Crowder, lead author and assistant professor of entomology at Washington State University, says he and Reganold became interested in the topic after reading a study several years ago that indicated that organic farming produces a lower crop
yield than conventional agriculture.
«We knew going into this that organic agriculture is less productive in terms of crop
yields than conventional agriculture,» Crowder says.
Not exact matches
The researchers say their interest was piqued after seeing a study that positioned organic
agriculture as less productive
than conventional, with lower crop
yields.
Global
yields in Organic
Agriculture are at most 20 % lower than in conventional agriculture in spec
Agriculture are at most 20 % lower
than in
conventional agriculture in spec
agriculture in specific cases.
At Clif Bar, the company is tackling the
yield gap by investing in plant breeding, contributing to an
agriculture fund that helps provide technical assistance to educate growers and investing in infrastructure that will help reduce the distance that organic producers must transport their crops from the farm gate to the aggregator or processor, which is a significantly longer distance
than for most
conventional producers, Dillion said.
Along with «exponentially higher»
yields, the CropBox promises that their complete growing system also uses 90 % less water and 80 % less fertilizer
than conventional agriculture does.
If we want to grow X amount of food
conventional farming practices will require less land (thanks to higher
yields)
than we would need using organic
agriculture.