Econ. of Sust. Ag.: BD

lhalprin@ucdavis.edu (SMTP@WSUVM1.CSC.WSU.EDU)
Tue, 20 Jun 95 15:31:21 PDT

One report that looks at the economics of an alternative
agriculture system was published in Science a couple
of years ago, so you may already be familiar with it.
In case you're not, here's the citation and abstract:

Reganold JP, Palmer AS, Lockhart JC, Macgregor AN (1993)
Soil Quality and Financial Performance of Biodynamic and
Conventional Farms in New Zealand. Science 260:344-349.

Biodynamic farming practices and systems show promise in
mitigating some of the detrimental effects of chemical-
dependent, conventional agriculture on the environment.
The physical, biological, and chemical soil properties
and economic profitability of adjacent, commercial
biodynamic and conventional farms (16 total) in New
Zealand were compared. The biodynamic farms in the study
had better soil quality than the neighboring conventional
farms and were just as financially viable on a per hectare
basis.

I just talked with John Reganold, who is here at WSU, and
he still has reprints of this paper, and of a technical
report on the statistics used in it. Anyone who would
like a reprint of either or both can e-mail him directly:
reganold@wsuvm1.csc.wsu.edu . (Note that the "1" in "wsuvm1"
is a numeral one)

Steve Verhey
Crop & Soil Sciences
Washington State University
Pullman, WA 99164-6420