Organic farms have better fruit and soil, lower environmental impact
September 3rd, 2010Now here’s a surprise. From Science Daily:
Side-by-side comparisons of organic and conventional strawberry farms and their fruit found the organic farms produced more flavorful and nutritious berries while leaving the soil healthier and more genetically diverse.
The paper, titled Fruit and Soil Quality of Organic and Conventional Strawberry Agroecosystems, is published in the peer-reviewed online journal, PLoS ONE.
All the farms in the current study were in California, where conventional farms use the ozone-depleting methyl bromide (which is slated to be replaced by the highly toxic methyl iodide).
In addition to finding organic strawberries are tastier and better for your health, researchers found the organic soils excelled in a variety of key chemical and biological properties, including carbon sequestration, nitrogen, microbial biomass, enzyme activities, and micronutrients.
The Science Daily article quotes lead author John Reganold, Washington State University Regents professor of soil science:
Our findings have global implications and advance what we know about the sustainability benefits of organic farming systems. We also show you can have high quality, healthy produce without resorting to an arsenal of pesticides.
The authors offer a summation of the study’s methodology, findings, conclusions and significance:
At multiple sampling times for two years, we evaluated three varieties of strawberries for mineral elements, shelf life, phytochemical composition, and organoleptic properties. We also analyzed traditional soil properties and soil DNA using microarray technology. We found that the organic farms had strawberries with longer shelf life, greater dry matter, and higher antioxidant activity and concentrations of ascorbic acid and phenolic compounds, but lower concentrations of phosphorus and potassium. In one variety, sensory panels judged organic strawberries to be sweeter and have better flavor, overall acceptance, and appearance than their conventional counterparts. We also found the organically farmed soils to have more total carbon and nitrogen, greater microbial biomass and activity, and higher concentrations of micronutrients. Organically farmed soils also exhibited greater numbers of endemic genes and greater functional gene abundance and diversity for several biogeochemical processes, such as nitrogen fixation and pesticide degradation.
Our findings show that the organic strawberry farms produced higher quality fruit and that their higher quality soils may have greater microbial functional capability and resilience to stress. These findings justify additional investigations aimed at detecting and quantifying such effects and their interactions.

