Recently, I've come across several people who have the impression that organic farming is much less efficient than conventional farming (e.g. here). Many smart people, including Ph.D.'s here in Berkeley, take this for granted, but I have never seen the data to convince me that organic farming is so much less efficient than conventional farming.

Where I live, there are hard-core organic farms, as well as conventional super-farms. Local organic farms in the Central Valley compete directly with agro-giants to sell all sorts of foods, from grapes to garlic, avocados to artichokes. So despite the strong "anti-organic" sentiment that I held when I arrived here, I have slowly begun to question whether or not large conventional monocultures are the way to go.

Just as a bit of background, I went to an ag school for college; I graduated from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Texas A&M University. I'm comfortable thinking about the business of agriculture, and I'm also a biochemist, so I'm not exactly a grungy, anti-biotech hippy. Anyhow, let me break down the chief reasons why I think the conventional wisdom is wrong about organic farming.

Myth 1: Organic farming is inefficient while conventional farming is a modern marvel.
The data shows otherwise. This article in the journal Science [subscription required], shows that organic farming is 80% as efficient in terms of crop per acre, and it is overall more energy efficient than conventional farming, owing to reduced fertilizer, energy and pesticide usage. Another study from Cornell researchers concluded that crop yields from organic and conventional farms were identical, while organic farming resulted in better soil quality at the end of the study. Therefore, if there are differences in the crop yields between conventional and organic farms, they are minimal and inconsistent. Broad claims that organic farming is significantly less efficient are simply untrue, according to the scientific literature.

Myth 2: Conventional farming really doesn't use that much pesticide.
The National Academies, the scientific advisers to the U.S. President, have published a review, entitled The Future Role of Pesticides in U.S. Agriculture (which you can read online!). In 1997, over 567 million pounds of pesticide active ingredient were used on U.S. crops (p. 46), which corresponds to over two pounds of pesticide per person, given the U.S. population in 1997. That's over two pounds of solid pesticide active ingredient per person per year.

Over 60% this pesticide usage comes in the form of herbicides. The clever part about organic farming isn't the patchouli smoke blown at the butter lettuce every morning. The clever part of organic farming is that there are physical methods of preventing growth of contaminating weeds, rather than chemical methods involving herbicides. Instead of spraying atrazine and glyphosate on an acre of lettuce seed, the lettuce is grown from individual sprouts protected from weeds in a greenhouse until they have grown enough to be ready for planting in the earth. Once planted, they have a great head-start relative to any weeds, so few weeds gain the upper hand. In other words, it's similar to the way you'd do it at home, since few would want to go spray atrazine all around their backyard lettuce.

Similar techniques exist for other plants. The organic methods are very simple, and they're not hippy magic. At its heart, organic farming is simply about using physical means to prevent crop failures, rather than chemical means. And although this currently requires more labor, it results in reduced pesticide and energy usage, as well as reduced runoff of synthetic chemicals into important water supplies.

If anyone has evidence that conventional farming really is significantly more efficient, please let me know!