Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Article
  • Published:

Farm size affects the use of agroecological practices on organic farms in the United States

Abstract

Organic agriculture outperforms conventional agriculture across several sustainability metrics due, in part, to more widespread use of agroecological practices. However, increased entry of large-scale farms into the organic sector has prompted concerns about ‘conventionalization’ through input substitution, agroecosystem simplification and other changes. We examined this shift in organic agriculture by estimating the use of agroecological practices across farm size and comparing indicators of conventionalization. Results from our national survey of 542 organic fruit and vegetable farmers show that fewer agroecological practices were used on large farms, which also exhibited the greatest degree of conventionalization. Intercropping, insectary plantings and border plantings were at least 1.4 times more likely to be used on small (0.4–39 cropland ha) compared with large (≥405 cropland ha) farms, whereas reduced tillage was less likely and riparian buffers were more likely on small compared with medium (40–404 cropland ha) farms. Because decisions about management practices can drive environmental sustainability outcomes, policy should support small and medium farms that already use agroecological practices while encouraging increased use of agroecological practices on larger farms.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: The proportion of total US cropland managed by farms in different size categories: 0.4–39, 40–404 and ≥ 405 ha.
Fig. 2: Agroecological practices organized by their typical on-farm scale of application.
Fig. 3: Average number of agroecological practices used by farm size (cropland ha).
Fig. 4: Predicted probability that a farmer does use (y = 1) or does not use (y = 0) a given agroecological practice among farm size (cropland ha) categories.
Fig. 5: Comparing potential indicators of conventionalization among organic farms of different size (cropland ha).
Fig. 6: Conceptual diagram illustrating the relationship between farm size and agroecological practice-use.

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

The national farmer survey data that were used in the analyses are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. These data are not publicly available as they contain information that could compromise research participant privacy or consent. Data from the USDA NASS 2017 Census of Agriculture were also used to support the findings of this study, and they are publicly available at https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2017.

Code availability

The R code used to generate the results is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

References

  1. Wanger, T. C. et al. Integrating agroecological production in a robust post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 4, 1150–1152 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Newbold, T. et al. Global effects of land use on local terrestrial biodiversity. Nature 520, 45–50 (2015).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Amundson, R. et al. Soil and human security in the 21st century. Science 348, 1261071 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Robertson, G. P. & Vitousek, P. M. Nitrogen in agriculture: balancing the cost of an essential resource. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 34, 97–125 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Campbell, B. M. et al. Agriculture production as a major driver of the Earth system exceeding planetary boundaries. Ecol. Soc. 22, 8 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Kremen, C. & Merenlender, A. M. Landscapes that work for biodiversity and people. Science 362, eaau6020 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Krebs, A. V. The Corporate Reapers: The Book of Agribusiness (Essential Books, 1992).

  8. Mortensen, D. A. & Smith, R. G. Confronting barriers to cropping system diversification. Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 4, 564197 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. 2017 Census of Agriculture – 2019 Organic Survey (USDA NASS, 2020); https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2017/index.php

  10. Farms and Land in Farms 2019 Summary (USDA NASS, 2020); https://usda.library.cornell.edu/concern/publications/5712m6524

  11. Reganold, J. P. & Wachter, J. M. Organic agriculture in the twenty-first century. Nat. Plants 2, 15221 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Muller, A. et al. Strategies for feeding the world more sustainably with organic agriculture. Nat. Commun. 8, 1290 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Lori, M., Symnaczik, S., Mäder, P., De Deyn, G. & Gattinger, A. Organic farming enhances soil microbial abundance and activity—a meta-analysis and meta-regression. PLoS ONE 12, e0180442 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Seufert, V. & Ramankutty, N. Many shades of gray—the context-dependent performance of organic agriculture. Sci. Adv. 3, e1602638 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  15. USDA AMS. National Organic Program; Final Rule, 7 CFR Part 205. Fed. Regist. 65, 80547–80684 (2000).

    Google Scholar 

  16. Wezel, A. et al. Agroecology as a science, a movement and a practice. A review. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 29, 503–515 (2009).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Tamburini, G. et al. Agricultural diversification promotes multiple ecosystem services without compromising yield. Sci. Adv. 6, eaba1715 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  18. Kleijn, D. et al. Ecological intensification: bridging the gap between science and practice. Trends Ecol. Evol. 34, 154–166 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  19. Bommarco, R., Kleijn, D. & Potts, S. G. Ecological intensification: harnessing ecosystem services for food security. Trends Ecol. Evol. 28, 230–238 (2013).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  20. Kremen, C. & Miles, A. Ecosystem services in biologically diversified versus conventional farming systems: benefits, externalities, and trade-offs. Ecol. Soc. 17, 40 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Bowles, T. M. et al. Long-term evidence shows that crop-rotation diversification increases agricultural resilience to adverse growing conditions in North America. One Earth 2, 284–293 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Wood, S. A. et al. Functional traits in agriculture: agrobiodiversity and ecosystem services. Trends Ecol. Evol. 30, 531–539 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Faucon, M.-P., Houben, D. & Lambers, H. Plant functional traits: soil and ecosystem services. Trends Plant Sci. 22, 385–394 (2017).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  24. D’Hose, T. et al. The positive relationship between soil quality and crop production: a case study on the effect of farm compost application. Appl. Soil Ecol. 75, 189–198 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Fließbach, A., Oberholzer, H.-R., Gunst, L. & Mäder, P. Soil organic matter and biological soil quality indicators after 21 years of organic and conventional farming. Agric. Ecosyst. Environ. 118, 273–284 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Francioli, D. et al. Mineral vs. organic amendments: microbial community structure, activity and abundance of agriculturally relevant microbes are driven by long-term fertilization strategies. Front. Microbiol. 7, 1446 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  27. Nunes, M. R., Karlen, D. L., Veum, K. S., Moorman, T. B. & Cambardella, C. A. Biological soil health indicators respond to tillage intensity: a US meta-analysis. Geoderma 369, 114335 (2020).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Blanco-Canqui, H. & Ruis, S. J. No-tillage and soil physical environment. Geoderma 326, 164–200 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Willekens, K., Vandecasteele, B., Buchan, D. & De Neve, S. Soil quality is positively affected by reduced tillage and compost in an intensive vegetable cropping system. Appl. Soil Ecol. 82, 61–71 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Dainese, M. et al. A global synthesis reveals biodiversity-mediated benefits for crop production. Sci. Adv. 5, eaax0121 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  31. Albrecht, M. et al. The effectiveness of flower strips and hedgerows on pest control, pollination services and crop yield: a quantitative synthesis. Ecol. Lett. 23, 1488–1498 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  32. Chaplin-Kramer, R., de Valpine, P., Mills, N. J. & Kremen, C. Detecting pest control services across spatial and temporal scales. Agric. Ecosyst. Environ. 181, 206–212 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Martin, E. A. et al. The interplay of landscape composition and configuration: new pathways to manage functional biodiversity and agroecosystem services across Europe. Ecol. Lett. 22, 1083–1094 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  34. Karp, D. S. et al. Crop pests and predators exhibit inconsistent responses to surrounding landscape composition. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 115, E7863–E7870 (2018).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  35. Zhang, X., Liu, X., Zhang, M., Dahlgren, R. A. & Eitzel, M. A review of vegetated buffers and a meta-analysis of their mitigation efficacy in reducing nonpoint source pollution. J. Environ. Qual. 39, 76–84 (2010).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  36. Eyhorn, F. et al. Sustainability in global agriculture driven by organic farming. Nat. Sustain. 2, 253–255 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Buck, D., Getz, C. & Guthman, J. From farm to table: the organic vegetable commodity chain of northern California. Sociol. Rural. 37, 3–20 (1997).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Guthman, J. Raising organic: an agro-ecological assessment of grower practices in California. Agric. Hum. Values 17, 257–266 (2000).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Guthman, J. The trouble with ‘organic lite’ in California: a rejoinder to the ‘conventionalisation’ debate. Sociol. Rural. 44, 301–316 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Darnhofer, I., Lindenthal, T., Bartel-Kratochvil, R. & Zollitsch, W. Conventionalisation of organic farming practices: from structural criteria towards an assessment based on organic principles. A review. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 30, 67–81 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Constance, D. H., Choi, J. Y. & Lyke-Ho-Gland, H. Conventionalization, bifurcation, and quality of life: certified and non-certified organic farmers in Texas. J. Rural Soc. Sci. 23, 208–234 (2008).

    Google Scholar 

  42. 2017 Census of Agriculture – United States Summary and State Data (USDA NASS, 2019); https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2017/index.php

  43. 2017 Census of Agriculture: Characteristics of All Farms and Farms with Organic Sales (USDA NASS, 2019); https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2017/index.php

  44. Ponisio, L. C. et al. Diversification practices reduce organic to conventional yield gap. Proc. R. Soc. B 282, 20141396 (2015).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  45. Wezel, A. et al. Agroecological practices for sustainable agriculture. A review. Agron. Sustain. Dev. 34, 1–20 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Gomiero, T., Pimentel, D. & Paoletti, M. G. Environmental impact of different agricultural management practices: conventional vs. organic agriculture. Crit. Rev. Plant Sci. 30, 95–124 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Tittonell, P. et al. Agroecology in large scale farming—a research agenda. Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 4, 584605 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Haan, N. L., Zhang, Y. & Landis, D. A. Predicting landscape configuration effects on agricultural pest suppression. Trends Ecol. Evol. 35, 175–186 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  49. Martin, E. A., Seo, B., Park, C.-R., Reineking, B. & Steffan-Dewenter, I. Scale-dependent effects of landscape composition and configuration on natural enemy diversity, crop herbivory, and yields. Ecol. Appl. 26, 448–462 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  50. Tscharntke, T. et al. Landscape moderation of biodiversity patterns and processes – eight hypotheses. Biol. Rev. 87, 661–685 (2012).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  51. Olimpi, E. M. et al. Evolving food safety pressures in California’s central coast region. Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 3, 102 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Karp, D. S. et al. The unintended ecological and social impacts of food safety regulations in California’s central coast region. BioScience 65, 1173–1183 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  53. Bovay, J., Ferrier, P. & Zhen, C. Estimated Costs for Fruit and Vegetable Producers To Comply With the Food Safety Modernization Act’s Produce Rule, EIB-195 (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service, 2018).

  54. Coombes, B. & Campbell, H. Dependent reproduction of alternative modes of agriculture: organic farming in New Zealand. Sociol. Rural. 38, 127–145 (1998).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Hughner, R. S., McDonagh, P., Prothero, A., Shultz, C. J. & Stanton, J. Who are organic food consumers? A compilation and review of why people purchase organic food. J. Consum. Behav. 6, 94–110 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  56. Smith, E. & Marsden, T. Exploring the ‘limits to growth’ in UK organics: beyond the statistical image. J. Rural Stud. 20, 345–357 (2004).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  57. Howard, P. H. Concentration and Power in the Food System: Who Controls What We Eat? (Bloomsbury, 2016).

  58. Arcuri, A. The transformation of organic regulation: the ambiguous effects of publicization. Regul. Gov. 9, 144–159 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. Seufert, V., Ramankutty, N. & Mayerhofer, T. What is this thing called organic? – How organic farming is codified in regulations. Food Policy 68, 10–20 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  60. Guthman, J. in Alternative Food Politics: From the Margins to the Mainstream (eds. Phillipov, M. & Kirkwood, K.) 23–36 (Routledge, 2019).

  61. Jaffee, D. & Howard, P. H. Corporate cooptation of organic and fair trade standards. Agric. Hum. Values 27, 387–399 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  62. Campbell, H. & Rosin, C. After the ‘organic industrial complex’: an ontological expedition through commercial organic agriculture in New Zealand. J. Rural Stud. 27, 350–361 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  63. Lockie, S. & Halpin, D. The ‘conventionalisation’ thesis reconsidered: structural and ideological transformation of Australian organic agriculture. Sociol. Rural. 45, 284–307 (2005).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  64. Prokopy, L. S. et al. Adoption of agricultural conservation practices in the United States: evidence from 35 years of quantitative literature. J. Soil Water Conserv. 74, 520–534 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  65. Pretty, J. et al. Global assessment of agricultural system redesign for sustainable intensification. Nat. Sustain. 1, 441–446 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  66. Gliessman, S. Transforming food systems with agroecology. Agroecol. Sustain. Food Syst. 40, 187–189 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  67. Hill, S. B. Redesigning the food system for sustainability. Alternatives 12, 32–36 (1985).

    Google Scholar 

  68. Padel, S., Levidow, L. & Pearce, B. UK farmers’ transition pathways towards agroecological farm redesign: evaluating explanatory models. Agroecol. Sustain. Food Syst. 44, 139–163 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  69. Esquivel, K. E. et al. The ‘sweet spot’ in the middle: why do mid-scale farms adopt diversification practices at higher rates? Front. Sustain. Food Syst. 5, 734088 (2021).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  70. Brislen, L. Meeting in the middle: scaling-up and scaling-over in alternative food networks. Cult. Agric. Food Environ. 40, 105–113 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  71. De Master, K. New inquiries into the agri-cultures of the middle. Cult. Agric. Food Environ. 40, 130–135 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  72. R Core Team. R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing (R Foundation for Statistical Computing, 2021).

  73. Wickham, H. et al. Welcome to the Tidyverse. J. Open Source Softw. 4, 1686 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  74. Bates, D., Mächler, M., Bolker, B. & Walker, S. Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4. J. Stat. Softw. 67, 1–48 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  75. Lenth, R. V. emmeans: Estimated marginal means, aka least-squares means. R package version 1.7.4-1 https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=emmeans (2021).

  76. Wasserstein, R. L. & Lazar, N. A. The ASA statement on p-values: context, process, and purpose. Am. Stat. 70, 129–133 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  77. Krueger, J. I. & Heck, P. R. Putting the P-value in its place. Am. Stat. 73, 122–128 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  78. Wasserstein, R. L., Schirm, A. L. & Lazar, N. A. Moving to a world beyond ‘p < 0.05’. Am. Stat. 73(Suppl. 1), 1–19 (2019).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  79. Agresti, A. Categorical Data Analysis (Wiley, 2013).

Download references

Acknowledgements

This research was conducted as part of the project ‘Adoption of Agroecological Farming Practices in Specialty Crops: Incentives, Barriers, and Outcomes’, funded by the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability (and awarded to M.R.R. and S.G., along with R.B., R.B.K., T.B., M.I.G., A.K.H., J.L. and A.G.P.). J.L. acknowledges the financial support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. We thank the farmers who participated in the questionnaire pilot study and interviews, as well as those who completed the survey. We also thank S. Parry, E. Mudrak and L. Johnson at the Cornell University Statistical Consulting Unit for their assistance with statistical analyses; and J. MacDonald at the United States Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service for his assistance with data compilation.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

J.L., R.B., R.B.K., T.B., S.G., M.I.G., A.K.H., A.G.P. and M.R.R. contributed to the overall design of the study. All authors collaboratively developed the survey questionnaire and interview guide. J.L. collected the data. J.L. analysed the data with input from M.R.R. The writing of the manuscript was led by J.L., with all authors contributing through comments and revisions.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jeffrey Liebert.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature Plants thanks Rebecca Chaplin-Kramer and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Liebert, J., Benner, R., Bezner Kerr, R. et al. Farm size affects the use of agroecological practices on organic farms in the United States. Nat. Plants 8, 897–905 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-022-01191-1

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-022-01191-1

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing Anthropocene

Sign up for the Nature Briefing: Anthropocene newsletter — what matters in anthropocene research, free to your inbox weekly.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing: Anthropocene