I look forward for empirical studies related to organic agriculture vs conventional agriculture in a comparative perspective
Nature 485, 229–232 (10 May 2012) doi:10.1038/nature11069
Agricultural Systems 108 (2012) 1–9
We have done a survey work at Uttrakhand, India under seven crops (wheat, potato, mustard, garlic, chick pea, chilli and pumpkin) where crops were grown continuously for five years under both conventional, chemical and organic farming. The microbial population especially fungi, bacteria, actinomycetes, azotobacter and nitrosomonas was significantly higher under organic farming than conventional as well as chemical farming. The results suggest that a decline in most important soil enzymes like dehydrogenase, esterase, acid and alkaline phosphatase under conventional than organic farming. It was found that organic farming has a great role to maintain excellent enzyme and microbial activities in the soil resulted better soil health.
I also agree with Dr. Tarafdar, and we have also observed in a similar way on improvement of soil health/ quality, but crop productivity was low in organic farming. I am enclosing another study, in which they suggest that organic soybean
production is a viable option for smallholder farmers under the prevailing semi-arid conditions in India, if practiced continuously . Hence one should be cautious enough to withstand the production loss for initial few years and it depends on so many factors.
This idea is old. Please find the following literature as the attachment files
u can follow the following link
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X1100182X
http://orgprints.org/14139/1/Cisilino-Madau.pdf
https://ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/handle/1813/2101/pimentel_report_05-1.pdf;sequence=1
i think, this would be helpful
Thank you all for sharing the literature on the comparative performance of organic and conventional agriculture
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