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Contributions of organic farming to a sustainable environment

Pfiffner, Lukas; Häring, Anna Maria; Dabbert, Stephan; Stolze, Matthias and Piorr, A. (2001) Contributions of organic farming to a sustainable environment. In: Organic Food and Farming. Towards Partnership and Action in Europe. 10-11 May 2001, Copenhagen, Denmark, Dänish Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries, pp. 115-123.

[thumbnail of pfiffner-2001-proceedings-copenhagen.pdf] PDF - German/Deutsch
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Document available online at: http://www.fvm.dk/kundeupload/konferencer/organic_food_farming/proceedings.pdf


Summary

Summary and Conclusions
For each indicator organic farming is ranked at least equal to conventional farming, while in the majority of environmental indicators organic farming performs better or much better. In two cases, the subjective confidence interval could allow conventional farming to appear as the preferable system (partly due to the lack of evident data). However, when considering the aggregation level of the indicator categories, the analysis becomes more uniform. With the exception of climate and air, organic farming performs better than conventional farming in all categories. None of the indicator categories showed that organic farming performed worse.
A summary assessment of all indicator categories was not carried out in the table, however, the result is clear: organic farming is, in an area-related comparison, more environmentally friendly than conventional farming. This result confirms one of the basic assumptions of the political support for organic farming, as mentioned in the introduction.
On the one hand, the environmental performance of farms depends on the farming intensity, while on the other hand it depends on bio-tope management of nonproductive areas.
The combination of organic farming with the conservation of semi-natural habitats and valuable field margins offers a real option to meet many environmental goals, especially biodiversity, on agricultural land.


EPrint Type:Conference paper, poster, etc.
Type of presentation:Paper
Keywords:farming systems, sustainability, environmental effects, biodiversity, Biodiversität, Habitatmanagement,
Subjects: Environmental aspects > Landscape and recreation
Farming Systems > Farm economics
Food systems > Policy environments and social economy
Environmental aspects > Biodiversity and ecosystem services
Environmental aspects > Air and water emissions
Research affiliation: Switzerland > FiBL - Research Institute of Organic Agriculture Switzerland > Crops > Crop protection > Entomology
Switzerland > FiBL - Research Institute of Organic Agriculture Switzerland > Society > Rural sociology
Related Links:https://www.fibl.org/de/themen/pflanzenschutz.html, https://www.fibl.org/de/standorte/schweiz/departemente/soziooekonomie.html, https://www.fibl.org/de/standorte/schweiz/departemente/nutzpflanzenwissenschaften/pflanzenschutz-entomologie-agraroekologie.html
Deposited By: Pfiffner, Dr. Lukas
ID Code:2943
Deposited On:28 Jun 2004
Last Modified:25 May 2023 11:58
Document Language:English
Status:Published
Refereed:Not peer-reviewed

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