What yields are achieved on organic farms and what area of land is required to sustain them?
A number of long-term field trials in Europe reveal that crop yields are on average 20% lower in organic systems that combine crops with animals and 33-45% lower in organic systems with crops alone compared to their conventional counterparts (Table 1). The impact of the addition of animals reflects a greater degree of on-farm recycling of nutrients through animal manure and lower removals of nutrients from the system. Studies of farms under long-term organic management in Australia also reveal yields of individual crops as substantially lower than on conventional neighbours (Table 1). In both Europe and Australia, the lower yields reflect either a lower fertilizer input (fertilization intensity) and/or a lower uptake efficiency of nutrients from fertilizers (see section on soil fertility). Similarly, a survey of maize yield on commercial and organic mixed crop-animal farms in the USA in the 1970s found yields to be 8% lower on the organic farms (Lockeretz et al 1980). Lower yields in i
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