I doubt that paper would get very far as is if it went through the peer review process. And I am not the only person who thinks the methodology is lacking. There is a commenter who seems to know about these things who also says so.

It’s an important topic and it’s good that the people are looking into all these factors that go into our efficiency calculations. But you can’t base very much in the way of sweeping conclusions on calculations taken on the management of a single 60ha farm in Kansas with only 20 of the 60ha in crops. What they can accomplish with that is what they set out to do in the first place. But this farm hardly represents “Organic” or anything else.

That “commuting” factor still has me scratching my head.

The study doesn’t seem to compare organic farms with other agriculture so much as it compares one particular 60 ha organic farm with other agriculture.

That item about energy for commuting has me especially puzzled. How is that a comparison between organic and non-organic farming? If it really is something intrinsically related to organic, it’s an interesting topic in itself. But I haven’t found the connection yet.

(Related research on these topics is done by a lot of people at my workplace. In fact, I think one of the new people down the hall worked at the Land Institute before coming here.)

BTW (and this is somewhat off-topic, but I like an excuse to point it out) I am old enough to remember the days when it was the right-wing kooks rather than the left-wing ones who were the organic growers and all-around environmentalists.

Do we really want to rely on coal plants or nuclear reactors to produce nitrogen based fertilizers and electric tractors? I can’t see it.