Impact of organic and conventional farming practices on soil quality: A global review

Abstract

As world population grows, the demand for food production increases ultimately creating a huge pressure on our shrinking natural resources. With this increased demand for food researches have realized that conventional farming would neither be able to increase productivity nor would be able to improve the soil quality and there is a need for an alternative farming practice to conserve our environment while sustaining the natural resources. Among the alternative practices, organic farming, which is very popular, aims at reducing the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides in order to improve production and ecosystem health. The aim of our paper is to compare the long term effects of conventional and the alternative organic farming practices on soil quality and crop productivity as they are considered to be two major indices that measure agricultural sustainability on long term basis. Therefore, many studies around the world are evaluating the organic farming practices as an alternative was found to be superior in their physical, chemical and biological properties than their conventional counterparts. In addition, the studies showed that the organic farming practices are economically viable in the long term for both crop productivity and environmental sustainability.