Compassion in World Farming recently published a report entitled Nutritional Benefits Of Higher Welfare Animal Products, which compiled data from 76 studies based on the topic. A literature review was conducted in order to examine the evidence for a range of nutritional benefits of higher-welfare animal products. 

The Prince of Wales’s Charitable Foundation (PCF) has announced initial funding of £200,000 for a pioneering new project to help British farmers improve their productivity in an environmentally responsible way. The Duchy Originals Future Farming Programme will be delivered by the Soil Association, in partnership with Duchy Originals from Waitrose, The Prince of Wales’s organic food business.

In the mailing on 15 May 2012 we highlighted this paper by Seufert et al, published in Nature, which compared yields in organic and conventional farm systems. The study elicited a great deal of media comment and in response the study’s authors have written this interesting piece which you can read here.

A report published by the National Trust entitled What’s your beef? Compares the cradle-to-farm-gate emissions of ten tenanted National Trust farms, selected as representing a cross section of different beef production systems, including 4 organic, 4 conventional but extensive, and 2 semi intensive farms.

Another article that looks at organic versus conventional yields. It compares yields in both developed and developing world contexts and argues a. the case for a more nuanced approach to considering yield variations and b. for less dogmatism in the debate on sustainable agriculture.

The Soil Association has published 'Just say N2O: From manufactured fertiliser to biologically-fixed nitrogen.' This report reviews the extent to which organic systems can meet the double challenge of reducing nitrogen losses and building stores of soil organic nitrogen so as to reduce dependency on manufactured nitrogen.

This meta-analysis finds that yields in organic systems are on average 80% that of conventional yields.  This is an analysis at crop level but the researchers suggest that the yield gap could be higher at farm, regional or global level due to the dependence of organic farming on manure and on legumes for soil fertilisation, which in turn reduces yields at the overall system level.

The goals of this study were to: (a) develop a robust, model-based life-cycle GHG emissions comparison of organic and conventional farming methods for a relatively large selection of crop products;