Review on Organic Farming vs. Convectional Farming System (Published)

Article Author: Israel Zewide and Abde Sherefu

Organic farming is a type of agriculture or farming which avoids the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, growth regulators, and livestock feed additives. Organic standards are designed to allow the use of naturally occurring substances while prohibiting or strictly limiting synthetic substance. Organic farming is an important topic for society, so this paper shows some results arisen from a wider research on economic and environmental sustainability of organic farming. It focuses on organic and conventional farming comparison through different information and review. In this review, we examine the debate surrounding the role for organic agriculture in future food production systems. Typically represented as a binary organic and conventional question, this debate perpetuates an either/or mentality. We question this framing and examine the organic and conventional cropping systems comparisons. The review assesses current knowledge about how these cropping systems compare across a range of metrics related to for sustainability goals: productivity, environmental health, economic viability, and quality of life. We conclude by arguing for reframing the debate, recognizing that farming systems fall along gradients between three philosophical poles industrial, agrarian, and ecological and that different systems will be appropriate in different contexts. Regardless of evidence for lower yields in organic crop systems, we found considerable evidence for environmental and social benefits. Given these advantages, and the potential for improving organic systems, we come back calls for increased investment in organic and ecologically based farming systems research and extension.