Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture

By V. Seufert, Navin Ramankutty, J. Foley. Nature, 2012

2,088 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Subfields: Ecology, General Agricultural and Biological Sciences, Plant Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d96f7f54d85247ec45d177be5864e201c6258550

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The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecology

1. Marcel G. A. van der Heijden
2. Michael A. Clark
3. C. Kremen
4. Albie F. Miles
5. S. Bender
6. P. Tittonell
7. J. Timsina
8. David Tilman

In General Agricultural and Biological Sciences

1. P. Tittonell
2. C. Kremen
3. David Makowski
4. T. Ben-Ari
5. E. Schimmenti
6. V. Borsellino
7. Albie F. Miles
8. J. Timsina

In Plant Science

1. C. Kremen
2. Eva‐Marie Meemken
3. S. Potts
4. P. Tittonell
5. M. Qaim
6. A. Davis
7. Albie F. Miles
8. V. E. Méndez

Citations in the corpus

• COCOA AND TOTAL SYSTEM YIELDS OF ORGANIC AND CONVENTIONAL AGROFORESTRY VS. MONOCULTURE SYSTEMS IN A LONG-TERM FIELD TRIAL IN BOLIVIA (2016, neutral): “…CONV management practices have shown that even though their average long-term yields are 10–30% lower (de Ponti et al. , 2012; Ponisio et al. , 2015; Seufert et al. , 2012), ORG farming systems exhibit several ecological and economic advantages, particularly a sustainable improvement of soil…”
• Opportunities to enhance pollinator biodiversity in solar parks (2021, background): “However, organic farming is typically less productive than conventional farming and can require a greater area of land to produce equivalent yields [201].”
• Implementation of agrophotovoltaics: Techno-economic analysis of the price-performance ratio and its policy implications (2020, background): “Secondly, since organic farming processes do not involve the use of chemical pesticides and fertilizer, agricultural crop yields may decrease by up to 50% per area [90,91].”
• A Sustainable Agricultural Future Relies on the Transition to Organic Agroecological Pest Management (2018, background): “Crops that have had the highest level of support for plant improvement for conventional systems have enjoyed the highest yield differential currently [6], suggesting that equivalent plant breeding investment in organic systems would erase this yield gap.”
• Evidence that organic farming promotes pest control (2018, background): “Whereas provisioning services 9,10 , as well as some regulating services such as carbon sequestration 11 and pollination 12 are well studied in organic cropping systems, other important ecological functions and ecosystem services supported by biodiversity in organic farming remain poorly explored…”
• Increasing Cropping System Diversity Balances Productivity, Profitability and Environmental Health (2012, background): “When agrichemical inputs are completely eliminated, yield gaps may exist between conventional and alternative systems [19].”
• Global Sustainable Development Report 2019 (2019, neutral): “494 Schrama et al., 2018; Badgley et al., 2007; Seufert et al., 2012.”
• Organic Agriculture, Food Security, and the Environment (2018, background): “Three scientifically more rigorous meta-analyses of organic-conventional crop yield comparisons were published in the last few years (de Ponti et al. 2012, Ponisio et al. 2015, Seufert et al. 2012).”
• Using Digestate and Biochar as Fertilizers to Improve Processing Tomato Production Sustainability (2020, background): “[11] found wheat and vegetables to be the lowest, yielding organic crops, 37% and 33% less than conventional systems, respectively.”
• An Underground Revolution: Biodiversity and Soil Ecological Engineering for Agricultural Sustainability. (2016, background): “Approaches, such as conservation agriculture and organic farming, which aim to promote internal regulatory processes, on average render lower agricultural yields compared with conventional systems [56,62].”
• Organic Farming and Small-Scale Farmers: Main Opportunities and Challenges (2017, background): “However, this method has some limitations as cover crops 484 cannot be used as a substitute for nitrogen fertilizer (Connor, 2008).”
• A quantitative review of relationships between ecosystem services (2014, background): “Organic farming was found to increase species richness by providing better habitats and nursing ES (Bengtsson et al., 2005), but at the same time, meta-analyses showed that crop yield could be lowered by up to 20-34% compared to conventional farming (de Ponti et al., 2012; Seufert et al., 2012).”
• Explaining the 'hungry farmer paradox': Smallholders and fair trade cooperatives navigate seasonality and change in Nicaragua's corn and coffee markets (2014, background): “Most of the research on environmentally friendly agriculture has focused on yield performance of organic vs. conventional production systems (Seufert et al., 2012; Badgley et al., 2007).”
• Shaded Coffee and Cocoa : Double Dividend for Biodiversity and Small-scale Farmers (2017, result): “%) found for shaded systems in comparison to conventional systems is in accordance with the majority of the literature, confirming the negative linear relationship between shade and production of the main cash crop (Foley et al., 2011; Seufert et al., 2012).”