Organic agriculture and Global Warming

Organic agriculture and climate change Nadia El-Hage Scialabba* and Maria Mu¨ller-Lindenlauf Natural Resources Management and Environment Department, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00153 Rome,... More

Organic agriculture and climate change Nadia El-Hage Scialabba* and Maria Mu¨ller-Lindenlauf Natural Resources Management and Environment Department, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Viale delle Terme di Caracalla, 00153 Rome, Italy. *Corresponding author: nadia. scialabba@fao. org Accepted 2 February 2010 Review Article Abstract This article discusses the mitigation and adaptation potential of organic agricultural systems along three main features: farming system design, cropland management and grassland and livestock management. An important potential contribution of organically managed systems to climate change mitigation is identified in the careful management of nutrients and, hence, the reduction of N2O emissions from soils. Another high mitigation potential of organic agriculture lies in carbon sequestration in soils. In a first estimate, the emission reduction potential by abstention from mineral fertilizers is calculated to be about 20% and the Less