Economic analysis of experimental organicagricultural systems on a highly erodedsoil of the Georgia Piedmont, USA

Information about the costs and labor requirements of experimental organic farming systems designed to restore highlydegraded soils in the southeastern US are needed. Enterprise budgets were prepared for the production of okra, hot pepperand a corn/winter squash intercrop under 10 different production systems, nine of which were based on organic conservationtillage. A stochastic dominance analysis was conducted to determine the relative risk efficiency of the 10 systems over thecourse of the experiment in terms of productivity, profitability and carbon sequestration potential. Organic conservationtillage treatments had lower tractor labor and fuel costs than conventional treatments, due to the extensive tillage required inconventional vegetable farming. The subset of organic treatments receiving compost addition without additional mulchesalso demonstrated increases in soil carbon, an important driver of system productivity. Organic treatments had little pest andpathogen pressure, with the exception of Fusarium wilt in some treatments receiving straw mulch. Weed suppression bystraw mulches reduced labor requirements by an average of 23%. Yields in all treatments were lower than conventionalyields from other studies in the region, due to the degraded nature of the soil on the study site. However, net returns onhigh-labor, organic crops were over US$30,000 ha-1 in some treatments. The results of this work indicate that organic,conservation tillage systems can restore soil productivity and command high returns per hectare if labor requirements canbe met