That article has been a popular one since then. But it\u2019s now old and worthy of a refresh. Nine years on, do we have better data on these comparative impacts? How should we think about these differences in farming practices?<\/p>\n
In this article, I take a fresh look at these questions.<\/p>\n
Some definitionsWhat\u2019s the difference between organic and conventional agriculture?<\/p>\n
Organic agriculture refers to the farming of crops or livestock without the use of synthetic inputs. That includes synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, plant growth regulators, nanomaterials, and genetically modified organisms (GMOs).2<\/a> This doesn\u2019t mean organic farming is chemical or pesticide-free. Chemicals are often used in organic farming, but most are not synthetically manufactured; there are a few exceptions that have been approved by the National Organic Program of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).3<\/a> Conventional \u2014 sometimes called \u201cindustrial\u201d \u2014 farming is any agricultural system that uses one or more of the above synthetic inputs.<\/p>\n The methods applied for weed and pest control in conventional and organic systems can also affect planting and tillage techniques. Conventional farming often uses synthetic herbicides to control weeds; this approach is often more conducive to low- or no-till management techniques. Since herbicide applications cannot be widely adopted in organic farming, options for no-till farming can be more limited<\/a> and place greater emphasis on mechanical controls or mulching.<\/p>\n In crop production, nutrients can be added to the soil as organic matter, such as green compost, animal manure (human sewage sludge is usually banned), or bone meal. For livestock, organic methods mean animals must be fed organically certified feed (or graze on land with no synthetic chemical inputs), and antibiotics cannot be used throughout their lifetime, except in emergency cases such as disease or an outbreak of infection. In conventional livestock production, there are no constraints on feed certification, and antibiotics and growth hormones are often used.<\/p>\n Animal welfare standards for organic certification can vary by country; in many, livestock must be raised with access to the outdoors (i.e., caged hens are not permitted). Conventional livestock farming covers a range of production methods: they can be produced in either \u201cfree range\u201d or \u201ccaged\u201d conditions. These are typically monitored and labeled as such on product packaging.<\/p>\n Rather than looking at individual studies one by one, I\u2019ll mostly rely on data from a large meta-analysis<\/a> by Fatemeh Hashemi and colleagues, published in Communications Earth & Environment in 2024.4<\/a> It compiled data from 100 assessment studies.<\/p>\n On some environmental impacts, there was no clear winner. But let me start with two where there was.<\/p>\n Organic agriculture almost always proved better on the metric of \u201cecotoxicity\u201d. This measures how harmful a farming system\u2019s chemical inputs \u2014 which are mostly pesticides \u2014 are to plants, insects, and aquatic life in the local environment. Particular chemicals have an ecotoxicity score, which is multiplied by the amount of each substance applied. Across the studies that measured it, organic farming almost always had much lower ecotoxicity than conventional farming.<\/p>\n Since the key distinction between organic and conventional farming is the use of synthetic chemicals, ecotoxicity is really the measure where organic farming nearly always wins. There are a few exceptions, though. Some chemicals, such as copper sulfate, are allowed under organic certification. In a few of the studies where these were used, organic actually had a higher ecotoxicity score.<\/p>\n As a result, organic farming also tends to support greater biodiversity on the land it uses. Studies typically find greater diversity of plant, insect, and bird species on organic land.5<\/a> They also find that, on average, these organisms are more abundant.6<\/a><\/p>\n These positive results vary widely depending on the scale. Organic tends to perform better in terms of biodiversity at the level of a particular field. But studies have shown that these positive effects diminish when looking at biodiversity across an entire farm or the surrounding area.7<\/a><\/p>\n On the other hand, conventional agriculture consistently performed better on land use. It had higher yields of both plant and animal products, so producing one kilogram of food required less land.8<\/a><\/p>\n In the chart below, you can see the difference in average land use between organic and conventional products; one dot is equal to one study. The gray line marks where the land use between organic and conventional systems would be equal.<\/p>\n As you can see, almost all of the dots lie above the gray line; this means organic farming almost always uses more land. The median result was that organic practices used 64% more land.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s then look at the environmental indicators where the answer is less clear-cut: carbon emissions (often referred to as \u201cglobal warming potential\u201d) and two metrics that capture water pollution: acidification and eutrophication (the leakage of nutrients into land and water bodies).<\/p>\n The first thing to note is that across all these metrics, organic farming performs better per unit of land. If I grow one hectare of wheat using organic methods, and the same using conventional methods, carbon emissions and water pollution will be lower on the organic hectare.<\/p>\n But as we just saw, organic farms tend to produce less food per hectare. When we look at impacts per kilogram of food (which is ultimately what we care about when it comes to food consumption and our own choices), those gains disappear.<\/p>\n The researchers found that across the 100 assessments, there was no statistically significant difference between organic and conventional farming when it came to greenhouse gas emissions, acidification, and eutrophication. The results were very mixed: in some studies, one won over the other, but almost just as many found the opposite effect.<\/p>\n In the chart below, I\u2019ve shown the outcome of each of these studies. Those in pink on the right-hand side had lower impacts with conventional methods. Those on the left, in purple, found organic was better. You can clearly see the difference between the two methods in the top (ecotoxicity) and bottom (land use) panels, and the mixed results in the three middle panels.<\/p>\n This is very similar to the earlier results published by Clark and Tilman (2017)<\/a>, which I focused on in a previous version of this article. The largest source of emissions in conventional crop farming is the use of synthetic fertilizers. Manufacturing fertilizers is an energy-intensive process. It uses the Haber-Bosch process, in which natural gas serves as both a feedstock and an energy source. Once nitrogen fertilizers are applied to the soil, they\u2019re converted to nitrous oxide (N2O), which is a powerful greenhouse gas (one gram generates around 270 times the warming impact of CO2 over a 100-year timescale).<\/p>\n Organic farming doesn\u2019t use synthetic fertilizers, but it does still need nutrient inputs in the form of manure, compost, or cover crops. The nitrogen in these sources is still converted into N2O, so these emissions aren\u2019t avoided; they just come from a different source. Since the chemical composition of manure is more varied and less optimized than it is in synthetic fertilizers, organic farming can result in more of these nutrients being wasted and converted to greenhouse gases.<\/p>\n Since most synthetic pesticides are banned in organic agriculture, farmers often rely more on mechanical tillage to remove weeds. That not only burns more fuel from the machinery, but can also release carbon from the soil in the form of CO2.<\/p>\n Land use also plays a role. Since organic farming typically requires more land, this can generate additional climate costs in terms of the release of soil carbon and the application of manure or compost to a larger area of land. That\u2019s why organic often does better on a per-hectare basis, but no better per kilogram of food.<\/p>\n One of my other most popular articles on Our World in Data looked at the role of food miles in the carbon footprint of our food. It was titled: \u201cYou want to reduce the carbon footprint of your food? Focus on what you eat, not whether your food is local<\/a>\u201d, and that was the main takeaway.<\/p>\n Reducing food miles might change the carbon footprint of your food choices by 5% to 10%. Changing what you eat could change it by ten times or more. That\u2019s because the difference in greenhouse gas emissions between animal products such as beef or lamb, and plant-based ones like soy is so large.<\/p>\n Not to be a broken record, but the conclusion here is the same. Across lots of different farms and products, there\u2019s no significant difference in the carbon footprint of organic chicken versus conventional, or organic apples versus conventional ones. Even when differences do exist across individual studies, they are often on the order of 5% or 10%, or in more extreme cases, 50%. That goes both ways, so it\u2019s not that organic or conventional farming consistently wins.<\/p>\n Those differences are small compared to the differences between foods. In the chart below, you can see the greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of different foods. This comes from one of the large meta-analyses to date.9<\/a><\/p>\n Let\u2019s say you\u2019re fretting over whether to go for the organic or non-organic peas. Perhaps the carbon footprint could differ by up to 50% between them. Rather than the carbon footprint being 1 kilogram of greenhouse gases per kilogram, it\u2019s 1.5 kilograms (again, you don\u2019t know whether it\u2019s the organic or conventional ones that are higher).<\/p>\n This is a rounding error compared to the difference between peas and beef. Choosing the latter would increase your carbon footprint not by 50%, but by 3,300% to 10,000%.<\/p>\n This is even true when comparing animal products. A 50% difference in the carbon footprint of organic versus conventional chicken matters less than choosing chicken over beef or lamb.<\/p>\n We also see substantial differences in the carbon footprints of the same foods produced under the same system (organic or conventional). Producing organic tomatoes in one location could have twice the carbon footprint of producing organic tomatoes elsewhere. That\u2019s because a range of other production factors matter: the climate, the soil quality, and the specific techniques a farmer is using. These geographical differences in productivity can, again, dwarf any differences between organic and conventional systems.<\/p>\n What you eat, and all of these location and farm-specific factors, matter much more than whether it\u2019s organic or not.<\/p>\n Organic agriculture is comparable to conventional agriculture in terms of carbon emissions. As we saw earlier, it may also have biodiversity benefits, specifically for the area of land that is farmed.<\/p>\n Its major downside is that it requires more land. The impact of land use is often underrated, both on climate and on biodiversity loss.<\/p>\n When it comes to climate, it\u2019s not just the greenhouse gases we emit that matter. It\u2019s whether we could otherwise suck more carbon out of the atmosphere and store it in vegetation if we were using the land in another way.<\/p>\n Most studies \u2014 and the meta-analysis we just looked at \u2014 do include the emissions from land use change in their results. That is, the carbon emitted from deforestation, or the conversion of grasslands into agricultural land. But they do not factor in what we call \u201ccarbon opportunity costs<\/a>\u201d: the fact that if it weren\u2019t cropland or pasture, it might otherwise be natural grasslands or forest and would continually suck more carbon out of the atmosphere. When we factor in these opportunity costs, some conventional agricultural systems may be better for the climate than organic ones.<\/p>\n Lower yields and higher land demand can also have spillover impacts for the rest of the world. A country might think that an environmentally friendly thing to do is to go all in on organic farming. Laurence Smith and colleagues modeled<\/a> what would happen if England and Wales had such aspirations.10<\/a><\/p>\n England and Wales\u2019 greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture would go down. This is to be expected: as we saw earlier, organic practices did have lower climate impacts per hectare. But lower yields mean it would produce far less food, and have to import the shortfall from elsewhere. Effectively, its farmland use would expand overseas. When the researchers accounted for this spillover, the climate impact of its food consumption was higher under an organic-farming scenario than under the current one.<\/p>\n Nearly half of the world\u2019s habitable land is used for agriculture<\/a>. You can see this breakdown in the chart below. The expansion of this land over millennia has displaced<\/a> around one-third of the world\u2019s previously forested land. That has transformed landscapes and dramatically changed biodiversity in the process. If we want to preserve the world\u2019s remaining forests and other natural habitats, we need to find ways to use less land for agriculture, not more. A dramatic shift to organic farming would move us in the opposite direction, at least without huge changes to what the world eats.<\/p>\n This article has focused on the environmental impacts of different farming methods. But it\u2019s worth noting that there is a strong human side to this, too. It\u2019s estimated that around half<\/a> of the global population today relies on synthetic fertilizer for the food they eat.11<\/a> An organic world wouldn\u2019t just mean more farmland. It would also lack the nitrogen needed to feed the 8 or 9 billion people in it.12<\/a><\/p>\n Subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n Where does this leave us on the original question: is organic better for the environment?<\/p>\n If we look at this through the question of \u201chow do I limit the environmental impacts on this plot of land?\u201d then organic methods will often be the better choice. The greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, and biodiversity impacts on that hectare will often be lower.<\/p>\n It\u2019s estimated that around half of the global population today relies on synthetic fertilizer for the food they eat.<\/p>\n That is different from the question of \u201chow do we feed the world in a way that limits the environmental impacts of agriculture?\u201d For that question, the per-kilogram metrics are more important. There, organic still wins on ecotoxicity, but conventional farming is no worse in terms of its climate or water pollution impacts, and is much better in terms of land use.<\/p>\n If the world were to move to a 100% organic farming system, we\u2019d have to convert far more forest and natural habitat into farmland. This could ultimately work against our intention to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and preserve biodiversity.<\/p>\n A future with less agricultural land but more organic farming would only be possible with widespread shifts to more plant-based, less land-hungry diets and large reductions in food waste.13<\/a><\/p>\n Acknowledgments<\/p>\n Many thanks to Edouard Mathieu for comments and suggestions on this article.<\/p>\n Continue reading on Our World in DataCite this work<\/p>\n Our articles and data visualizations rely on work from many different people and organizations. When citing this article, please also cite the underlying data sources. This article can be cited as:<\/p>\n Hannah Ritchie (2026) – \u201cIs organic farming better for the environment than conventional farming?\u201d Published online at OurWorldinData.org. Retrieved from: ‘https:\/\/archive.ourworldindata.org\/20260914-061831\/is-organic-farming-better-for-the-environment-than-conventional-farming.html’ [Online Resource] (archived on September 14, 2026).<\/p>\n BibTeX citation<\/p>\n @article{owid-is-organic-farming-better-for-the-environment-than-conventional-farming, All visualizations, data, and articles produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license<\/a>. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.<\/p>\n The data produced by third parties and made available by Our World in Data is subject to the license terms from the original third-party authors. We will always indicate the original source of the data in our documentation, so you should always check the license of any such third-party data before use and redistribution.<\/p>\n![\"Scatter](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/w=1584.png\")
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Where do greenhouse gas emissions come from?What are the sources of emissions in organic and conventional farming?<\/p>\n![\"Proportional](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789382651_278_w=2550.png\")
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\n author = {Hannah Ritchie},
\n title = {Is organic farming better for the environment than conventional farming?},
\n journal = {Our World in Data},
\n year = {2026},
\n note = {https:\/\/archive.ourworldindata.org\/20260914-061831\/is-organic-farming-better-for-the-environment-than-conventional-farming.html}
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