Eva Salomon

Risks and opportunities of increasing yields in organic farming: a review

Current organic agriculture performs well in several sustainability domains, like animal welfare, farm profitability and low pesticide use, but yields are commonly lower than in conventional farming. There is now a re-vitalized interest in increasing yields in organic agriculture to provide more organic food for a growing, more affluent population and reduce negative impacts per unit produced. However, past yield increases have been accompanied by several negative side-effects. Here, we review risks and opportunities related to a broad range of sustainability domains associated with increasing yields in organic agriculture in the Northern European context. We identify increased N input, weed, disease and pest control, improved livestock feeding, breeding for higher yields and reduced losses as the main measures for yield increases. We review the implications of their implementation for biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions, nutrient losses, soil fertility, animal health and welfare, human nutrition and health and farm profitability. Our findings from this first-of-its-kind integrated analysis reveal which strategies for increasing yields are unlikely to produce negative side-effects and therefore should be a high priority, and which strategies need to be implemented with great attention to trade-offs. For example, increased N inputs in cropping carry many risks and few opportunities, whereas there are many risk-free opportunities for improved pest control through the management of ecosystem services. For most yield increasing strategies, both risks and opportunities arise, and the actual effect depends on management including active mitigation of side-effects. Our review shows that, to be a driving force for increased food system sustainability, organic agriculture may need to reconsider certain fundamental principles. Novel plant nutrient sources, including increased nutrient recycling in society, and in some cases mineral nitrogen fertilisers from renewable sources, and truly alternative animal production systems may need to be developed and accepted.

Knowledge synthesis and dissemination in organic research in Sweden: integrating ethics

EPOK (Centre for Organic Food and Farming) at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) works with knowledge synthesis, communication and research initiation in the field of organic farming. In order to facilitate the networking, researchers at departments of different scientific fields are associated to EPOK on a part-time basis. An important aspect of the knowledge transfer is to integrate the basic ethical concepts of health, ecology, fairness and care of organic farming according to the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements into the practical work. In the current EPOK activities the aim is to incorporate the principle of health in the work about animal nutrition and husbandry and in the synthesis work on nutritional aspects of organic food. The ecological principle is implemented in the work concerning cropping systems and interactions with soil fertility, the local flora and fauna and surrounding environment. The fairness principle influence the work on life cycle analysis of organic farming and its effect on climate change, as well as the efforts to give the animals possibility to natural behaviour. The care principle stresses the fact that the current agricultural practises must be developed and refined so that they support ecosystem services that promotes resilient production systems, which is exemplified by the work with biological crop protection methods. Our experience is that this approach to disseminating science to the society is fruitful. Through synthesizing research and experiences by system analysis of the food chain and its environmental impact the ethical principles can be emphasized in a scientific way. Other important activities are to organize workshops and to promote activities that increase the scientific knowledge relevant to organic farming. The approach of EPOK emphasizes the importance of communication through printed leaflets and reports, as well as, electronic newsletters and messages in social media. Furthermore, forums and platforms are created for an enhanced public dialogue.