A Fifteen Year Review Summarizing Effects of Conventional and Organic Farming Systems on Soils, Nutrition, Environment, Economics and Yields (1981- 1995)

Abstract

The principal assumptions to the proposition that organic agriculture could contribute significantly to the global food supply are, low yields and insufficient quantities of organically acceptable fertilizers. A critical 15 year review on both the issues studied showed that, organic yields were comparable to conventional practices after a transition period (~ 5 years). The review also indicated that global food supply could be grown organically on the current agricultural land base. Furthermore, it is evidenced that, organic methods could produce enough food on a global per capita basis to sustain the current human population without increasing the arable land. This critical review also suggested that, organic agriculture has the potential to contribute quite substantially to the global food supply, while reducing the detrimental environmental impacts of conventional agriculture. Copyright©2017, Jeff Moyer et al., This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.