Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Marra, Michele C.
• Kaval, Pamela

Titel

The Relative Profitability of Sustainable Grain Cropping Systems: A Meta-Analytic Comparison

Ist Teil von

• Journal of sustainable agriculture, 2000-09, Vol.16 (4), p.19-32

Ort / Verlag

Taylor & Francis Group

Erscheinungsjahr

2000

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Studies of the profitability of organic and no-till grain cropping systems relative to that of conventional systems were compared and analyzed. In all, enough information was collected from the literature for 321 separate profitability results including 120 direct comparisons of organic production to conventional and 144 no-till vs. conventional direct comparisons for North American grains for a meta-analysis. The first part of the analysis was a standard, descriptive summary of the data. This showed that the relative profitability of organic production was, on average, higher for corn and grain sorghum and if the research was conducted at a research experiment station. No-till averaged higher profitability in on-farm trials and with oilseeds, corn and grain sorghum in the descriptive analysis. Then the study proceeded with a meta-analysis of the economic comparisons. The meta-analysis results indicated that study location (Eastern, Central or Western North America) was a key factor in explaining the relative profitability of each alternative cropping system relative to the conventional system. In addition, study type (on-farm or research station experiment) and type of grain crop (small grain, oilseed, other) were important in explaining the relative profitability of both systems.