Organic, integrated and conventional apple production: why not consider the middle ground?

In a recent study of apple production in Washington State, Reganold et al. (Nature 410 (2001) 929) concluded that organic production was superior to integrated and conventional production on economic, environmental and consumer preference choice criteria. We present a critique of this study, questioning the conclusions drawn from the available results. In particular, we find the differences between organic and integrated systems to be slight or not justified from the methods used. Organic agriculture relies on price premiums in a niche market and prescribes certain technologies on ideological rather than pragmatic grounds. We suggest that greater overall benefits can be achieved by the use of legislation to restrict the more harmful technologies, so shifting the entire industry into integrated production. Successful precedents for such legislation exist from a range of agricultural systems across the world. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.