FACEPA used the General Cost of Production Model (GECOM) to contrast organic and conventional forms of commodity production in terms of costs and environmental performance. The methodology supports a discussion of production costs in organic farming regarding the respective agri-environmental policies in selected EU Member States. It explores the potential of FADN systems for deriving environmental impacts at the farm level and calculating and comparing selected indicators for organic farms. The method was applied in Austria, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden and the UK.
The methodology investigates the possibility of using farm economic data from FADN to calculate environmental indicators. Environmental indicators included:
- the level of inputs (fertiliser, crop protection, purchased feed),
- the intensity of the agriculture (intensification indicator, livestock units per forage area),
- participation in agri-environmental activities as shown by monetary receipts from agri-environmental schemes,
- diversity of cropping in the form of a Shannon index,
- availability of wildlife habitats as a proportion of land that is permanent grassland, woodland or fallow.
The results showed statistically significant differences between organic and conventional farms regarding fertiliser cost, crop protection cost and intensification. There were no significant differences between organic and conventional farms regarding crop diversity except for mixed and lowland grazing livestock farms where organic farms have a statistically significantly lower diversity. There is also no significant difference between organic and conventional farms in terms of the proportion of land that is woodland, permanent grass or fallow except for general cropping farms where organic farms generally have a higher ratio.
