Summary
This global meta-analysis of 60 crops demonstrates that the sustainability benefits of organic agriculture are not universally consistent but are substantially mediated by landscape context. Organic sites showed greater biodiversity than conventional counterparts, with advantages most pronounced in landscapes characterised by large field sizes, whereas profitability benefits were greatest in landscapes with smaller fields. The findings suggest that targeting organic production to appropriate landscape contexts can optimise both ecological and economic sustainability outcomes.
UK applicability
The findings are directly applicable to UK farming policy and practice, where landscape heterogeneity and field sizes vary considerably by region. Policymakers and farm advisers could use these landscape-context insights to identify UK regions and field configurations most suited to organic conversion for maximising specific sustainability goals—such as biodiversity gains in intensive arable areas with larger fields, or profitability in smaller-scale systems.
Key measures
Biodiversity (compared between organic and conventional sites), crop yields, profitability, landscape composition (percent cropland), compositional heterogeneity (number and diversity of cover types), configurational heterogeneity (spatial arrangement of cover types), field size
Outcomes reported
The study compared biodiversity, crop yields, and profitability of organic versus conventional farming systems across 60 crop types on six continents, stratified by landscape context metrics including field size, cropland composition, and landscape heterogeneity. Key findings indicated that the magnitude and distribution of organic farming benefits varied significantly depending on surrounding landscape characteristics.
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