Organic Food Production Compared to Conventional Food Production : A Review of the Commodities Wheat, Milk and Beef in Sweden

Abstract: The planetary boundaries show the negative impacts humankind has on the environment today. Through the concept of planetary boundaries it is possible to understand when a system will reach its limit by calculating the resilience of the system. One of the largest negative impacts come from mass production of food which has mainly affected the cycle of nitrogen and phosphorus, but also other aspects like land use and biodiversity loss (Rockström et. al, 2009). A method aiming at decreasing the negative environmental impacts from food production is organic food production (Swedish Board of Agriculture, 2016a). However, the method is being criticised by professors who doubt its qualities (Kirchmann et. al., 2014). The purpose of this report is to present the environmental impacts that conventional and organic food production in Sweden have. The analysis has been based on the commodities wheat, milk and beef. Facts about the two different production processes have also been presented. This report is a review where the results have been gathered from already existing life cycle analyses. The environmental impacts studied are energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, land use, pesticide use and eutrophication potential. In general, the idea behind organic farming is to proceed a more natural way of producing food. Farm animals’ natural behaviour should therefore be benefitted and no pesticides or synthetic fertilisers are used (Nilsson, 2006). This leads to lower yields from the fields and all of the three commodities need bigger land use in organic farming than in conventional. All of the three commodities have a bigger eutrophication potential, except for one beef farm where the impact is the same as conventional. Greenhouse gas emissions from milk and beef production are similar to conventional, while in wheat production the impact is lower. The impacts energy use and pesticide use are lower for all of the three commodities (Cederberg and Darelius, 2000; Cederberg and Flysjö, 2004; Cederberg and Nilsson, 2004; Nilsson, 2006). The conclusion from this report is that neither organic nor conventional food production has a smaller environmental impact than the other. It is important to stress this and to spread knowledge about this so we do not replace one bad alternative with another bad one. Instead a new sustainable method to produce food must be invented, perhaps combining conventional and organic food production.