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Reply to ‘Are the claimed benefits of organic agriculture justified?’

Nature Plants volume 2, Article number: 16100 (2016) Cite this article

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Reganold and Wachter reply — In their correspondence, Bergström and Kirchmann1 state that the selection of references in our Review2 is biased. However, whenever possible for each of our sustainability criteria, our paper cites all major meta-analyses and reviews that are published on the subject. Bergström and Kirchmann cite a few specific (non-review or -meta) studies that were already included in some of the reviews and meta-analyses that we cited. We avoided citing any specific research studies comparing organic and conventional farming, as these would probably bias our review. The exception to this rule was in the ‘Wellbeing’ section, where only individual studies existed and which is not in contention from Bergström and Kirchmann.

Our Review emphasized the importance of examining the four major indicators of sustainability: production, economics, environment and wellbeing. Bergström and Kirchmann's critique emphasizes four specific categories within these indicators, one in production and three in environment. Some of their claims are not supported by evidence; other claims are based on an individual study or a narrow set of studies, and it would be inappropriate to extrapolate their findings. Overall, their comments do not impact the conclusions of our Review. Here we address the four specific categories in contention by Bergström and Kirchmann.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Crop and Soil Sciences, Washington State University, Pullman, 99164, Washington, USA

    John P. Reganold & Jonathan M. Wachter

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  1. John P. Reganold
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  2. Jonathan M. Wachter
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Correspondence to John P. Reganold.

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Reganold, J., Wachter, J. Reply to ‘Are the claimed benefits of organic agriculture justified?’. Nature Plants 2, 16100 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nplants.2016.100

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