The use of Farm Business Survey data to compare the environmental performance of organic and conventional farms

Summary

This paper considers two main questions: Is it possible to use Farm Business Survey (FBS) data to derive well-established environmental indicators and can these FBS derived indicators also provide a reasonable comparison of the environmental performance of organic and conventional farms? The results suggest that the indicators can be obtained from FBS data and that the majority of the indicators provided meaningful results, despite some data limitations within the FBS dataset. The comparison of organic with conventional FBS data in the UK suggests that organic farms have lower fertiliser and crop protection costs (as would be expected) but that differences in feed costs, stocking density and cropping diversity were dependent upon farm type. This research confirms that FBS data can be used to derive indirect environmental indicators which are able to identify significant differences between farm types and management systems. These indicators are also likely to be applicable at EU level through their use within the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN), which collates farm economic data across the EU. This is of interest to researches and policy-makers who could use FADN data to track some aspects of environmental performance across many countries and track changes over time. These results may also be useful to farm consultants and managers who could potentially use a similar approach in using individual farm financial information to benchmark some aspects of farm environmental performance.