Conventional farming, defined

In Tables 14.9 and 14.10, the last column reports the environmental impact points (EIPs) for typical applications of organic and conventional pesticides derived from the Pesticide Environmental Assessment System, or PEAS. This model produces relative rankings of risks based on defined use rates and use patterns (the formulation used to apply a pesticide, timing, target of the application, spray equipment used, etc). PEAS scores reflect an equal balancing of acute pesticide risks to farm workers, chronic risks via dietary exposure and exposures to birds, Daphnia and bees. 

A habitat is defined as a place where organisms of a species are found periodically, whereas a biotope is a uniform and more or less bordered area which is the living space of a biocoenosis (ANL 1994). Agricultural land use generally interferes with wildlife habitats. However, the point of interest in this study is to identify differences between conventional and organic farming systems with reference to habitat diversity. 

Conventional breeders often think that organic farmers require an absolute disease resistance, but in many cases tolerance or partial resistance can be sufficient. Organic farmers are used to searching for ways to reduce risks by an array of solutions at different levels (farm, crop, variety) and also adopt such a strategy in their search for appropriate combinations of supporting variety characteristics. There are different variety characteristics that support yield and yield stability through optimal plant health (Table 5.2). Plant health can be defined as a result of the following components ... 

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