What is the contribution of organic agriculture to sustainable development? A synthesis of twelve years (2007-2019) of the “long-term farming systems comparisons in the tropics (SysCom)”

Summary

The SysCom Program compares different agricultural production systems (primarily organic and conventional) in three tropical countries (Kenya, India, and Bolivia). This report aims to provide a synthesis of the findings of 12 years of research in the three countries in a way that is easily comprehensible by specialists and non-specialist alike. It focuses on productivity, profitability, soil fertility, and other aspects of system performance such as product quality, biodiversity, resource use efficiency, and agroecosystem resilience. The report is divided into eight main sections: The first section, conclusions, addresses the findings with regards to the question, “What is the contribution of organic agriculture to sustainable development?”. This section is dedicated to the readers who are only interested in a short comprehensive overview of the results. The second section, the introduction, explains the program’s background and objectives. The following sections present the main findings on productivity, profitability, soil fertility, and other aspects of system performance. These sections start with a summary of the key findings, which are then explained in more detail on the concrete research results. They are designed for readers interested in an in-depth understanding of the facts behind inferences as well as the methodology. At the end of each subsection, references to the relevant scientific publications are provided for further reading. Technical jargon has been kept to a minimum and wherever possible explanations are provided in footnotes. The seventh section includes policy recommendations and offers sound advice for policy development. Finally, the annexes provide more information about the SysCom program, including the programs’ phases, a detailed description of the different sites and the local contexts, as well as SysCom’s capacity building and dissemination efforts.