Organic farming, environmental impacts

Mondelaers K, Aertsens J, van Huylenbroeck G. A Meta-Analysis of the Differences in Environmental Impacts between Organic and Conventional Farming. British Food Journal. 2009 111(10) 1098-1119. DOI 10.1108/0007070091099292... 

Stolze M, Piorr A, Haring A, Dabbert S. The Environmental Impacts of Organic Farming in Europe. Stuttgart University of Hohenheim 2000.127 p. 

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. 

Hansen B, Alroe HF, Kristensen ES (2001) Approaches to assess the environmental impact of organic farming with particular regard to Denmark. Agric Ecosyst Environ 83 11-26 Harinikumar KM, Bagyaraj DJ (1989) Effect of cropping sequence, fertilizers and farmyard manure on vesicular-arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in different crops over three consecutive seasons. Biol Fertil Soils 7 173-175... 

The sections 4.1 to 4.4 comprised a thorough review of the relevant scientific literature with respect to organic farming and its impact on the environment and resource use. While each section focused on one environmental indicator, this section will now conclude by bringing together the individual results documented in the summarising assessment scheme, whieh eompleted each subsection. 

Things are a bit different as far as those indicators are concerned which show an equal influence on environmental issues. Little information about the impacts of organic farming on climate and air, animal welfare and health and food quality is available. The reasons for this might be that ... 

Although the experts assessments vary enormously by country, the mean values show that the most important subjects with respect to the environmental impacts of organic farming are landscape, soil, ground and surface water and biodiversity. Climate as well as air and energy uses are, however, assessed to be of only minor importance. Only two experts identified animal health and welfare to be of special importance for organic farming in this context. 

So far, this report has largely been a synopsis of scientific evidence, but scientific findings are not necessarily the answer to policy relevant questions. A number of policy relevant questions are now raised in this section with respect to the environmental and resource use impacts of organic farming. Finally, it is discussed to which extent the outcome of this report can help answer these questions. 

In this study, environmental and resource use impacts of organic farming are assessed relative to conventional farming systems. The primary source of information for this report is a survey of specialists in 18 European countries (all EU-member states plus Norway, Switzerland and the Czech Republic) using a structured questionnaire. These experts were asked to refer back to their national literature on the subject. The second important source of information used in this report is a literature search in international databases completed by the authors. 

Table 12.2 Overview of the absolute and relative environmental impacts of organic farming...

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