More detail on low yields of organic farming

England and Wales under organic agriculture: how much food could be produced?

Philip Jones with Richard Crane
Centre for Agricultural Strategy, Reading, UK, June 2009

Executive summary

1. Introduction

Whilst agriculture has many functions, the most important will always be the supply of sufficient food, at an affordable price, to feed the population.
Driven by both consumer demand and public subsidy, the fastest growing UK agricultural sector in recent years has been organic. Critics argue that, due to its lower yields, organic agriculture cannot produce enough food to feed the world. This criticism continues, in spite of studies contesting this accepted wisdom, particularly in relation to subsistence agriculture in the Southern Hemisphere, where it has been shown that yields might increase significantly under organic agriculture. For Northern Hemisphere agriculture, there is wide consensus that organic production results in yields perhaps 40% lower, on average, than under conventional agriculture.

At a time when there is growing interest in food and energy security, and reducing the carbon footprint of agriculture, the question of the capacity of organic agriculture to feed the UK population is increasingly relevant. Because conventional agriculture does not currently meet all our food requirements, it would be unfair to ask this of organic. A more reasonable question would be, could organic agriculture supply as much food as conventional agriculture currently does? There have been no recent major studies on this and past ones were limited by their simplistic assumptions, or lack of data on actual organic farming practice. The study reported here uses real organic farm data and, thus, is a unique examination of the likely impact on domestic food supply of full organic conversion.

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