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Financial competitiveness of organic agriculture on a global scale
Open accessAbstract
Significance: Some recognize organic agriculture as being important for future global food security, whereas others project it to become irrelevant. Although organic agriculture is rapidly growing, it currently occupies only 1% of global cropland. Whether organic agriculture can continue to expand will likely be determined by whether it is economically competitive with conventional agriculture. Accordingly, we analyzed the financial performance of organic and conventional agriculture from 40 y of studies covering 55 crops grown on five continents. We found that, in spite of lower yields, organic agriculture was significantly more profitable than conventional agriculture and has room to expand globally. Moreover, with its environmental benefits, organic agriculture can contribute a larger share in sustainably feeding the world.
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“Net cost of ERW may be lower if rock dust is used as a fertilizer in organic agriculture, which currently occupies 57.8 million hectares, because it adds economic value by improving soil health, fertility and ecosystem services 35 .”
From Potential for large-scale CO2 removal via enhanced rock weathering with croplands (2020) · cites this paper as [35]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Crowder, D. W., & Reganold, J. P.
- Affiliations
- Washington State University (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2015-06
- Volume
- 112
- Issue
- 24
- Pages
- 7611-7616
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC4475942
- OpenAlex
- W1531521427
- Cited by
- 518
- References
- 50
- Citations by year
- 2026: 56 · 2025: 51 · 2024: 55 · 2023: 51 · 2022: 44 · 2021: 67 · 2020: 47 · 2019: 36 · 2018: 34 · 2017: 40 · 2016: 33 · 2015: 3
- FWCI
- 3.84
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Organic Food and Agriculture
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Agricultural economics and policies
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Agronomy and Crop Science › Sustainable Agricultural Systems Analysis
- Keywords
- organic farming, conventional farming, economic competitiveness, organic premium, benefit-cost ratio, net present value, labor costs, crop yield, food security, ecosystem services
- MeSH terms
- Agriculture, Conservation of Natural Resources, Cost-Benefit Analysis, Costs and Cost Analysis, Food Supply, Ecosystem, Crops, Agricultural, Organic Agriculture
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