By Steven Milloy, JunkScience.com

Swiss researchers reported this week that conventional farming produces greater yields that organic farming. That’s no surprise. But the researchers added that organic farming "more than made up the difference in ecological benefits." Hmmm… watch out for that pile of manure.

The researchers compared conventional and organic farming over a period of 21 years, growing potatoes, barley, winter wheat, beets and grass clover. No synthetic fertilizers or pesticides were used in the organic plots.

Some of the organic plots were managed "biodynamically" - an organic farming practice incorporating the idea that planets influence plant life. That is, the positions of the planets, the sun and the moon are taken into account when seeds are planted, weeds are pulled and vegetables are harvested.

Though the organic plots produced crop yields that were, on average, 20 percent smaller than conventional farming yields, the researchers claim victory for organic farming methods because "the organic systems seem to use their resources more efficiently," according to the report published in the journal Science (May 31).

Nutrient (nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium) and energy inputs reportedly were substantially less in the organic systems. The researchers also claim greater biodiversity in the organic plots (more insects, worms, soil microbes and even weed species).

The researchers concluded that organic farming is a realistic alternative to conventional farming.

I guess it might be - if smaller crop yields were desirable, particularly given the world’s ever-expanding population. Past the smaller yield drawback, the researchers’ conclusion about the benefit of so-called "Earth-friendly farming" is far from being justified, if not simply silly.

First, the farming in this study was done on a very small scale. Only a few crops were tried. The results, even if accepted at face value, are hardly generalizable to all crops.

The researchers also omitted providing in the study the precise dimensions of the plots under tillage. But the lead researcher acknowledged privately that the total area under tillage amounted to about 3.5 acres.

Such small-scale research hardly justifies the claimed large-scale conclusions.

Next, unlike the measured and objective difference in crop yield between the organic and conventional farming undertaken, the researchers’ claims regarding the ecological benefits of organic farming are decidedly more subjective and far less scientific.

Let’s acknowledge for the sake of argument, for example, that there were more, and greater diversity of insects in the organic plots. How do we know that this difference is ecologically meaningful? Should we simply accept the researchers’ assertions?

Perhaps the soil in the organic plots decomposed more rapidly than in the conventional plots. So what - especially since the organic plots produced lower yields?

Moreover, looking at the reported results over time, the organic plots did not produce higher and higher yields and the conventional plots did not produce lower and lower yields. The yields of both were remarkably consistent over the 21-year period.

The researchers essentially conclude that organic farming is less expensive and more efficient than conventional farming because fewer "external" resources - i.e., synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and energy - are used.

If true, then are consumers just being ripped off at the grocery store when they pay up for organic produce - an average of almost 60 percent more according to Consumer Reports?

It is not at all clear that organic farming is more "earth-friendly" - whatever that means - than conventional farming.

In an article titled "Urban myths of organic farming" published last year in the journal Nature, University of Edinburgh biologist Anthony Trewavas pointed out that organic farmers' frequent mechanical weeding of their fields damages nesting birds, worms and invertebrates and increases pollution through added fossil fuel use.

In contrast, "A single treatment with innocuous herbicide, coupled with no-till conventional farming avoids this damage and retains organic material in the soil surface," according to Trewavas. "Organic agriculture was originally formulated as an ideology" but for today's global problems we "need agricultural pragmatism and flexibility, not ideology," concluded Trewavas.

The ideology of the Swiss researchers is apparent at the start of their Science report.

Their first sentence bemoans conventional farming for causing severe environmental problems. They cite as the sole support for this proposition a 1995 study by Cornell University’s perennial eco-gloom-and-doomer David Pimentel.

Though Pimentel blamed conventional farming practices for the loss of U.S. farmland at "above the sustainable rate," a review by the nonpartisan think tank Resources for the Future could not even verify the sources of Pimentel’s facts and figures, let alone his conclusions.

Not only is the Swiss researchers’ initial premise unjustified, their embrace of Pimentel seems ideologically clear.

If organic farming really produced more with fewer resources, conventional farmers would readily embrace it. Instead, the inefficiency of organic farming tends to produce high-priced products that serve well as a salve for the consciences of the eco-guilt-ridden consumers who can afford them.

Steven Milloy is the publisher of JunkScience.com , an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute and the author of Junk Science Judo: Self-defense Against Health Scares and Scams (Cato Institute, 2001).