Abstract
One of the primary challenges of our time is to enhance global food production and security. Most assessments in agricultural systems focus on plant yield. Yet, these analyses neglect temporal yield stability, or the variability and reliability of production across years. Here we perform a meta-analysis to assess temporal yield stability of three major cropping systems: organic agriculture and conservation agriculture (no-tillage) vs. conventional agriculture, comparing 193 studies based on 2896 comparisons. Organic agriculture has, per unit yield, a significantly lower temporal stability (-15%) compared to conventional agriculture. Thus, although organic farming promotes biodiversity and is generally more environmentally friendly, future efforts should focus on reducing its yield variability. Our analysis further indicates that the use of green manure and enhanced fertilisation can reduce the yield stability gap between organic and conventional agriculture. The temporal stability (-3%) of no-tillage does not differ significantly from those of conventional tillage indicating that a transition to no-tillage does not affect yield stability.
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Claims 5
Claim · model-written summary
Organic agriculture had 15% lower temporal yield stability per unit yield than conventional agriculture.
- Treatment
- Organic agriculturee0
- Outcome
- temporal stabilitye0
- Direction
- lowere0
- Value
- -15%e0
- Comparator
- conventional agriculturee0
Not reportedTaxon
Verbatim
e0“Organic agriculture has, per unit yield, a significantly lower temporal stability (-15%) compared to conventional agriculture.”
Claim · model-written summary
Green manure can reduce the yield stability gap between organic and conventional agriculture.
- Treatment
- green manuree0
- Outcome
- yield stability gape0
- Direction
- reducee0
- Comparator
- conventional agriculturee0
Not reportedTaxon
Verbatim
e0“the use of green manure and enhanced fertilisation can reduce the yield stability gap between organic and conventional agriculture”
Claim · model-written summary
Enhanced fertilisation can reduce the yield stability gap between organic and conventional agriculture.
- Treatment
- enhanced fertilisatione0
- Outcome
- yield stability gape0
- Direction
- reducee0
- Comparator
- conventional agriculturee0
Not reportedTaxon
Verbatim
e0“the use of green manure and enhanced fertilisation can reduce the yield stability gap between organic and conventional agriculture”
Claim · model-written summary
No-tillage had 3% lower temporal stability, without a significant difference from conventional tillage.
- Treatment
- no-tillagee0
- Outcome
- temporal stabilitye0
- Direction
- does not differe0
- Value
- -3%e0
- Comparator
- conventional tillagee0
Not reportedTaxon
Verbatim
e0“The temporal stability (-3%) of no-tillage does not differ significantly from those of conventional tillage”
Claim · model-written summary
The authors recommend reducing yield variability in organic farming.
- Outcome
- reducing its yield variabilitye0
Not reportedTaxon
Verbatim
e0“future efforts should focus on reducing its yield variability”