Did you know that Organic plants are worse for the environment than conventionally farmed foods? This is according to a new research from Sweden.
The study has found that a lack of chemical fertilisers means more land is used to grow crops and as a result 70 per cent more carbon is emitted.
According to the study authors, even organic meat and dairy products are, from a climate point of view, worse than their conventionally produced equivalents.
The study, which was published in Nature, was led by researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.
“Our study shows that organic peas, farmed in Sweden, have around a 50 percent bigger climate impact than conventionally farmed peas,”said lead researcher Stefan Wirsenius, an associate professor from Chalmers.
“For some foodstuffs, there is an even bigger difference, for example, with organic Swedish winter wheat the difference is closer to 70 per cent,” he said.
Their research found the reason why organic food is so much worse for the climate is that the yields per hectare are much lower, primarily because fertilisers are not used.
To produce the same amount of organic food, you therefore need a much bigger area of land.
The researchers used a new metric, which they call ‘Carbon Opportunity Cost’ to evaluate the effect of greater land-use contributing to higher carbon dioxide emissions from deforestation.
This metric takes into account the amount of carbon that is stored in forests, and thus released as carbon dioxide as an effect of deforestation.
The study is among the first in the world to make use of this metric.
In Sweden there are political goals to increase the production of organic food.
However researchers do not mean that conscientious consumers should simply switch to buying non-organic food.
‘The type of food is often much more important. For example, eating organic beans or organic chicken is much better for the climate than to eat conventionally produced beef,’ said Dr Wirsenius.
‘Organic food does have several advantages compared with food produced by conventional methods,’ he said.
‘For example, it is better for farm animal welfare.’
For consumers who want to contribute to the positive aspects of organic food production, without increasing their climate impact, an effective way to do so is to change diet.
Researchers found that replacing beef and lamb, as well as hard cheeses, with vegetable proteins such as beans had the biggest effect.
Pork, chicken, fish and eggs also have a substantially lower climate impact than beef and lamb.