Investing in Organic Farmland

Investing in organic farmland is an investment in the future.

Organic practices have been shown to be as productive as land farmed with chemicals (see below). While yields are very similar, organic practices do not have expensive chemical inputs, and so the bottom line for the farmer is much better.

For these and many other reasons, The Land Connection seeks to facilitate organic transition, and seeks to make farmland available to those interested in farming it organically. If you're interested, we'd love to help you make the organic connection.

When you talk with organic farmers, they provide many compelling reasons for their choice of chemical-free, regenerative practices. These reasons include providing a safe, agri-chemical-free environment for their family, enjoying working on the farm every day, and getting a much better farm income once they stopped purchasing costly inputs.

There is a great deal of scientific data from long-term studies that show organic agriculture to be as productive as chemical agriculture. The most comprehensive review of the world’s publications on the yield ratio (organic farming to nonorganic farming) for different food categories reported that this average yield ratio was “ . . . slightly <1.0 for studies in the developed world and > 1.0 for studies in the developed world.” (C. Badgley et al., 2007. Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems 22: 86-108). More specifically, the average yield ratio is 0.92 (160 examples) from developed countries and 1.80 (133 examples) from developing countries.

In other words, organic farming yields are very close to non-organic yields in the developed world, but organic actually out-yields non-organic in the developing world, where most of the world’s hungry people reside.

There are extensive data in addition to the review cited above that prove the mantra that organic farming cannot feed the world to be incorrect. To the contrary, the studies show that if long-term sustainability (when inputs such as nitrogen, phosphorus, water, and fossil fuels become scarce) is taken into account, organic farming is the only way to feed the world.