How the organic food system

contributes to sustainability
Christian Schader, Matthias Stolze and Urs Niggli
Research Institute of Organic Agriculture, Frick, Switzerland

ABSTRACT
Despite many agricultural systems and most food companies claiming to be sustainable, recent
studies show that the planetary boundaries have been exceeded mainly by food production and
consumption. Against the background of a looming 9.6 billion people in 2050, many scientists
argue for a further intensification of agricultural systems.
Organic food systems may offer an alternative approach towards sustainability. Many studies
on organic agriculture suggest that organic practices are less harmful for the environment, may
foster social well-being and may lead to economic resilience. Others argue that organic systems
yield on average about 20 percent less than comparable conventional systems. On the bottom
line, this may even lead to higher environmental impacts, land use and pressure on natural
ecosystems and put global food availability at risk.
This paper aims at providing an overview of the contribution of organic food systems to
sustainability distinguishing between different levels. Using (i) the SAFA Guidelines and (ii) the
three sustainability strategies of efficiency, consistency and sufficiency as a framework, we assess
how organic food systems can contribute to sustainability.
We distinguish between the operator level, the product level and the spatial/policy level. We
show that the operator level (i) focuses on consistency and allows covering the widest range of
sustainability themes. At the product-related level (ii), only specific environmental themes can be
covered and the efficiency is the central issue addressed by the studies. The spatial/policy level
(iii) addresses all three sustainability strategies, as food security and systemic changes such as
dietary patterns and food waste are considered, but is often too general for looking at many social
themes of sustainability.
Results show that organic food systems perform well with respect to environmental performance
at the operator and spatial/policy level, while results at the product level are more heterogeneous,
as yields are often lower. Differences between organic and conventional systems vary between
different regions and product types. The economic performance can be judged at operators’ level,
which reveals context-specific differences in profitability, depending on product type and regional
context. However, apart from profitability, organic food systems may provide further benefits in
terms of economic resilience due to the cradle-to-cradle principle. At the spatial/policy level, food
availability and food security play important roles. Global studies show how organic food systems
can provide sufficient food if demand patterns change towards less resource-consuming products.
The social dimension is very context-specific and cannot be judged in general.
We conclude that organic production impacts the entire food system and that organic
agriculture can contribute to the efficiency, consistency and sufficiency strategies. Yet, innovation
and further development of the organic system is indispensable for addressing future challenges.

INTRODUCTION
Despite agriculture’s and most food companies’ claim of being sustainable, recent studies show
that the planetary boundaries have been exceeded mainly by food production and consumption
(Rockström et al., 2009). Furthermore, social well-being and the economic resilience of the farming
sector are at stake in many countries. Against the background of a looming 9.6 billion people

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 ASSESSING SUSTAINABLE DIETS WITHIN THE SUSTAINABILITY OF FOOD SYSTEMS

in 2050, many scientists argue for a further intensification of agricultural systems (Godfray and
Garnett, 2014; Tilman et al., 2011).
In order to address these challenges, efficiency, consistency and sufficiency can be distinguished
as three fundamentally different strategies (Schaltegger, Burritt and Petersen, 2003). The efficiency
strategy tries to optimize the relationship between the negative impacts of a system and the outputs
that a system generates. The consistency strategy tries to bring production systems closer to natural
systems or sustainability principles. Finally, the sufficiency strategy addresses the consumption
side by reducing negative impacts on resources.
Organic food systems may offer an alternative approach towards sustainability. Many studies on
organic agriculture suggest that organic practices are less harmful for the environment, may foster
social well-being and may lead to economic resilience (Schader, Stolze and Gattinger, 2012). Others
argue that organic systems yield on average about 20 percent less than comparable conventional
systems (Seufert, Ramankutty and Foley, 2012). On the bottom line, this may even lead to higher
environmental impacts, land use and pressure on natural ecosystems and put global food availability
at risk (Tuomisto et al., 2012).
This paper aims at providing an overview of the contribution of organic food systems to
sustainability distinguishing between product, operator and spatial/policy level. Using (i) the SAFA
Guidelines and (ii) the three sustainability strategies of efficiency, consistency and sufficiency
(Schaltegger, Burritt and Petersen, 2003) as a framework, we assess how organic food systems can
contribute to sustainability.

DIFFERENT LEVELS FOR SUSTAINABILITY ASSESSMENTS

With the increasing importance of the notion of sustainability in the discussion of future food
systems, different interpretations have caused confusion among food producers, consumers and even
scientists (FAO, 2013; Godfray and Garnett, 2014; McDonald and Oates, 2006). This confusion may
largely be associated with differences in the scope and perspective of the assessments (Schader et al.,
2014a). Especially with respect to evaluating complex systems such as organic food systems, which
impact both production and consumption, methodological differences in the assessment lead to
different and seemingly contradicting results (Meier et al., 2015; Schader, Stolze and Gattinger, 2012).
Recent efforts to generically define sustainability (FAO, 2013) and classify sustainability
assessment approaches (Schader et al., 2014a) aim at decreasing this confusion and clarifying the
differences between the most common approaches and tools for assessing sustainability. In this
paper, we distinguish between the operator, the product and the spatial/policy level.
The operator level looks at the sustainability performance of a company or a farm using
indicator sets. The SAFA Guidelines (FAO, 2013) offer a globally applicable framework for a
comprehensive view on sustainability, covering four dimensions (good governance, environmental
integrity, economic resilience and social well-being) with 58 (sub)themes (Table 1). According to
the SAFA Guidelines, sustainability assessments should not merely include the place where the
operator is located but also consider other companies or farms that are influenced by its decisions.
For instance, a dairy company can have a strong influence on its suppliers and how they produce.
So, those dairy farms can be taken into account for an operator-level sustainability assessment,
especially because a large fraction of the environmental and social impacts can be associated with
the agricultural production processes (Bystricky et al., 2014).
We show that the operator level allows covering the full range of sustainability themes. However,
assessments at this level primarily look at the consistency of the companies with sustainability
principles. Efficiency can only be assessed if product-related assessments are included. The
sufficiency strategy is not covered within the framework of the SAFA Guidelines.
The dominant approach for conducting product-level assessments is life cycle assessment
(LCA) (Finkbeiner et al., 2010). LCAs relate environmental impacts of a production system to the
so-called functional unit, which is mostly the provision of defined amount of a specific kind of
food (ISO, 2006a, 2006b). There are a number of environmental impact categories such as global
warming potential, eutrophication and acidification covered by the usual LCAs but impacts on

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How the organic food system contributes to sustainability

Table 1: Comparison of product, operator and spatial/policy level sustainability assessments

Level Approaches Tools Coverage of Efficiency Consistency Sufficiency
topics

Operator level Indicator based e.g. SMART, all dimensions (yes) yes no
approaches, RISE
life cycle
assessment
Product level Attributional e.g. Sima Pro, selected yes (yes) no
life cycle GABI environmental
assessment topics
Spatial / policy Economic e.g. SOL-m, Predominantly yes yes yes
level modelling, FARMIS, CAPRI environmental
consequential and economic
LCAs dimensions
Source: based on Schader et al. (2014a).

biodiversity and soil fertility, for instance, are difficult to relate to a product-related functional
unit (de Baan, Alkemade and Koellner, 2013; Jeanneret et al., 2008; Milà i Canals et al., 2006).
However, when comparing organic and conventional food systems, these themes are important
for differentiation between the systems. Furthermore, concepts for evaluating social and economic
impacts within an LCA framework are still at their infancy (Finkbeiner et al., 2010).
With respect to the three main sustainability strategies (efficiency, consistency and sufficiency), a
product-level assessment predominantly addresses efficiency. Only selected aspects of consistency
can be taken into account. The sufficiency strategy would mean dismissing the concept of a common
functional unit but looking at different functional units or defining a more general functional unit.
With spatial-/policy-level assessments, not a single operator or product is assessed, but all
operators within a geographical region or the impacts of a policy on all operators affected by it. For
instance, if a conversion to organic farming is analysed at spatial/policy level, it is not sufficient to
look at single products or at single farms. However, apart from the general view on a region, this
level of assessment also allows looking at specific products or farm types more closely.
At a spatial/policy level all environmental and economic issues can be addressed. Social issues
are often context-specific and therefore hardly generalizable, except some general considerations
that result from changes in product prices and input (e.g. labour) demand. Contrary to the other
two levels, the spatial/policy level allows the consideration of sufficiency aspects besides issues of
consistency and efficiency, as nutrition patterns can be examined and economic considerations of
changing demand and supply patterns can be integrated in the analysis.

SUSTAINABILITY PERFORMANCE OF ORGANIC FOOD SYSTEMS AT DIFFERENT LEVELS

The above description of different levels of sustainability reveals that often fundamentally different
aspects are considered and different perspectives are taken in a sustainability assessment. Moreover,
as differences between organic and conventional systems vary between regions and product types,
general statements on the sustainability performance of organic agriculture need to be made with
particular care. We therefore present an overview of studies from the different levels illustrating the
sustainability performance of organic agriculture.

Operator level
From an operator level, environmental assessments reveal that organic farming performs better,
i.e. has less environmental impacts, with respect to biodiversity and landscape, resource depletion,
climate change, ground and surface water pollution, air quality and soil fertility. However, Table 1
shows a wide variation between the studies.
With respect to subsequent supply chain stages (transport, processing and retailing), no general
statements can be made as the performance of organics is largely related to the specific operator or
supply chain.
The economic performance of organic agriculture is often understood in different ways and no
uniform assessment method has been established so far. For instance, the economic performance

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 ASSESSING SUSTAINABLE DIETS WITHIN THE SUSTAINABILITY OF FOOD SYSTEMS

Organic agriculture is Much better Better Equal Worse Much worse

Biodiversity and landscape •

Genetic diversity •
Floral diversity •
Faunal diversity •
Habitat diversity •
Landscape •
Resource depletion •
Nutrient resources •
Energy resources •
Water resources •
Climate change •
CO2 •
N2O •
CH4 •
Ground and surface water pollution •
Nitrate leaching •
Phosphorous runoff •
Pesticide emissions •
Air quality •
NH3 •
Pesticides •
Soil fertility •
Organic matter •
Biological activity •
Soil structure •
Soil erosion •
Figure 1: Relative environmental performance of organic farming at operator level
Source: based on Schader, Stolze and Gattinger (2012).

could be interpreted from an operator’s goal to have a profitable and economically resilient
business, but also from a societal perspective in the sense of what the operator contributes to
societal goals (Schader et al., 2014a). However, since the latter perspective would include the
social and environmental impacts monetized, we concentrate on the first perspective here. The
economic performance from an operator’s perspective thus comes down to the question whether
the yield gap (Seufert, Ramankutty and Foley, 2012) and the higher costs for labour compared
with conventional farming can be compensated by the sum of (a) price premiums, (b) savings
from purchasing less physical inputs and (c) policy payments, e.g. agri-environmental schemes in
Europe (Schader, 2009). Also here, it depends very much on the farm type and regional context
that one is looking at, but many cases have been reported where organic farming is competitive or
even outperforming conventional counterparts (Nemes, 2009). Nevertheless, the slow uptake of
organic farming practices indicates no substantial improvement of profitability in most regions of
the world. However, it should be stressed that sound datasets to judge profitability are missing for
many countries.
But economic resilience is not only a question of profitability. Issues such as the long-term
stability of production, supply and markets are also affecting the economic resilience (FAO,
2013). Here, organic farming seems to have advantages compared with conventional farming, as it
is less reliant on external inputs and has a stronger ability to conserve natural resources, e.g. soil
(Gattinger et al., 2012).

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How the organic food system contributes to sustainability

Figure 2: Exemplary summary of a full sustainability assessment of a food company with SMART
Source: FiBL and SFS (2014).

Social performance of organic farming is also influenced by local conditions. So it is very

difficult to draw general conclusions. Nevertheless, if a sufficiently large number of organic
and conventional operators can be assessed with an indicator set that ensures comparability,
a comparison of all aspects of the sustainability could be conducted. Therefore, FiBL created
the Sustainability Monitoring and Assessment Routine (SMART), which allows assessing both
food companies and farms against the 58 themes specified in the SAFA Guidelines (Jawtusch
et al., 2013). Currently, sustainability assessments at farm and company level are conducted. This
research will empirically show in which themes organic operators perform better, worse or equal
to conventional operators. Figure 2 shows an example of the summary of a complete sustainability
assessment of a food company with SMART. With this approach of benchmarking companies
and farms against absolute sustainability objectives, even well-performing companies fail to reach
maximum scores with respect to many subthemes.

Product level
The product-related environmental performance substantially differs from the operator-related one.
The main reason for this difference is the relationship of the performance to a functional unit, which is
usually related to the production quantity. The yield gap of 0–40 percent (on average 20–25 percent),
depending on which product one is looking at (de Ponti, Rijk and van Ittersum, 2012; Ponisio et al.,
2015; Seufert, Ramankutty and Foley, 2012), is sometimes overcompensating the better environmental
performance of organic farming (Meier et al., 2015; Tuomisto et al., 2012) (Table 2).
The study of LCA-based comparisons of the environmental performance by Meier et al. (2015)
also reveals a wide variation between the studies. Table 3 shows the variability of results for dairy
production. Details on beef, pig, poultry, egg and plant products can be found in Meier et al. (2015).
As explained above, the empirical evidence and the methodological discourse regarding
the social and economic product-related sustainability assessment is currently too weak to
present conclusions.

Policy level
At the policy level, more general research questions can be dealt with, as apart from production-
related aspects also changes in demand patterns can be taken into account (Schader et al., 2014b).
This level often calculated scenarios from a resource-use perspective either globally or for specific
countries or regions (Schader et al., 2014a).

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 ASSESSING SUSTAINABLE DIETS WITHIN THE SUSTAINABILITY OF FOOD SYSTEMS

Table 2: Product-related environmental performance of organic agriculture compared with conventional agriculture
Livestock productsb Relative difference organic/integrated on per product unita
Milk Beef Pork Poultry
Energy demand –5% –2% –24% –8%
Global warming potential (GWP) –12% –8% –25% –18%
Ozone depletion –3% –8% –39% –17%
Eutrophication potential –13% –1% +4% +4%
Acidification potential –12% –13% –30% –21%
Heavy metals, water –30% –48% –81% –79%
Heavy metals, soil –165% –261% +405% –79%
Pesticide use –100% –99% –100% –100%
Water use –69% –76% –73% –73%
Land use –1% –23% –32% –32%

Fruist & vegetablesb Tomatoes Carrots Strawberries Pears

Energy demand –71% +12% +61% +26%
Global warming potential (GWP) –78% –9% +39% +10%
Ozone depletion –69% –46% +8% –50%
Eutrophication potential –17% –69% –65% –85%
Acidification potential –86% +13% +84% +17%
Heavy metals, water –97% –60% –25% +60%
Heavy metals, soil +306% +2410% +5981% –29%
Pesticide use –53% –100% –96% –100%
Water use –28% +51% +64% +5%
Land use +37% –38% –117% –117%

Arable cropsc Barley grains Soybeans Wheat grains Potatoes

Energy demand –6% –10% –11% –5%
Global warming potential (GWP) +18% –12% –9% +88%
Ozone depletion –66% –54% –81% –68%
Eutrophication potential +54% –26% +80% +39%
Acidification potential –57% –59% –59% –9%
Heavy metals, water –77% –65% –79% –54%
Heavy metals, soil +333% –105% +665% +1102%
Pesticide use –100% –100% –100% –100%
Water use –65% –54% –68% –12%
Land use 0% –36% –4% +1%
a
basic: conventional
b
Inventories from LCI database of ESU-services only (Jungbluth et al., 2013)
c
Inventories from ecoinvent v2.2 (Nemecek et al., 2007)
Source: Meier et al. (2015).

Fundamental questions that have been raised with respect to organic agriculture are: Can organic
food systems feed the world? What environmental impacts would organic have? What boundary
conditions would need to be met? These fundamental questions have not yet been answered in
sufficient depth.
Preliminary results using the SOL-Model (Schader, Muller and Scialabba, 2014) show that
organic food systems show the potential of organic farming for feeding the world sustainably under
different conditions (Schader et al., 2014b). Table 4 shows different scenarios for 2050 that assume
a conversion to organic agriculture and/or a substitution of human-edible feedstuffs with forage
not grown on arable land and food waste. These scenarios demonstrate that organic food systems
could feed the world even in 2050, if the trade-off between food and feed production is resolved.
One way of resolving this trade-off would be to drastically reduce the feedstuffs grown on arable
land, which generates a natural boundary for the size of the livestock sector and ultimately leads
to lower consumption of livestock products (Schader, Muller and Scialabba, 2014; Schader et al.,
2014b). Such a scenario would lead both to an improved availability of energy and protein and a
wide range of environmental benefits (Table 4). Social benefits, apart from the indirect impacts
from changes in food availability and resource use, are difficult to assess at global level.

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How the organic food system contributes to sustainability

Table 3: Variability of product-related environmental performance of organic dairy production

Impact category Relative difference organic/conventional Relative difference organic/ # of studies
on per area unit and yeara conventional on per product unita

Milk 11
Energy demand –70 to –39% –56 to –7% 8
Global warming potential (GWP) –67 to –13% –38 to +53% 10
Eutrophication potential –76 to –2% –66 to +63% 7
Acidification potential –51 to –2% –13 to +63% 7
Ecotox terrestrial –76% –59% 1
Pesticide use –100 to –94% –100 to –89% 3
Productivity –47 to –6% 11
Land use +6 to +90% 11
Environmental impacts on per area unit were calculated if not explicitly given in the studies.
a
Basis: conventional
Source: Meier et al. (2015).

Furthermore, at policy level, economic evaluations can be conducted using economic models
(Mittenzwei et al., 2007; Sanders et al., 2005; Zimmermann, 2008). For instance, policies that
address aspects of environmental sustainability, e.g. the agri-environmental schemes in Europe,
can be assessed for cost-effectiveness, the financial support for organic farming being one of these
policies. Specifying economic and environmental data, a comprehensive analysis of organic farming
as an agri-environmental policy and as a farming system can be done (Schader, 2009). Such an
analysis for Switzerland shows that the payments for organic agriculture as an agri-environmental
policy are competitive with other environmental payments from a policy-maker’s perspective
(Table 5). This is specifically due to the fact that policies to support organic farming address a wide
range of objectives linked to environmental sustainability (Schader et al., 2014c). Furthermore,
there are synergies between the multitarget policy of organic agriculture support and targeted agri-
environmental payments (Schader et al., 2013).

CONCLUSIONS
This overview has shown that the sustainability performance of organic food systems needs to be
analysed at different levels. Assessments at different levels deliver different information with partly
contradicting information.
Results show that organic food systems perform well with respect to the environmental
performance at the operator and spatial/policy level, while results at the product level are more
heterogeneous, as yields are often lower. Differences between organic and conventional systems
vary between different regions and product types. The economic performance can be judged at
operator level, which reveals context-specific differences in profitability, depending on product
type and regional context. However, apart from profitability, organic food systems may provide
further benefits in terms of economic resilience due to the cradle-to-cradle principle. From a
spatial/policy level, food availability and food security play important roles. Global studies show
organic food systems can provide sufficient food if demand patterns change towards less resource-
consuming products. The social dimension is very context-specific and cannot be judged in general.
This paper demonstrated that organic production impacts the entire food system and that
organic agriculture can be part of efficiency, consistency and sufficiency strategies. Yet, innovation
and further development of the organic system is indispensable for addressing future challenges.
Improvements in data availability and data quality as well as methodological advances at
operator, product and spatial/policy level are urgently needed to get a more comprehensive picture
of the sustainability performance of organic food systems. Furthermore, a stronger linkage of the
different levels is needed in order to increase the consistency between results of assessments at
different levels. For instance, the SOL-Model provides quantitative data for such scenarios and
will be further developed to provide also country- and product-specific figures for environmental
impacts. These could feed both into LCA databases and operator-level assessments such as SMART.
Nevertheless, it is important to stress that all three assessment levels have their blind spots as none

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 ASSESSING SUSTAINABLE DIETS WITHIN THE SUSTAINABILITY OF FOOD SYSTEMS

Table 4: Overview of impacts of a global conversion of livestock production to organic management on food
availability, the environment and human diets calculated with SOL-m
Indicator Base year Scenario 1 Scenario 2 Scenario 3 Scenario 4 Scenario 5

2005-2009; 2050; baseline 2050; 50% 2050; 100% 2050; full 2050; Scenario
current according to reduction of reduction of conversion 3 and 4
situation official FAO concentrate concentrate of livestock combined
forecast use use to organic
management

Agricultural land

Human population

Avaliable food energy for

human consumption
Avaliable food protein for
human consumption
Share of livestock products

Share of plant products

Nitrogen surplus

Phosphorus surplus

Energy use

Global Warming Potential

(GWP)
Land degradation potential

Deforestation pressure

Toxicity potential

Grassland overexploitation

Biodiversity

The direction of the arrows specifies whether the paramer will increase in a scenario
Green arrows indicate a development that is considered beneficial from a societal perspective
Red arrows indicate a development which is considered detrimental from a societal perspective
Yellow arrow indicates constant trends or minor changes (less than 5%) according to the preliminary SOL-m calculations
Source: Schader et al. (2014b).

Table 5: Cost-effectiveness of organic agriculture support payments and single-target agri-environmental measures
(AEM) in Switzerland for pursuing relative improvements (RI) in achieving agri-environmental policy targets
Indicator Unit Organic farming Combined AEM
On all farms On organic On conventional
farms farms

Cost (C) Public expenditure CHF/ha*year 66.58 73.17 23.11 78.62

Environmental Reduction of energy use %* 5.28 1.50 3.76 1.38

effects (E)
Improvement of habitat %* 5.34 18.05 17.88 18.08
quality
Reduction of total %* 3.42 2.18 3.22 2.10
eutrophication

Average improvement %* 4.68 7.24 8.29 7.19

Abatement/ Reduction of energy use CHF/%RI** 12.61 48.94 6.14 56.88

Provision cost
(ABC)
Improvement of habitat CHF/%RI** 12.47 4.05 1.29 4.35
quality
Reduction of total CHF/%RI** 19.45 33.60 7.17 37.37
eutrophication
Average improvement CHF/%RI** 14.22 10.10 2.79 10.94
* relative improvement of the indicator due to the policy instrument
** CHF/year*1% improvement of the indicator
Source: own calculations based on Swiss FADN and SALCA data, Schader et al. (2014c).

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How the organic food system contributes to sustainability

of the approaches is able to cover all aspects of sustainability and all three sustainability strategies
in sufficient depth. Therefore, when selecting tools for sustainability assessment of organic food
systems, the purpose of the assessment needs to be specified exactly before selecting a level or even
a specific tool for sustainability assessment.

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