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Cited by 871Organic Food and AgriculturePlant and soil sciencesAgronomic Practices and Intercropping Systems

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 140 of the 140 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Diversification practices reduce organic to conventional yield gap

Open access
Ponisio, Lauren C., M'Gonigle, Leithen K., Mace, Kevi C., Palomino, Jenny, de Valpine, Perry, Kremen, Claire·2015·Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
DOI 10.1098/rspb.2014.1396PMC PMC4286047
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Abstract

Agriculture today places great strains on biodiversity, soils, water and the atmosphere, and these strains will be exacerbated if current trends in population growth, meat and energy consumption, and food waste continue. Thus, farming systems that are both highly productive and minimize environmental harms are critically needed. How organic agriculture may contribute to world food production has been subject to vigorous debate over the past decade. Here, we revisit this topic comparing organic and conventional yields with a new meta-dataset three times larger than previously used (115 studies containing more than 1000 observations) and a new hierarchical analytical framework that can better account for the heterogeneity and structure in the data. We find organic yields are only 19.2% (±3.7%) lower than conventional yields, a smaller yield gap than previous estimates. More importantly, we find entirely different effects of crop types and management practices on the yield gap compared with previous studies. For example, we found no significant differences in yields for leguminous versus non-leguminous crops, perennials versus annuals or developed versus developing countries. Instead, we found the novel result that two agricultural diversification practices, multi-cropping and crop rotations, substantially reduce the yield gap (to 9 ± 4% and 8 ± 5%, respectively) when the methods were applied in only organic systems. These promising results, based on robust analysis of a larger meta-dataset, suggest that appropriate investment in agroecological research to improve organic management systems could greatly reduce or eliminate the yield gap for some crops or regions.

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Research works printed but not linked: 5

  1. FAO, 2009, How to feed the world in 2050
  2. McIntyre BD, 2009, IAASTD international assessment of agricultural knowledge, science and technology for development: global report
  3. Cassman K, 2007, Editorial response by Kenneth Cassman: can organic agriculture feed the world-science to the rescue?, Renew. Agric. Food Syst., 22, 83
  4. Pretty JN, 2001, Reducing food poverty with sustainable agriculture: a summary of new evidence
  5. Smil V. 2005 Feeding the world: how much more rice do we need? In Rice is life: scientific perspectives for the 21st century (ed. K Toriyama KL Heong B Hardy) pp. 21–23. Manila PH: International Rice Research Institute.

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Metadata

Authors
Ponisio, L. C., M'Gonigle, L. K., Mace, K. C., Palomino, J., de Valpine, P., & Kremen, C.
Affiliations
  • University of California, Berkeley (US)
  • Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, 130 Mulford Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
Corresponding author
Ponisio, Lauren C.
ORCID
Venue
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Publisher
The Royal Society
Published
2015-01-22
Volume
282
Issue
1799
Pages
20141396
ISSN
  • 0080-4649 (ISSN-L)
  • 0962-8452
  • 1471-2954
DOI
10.1098/rspb.2014.1396
PMC
PMC4286047
OpenAlex
W1992197367
Cited by
871
References
140
Citations by year
2026: 58 · 2025: 65 · 2024: 87 · 2023: 104 · 2022: 88 · 2021: 98 · 2020: 74 · 2019: 66 · 2018: 63 · 2017: 75 · 2016: 57 · 2015: 35
FWCI
65.07
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
royalsociety.org/journals/ethics-policies/data-sharing-mining/ (tdm)
Locations
  • Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant Science › Organic Food and Agriculture
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › General Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Plant and soil sciences
  • Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Agronomy and Crop Science › Agronomic Practices and Intercropping Systems
Keywords
organic farming, conventional farming, yield gap, agricultural diversification, multiple cropping, crop rotation, Fabaceae, perennial crops, agroecology, food production
MeSH terms
Conservation of Natural Resources, Food Supply, Fabaceae, Soil, Crops, Agricultural, Biodiversity, Organic Agriculture

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