Land use returns in organic and conventional farming systems: financial and beyond.

Land is a limited resource and essential to the provision of livelihoods. The per capita availability of cropland is constantly being reduced while the pressure for food and other raw materials increases. Therefore, agricultural land use must pursue cropping systems with higher levels of return per hectare. Since monetary return is one of the primary criteria for farmers' decision-making but other returns exist, the present study compares the financial returns per hectare on farms using organic farming system (OFS) and conventional farming system (CFS), discussing returns beyond the financial ones (social, economic, environmental). The financial flows of two farms were monitored for 4 (OFS) and 5 (CFS) years, and financial return indicators were calculated. In addition, other social, economic, and environmental returns were discussed based on the primary data and literature. The main results show that OFS has higher costs, revenues, and profits per hectare than CFS. Although both systems had positive financial returns, the average net profit of OFS (R$49,217 ha⁻¹) was 21 times higher than that of CFS (R$2,329 ha⁻¹). In addition, the OFS profitability index was 64% higher than CFS. OFS also presented better returns for the number of direct jobs, income distribution, food for healthy diets, value-added to GDP, risks, crop (bio)diversity, and land footprint, among others. In general, we concluded that OFS provided higher financial, social, economic, and environmental returns per unit of land despite only 0.5% of the Brazilian agricultural area is used for organic production. Highlights: 1. Organic and conventional systems present positive financial returns per hectare. 2. Costs, revenues, and profit are 9, 13, and 22 times higher in organic systems, respectively. 3. Organic system profitability was 64% higher than conventional. 4. Organic system is beneficial for other social, economic, and environmental returns. 5. Both systems are important, but policies should optimize the returns of organic-like systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]