are getting more for their money. "The organic apples were firmer and taste better, sweeter and less tart to a non-expert panel," he says. But Avery doubts organic farming will ever provide a large-scale solution. "We're going to have 10 billion people to feed worldwide," he says. "I just don't see the relevance of this." More at: Nature (vol 410, p 926) Correspondence about this story should be directed to letters@newscientist.com

 The fruits of organic farming

Nature 19apr01

The market for organic produce is growing, but the science behind organic farming has been questioned. A recent Commentary in Nature (410, 409-410; 2001) called for proper scientific testing of claims that organic farming is superior. A contribution to the scientific comparison of farming methods is published this week. In a six-year study in Washington State (where they produce "The Best Apples on Earth™"), organic apples scored better than the competition. Yields were much the same, but organic apples were sweeter and less tart, and ranked above integrated and conventional apples for environmental and economic sustainability.

Sustainability of three apple production systems

JOHN P. REGANOLD, JERRY D. GLOVER, PRESTON K. ANDREWS & HERBERT R. HINMAN
Nature 410, 926-930 (19 April 2001)

First Paragraph
          Escalating production costs, heavy reliance on non-renewable resources, reduced biodiversity, water contamination, chemical residues in food, soil degradation and health risks to farm workers handling pesticides all bring into question the sustainability of conventional farming systems. It has been claimed, however, that organic farming systems are less efficient, pose greater health risks and produce half the yields of conventional farming systems. Nevertheless, organic farming became one of the fastest growing segments of US and European agriculture during the 1990s. Integrated farming, using a combination of organic and conventional techniques, has been successfully adopted on a wide scale in Europe. Here we report the sustainability of organic, conventional and integrated apple production systems in Washington State from 1994 to 1999. All three systems gave similar apple yields. The organic and integrated systems had higher soil quality and potentially lower negative environmental impact than the conventional system. When compared with the conventional and integrated systems, the organic system produced sweeter and less tart apples, higher profitability and greater energy efficiency. Our data indicate that the organic system ranked first in environmental and economic sustainability, the integrated system second and the conventional system last.