Conventional vs Organic Farming: Climate Change Adaption

In which ways does agriculture affect our environment and our daily lives? Read the introductory post to this series here. Part 1 explored the theme of water, part 2 focused on soil fertility, part 3 investigated biodiversity under organic & conventional farming systems while part 4 controversially discussed climate protection through conventional vs. organic farming. Here, let’s find out which farming system performs better regarding climate change adaption!

Climate adaption

Those of you who live in Europe might remember the heatwave of 2018. During this year, Germany experienced an unprecedented drought. For months, it didn’t rain sufficiently throughout the country. An unusually hot summer burned the ground to its core. Even well into 2019, the groundwater reserves didn’t fill up to the usual level. The economic damage of this drought was running into billions of euros. Yield losses were considerable across German farms: farmers harvested 50, 70, even 100% less than usually.

The drought especially hit farmers producing fodder for animals, like grass, alfalfa, straw hay… Hay became a scarce and precious commodity and was traded with all across Europe. Prices for hay even tripled during this drought!

Interestingly, some farms experienced total yield loss, while others managed to preserve their grassland even during the drought. One of those farms that stayed clear from trouble was the organic sheep farm Vietschow where I worked for a while. How did they manage?

The answer is that their grasslands weren’t monocultures of one grass species, like many conventional grasslands are. They were diverse meadows of many different grass and herb species that, together, were resilient to the drought. This is because some plants have shallow roots, while some have deep & far-reaching roots. Those with deep roots can more easily access the water below. So, even when a drought hits, there will always be plants that survive.

You can very clearly see the difference between a diverse meadow and a grass monoculture. And organic grasslands are in average more diverse than conventional grasslands. So, when we are comparing conventional & organic farming, organic farms are better adapted to climate change.

Prepared for the worst?

Scientists have long been warning that such extreme weather events will occur more frequently in the future due to climate change. While this is the reality we already live in, farmers, organic and conventional alike, will have to brace themselves. Strong rainfall, floods, erosion, droughts etc. will clearly be threatening agriculture more often in the future. Climate change adaption will become one of the main assets of farmers.

It is mainly the soil which will have to deal with such difficulties in the future. The best weapon against all these is a good soil structure, high content in organic matter, a high infiltration rate and constant coverage by plants. In short, a healthy soil.

Let’s look at the numbers…

According to the study*, which I’ve already cited in my previous posts, organic matter content was 26% higher, the aggregate stability of the soil was 15% higher in organic systems. Soil erosion was reduced by 22% under organic farming. These figures show clear benefits of organically managed farmland.

Added to this is the fact that organic farms are more diverse and have a wider crop rotation**. This makes organic farming more resilient and better adapted to climate change.

In conclusion, after comparing conventional vs organic farming in the way they are prepared for climate change, organic farming is definitely headed for a more sustainable & food-secure future.

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Part 6 of this series will explore which farming system is more resource efficient: conventional or organic farming.

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*Sanders J, Hess J (eds) (2019) Leistungen des ökologischen Landbaus für Umwelt und Gesellschaft . Braunschweig: Johann Heinrich von Thünen-Institut, 364 p, Thünen Rep 65, DOI:10.3220/REP1547040572000

**crop rotation = the planting of different crops on the same land in consecutive years (as opposed to monoculture)