The 100% Organic Agriculture Policy in Bhutan – A gift or a curse?

Arndt Feuerbacher, Jonas Luckmann, Ole Boysen, Sabine Zikeli and Harald Grethe

No 332674, Conference papers from Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project

Abstract: Organic agriculture is considered an environment-friendly agricultural system and thus one strategy to make agriculture more sustainable. Bhutan has embraced the ambitious goal of becoming the world’s first 100% organic nation by 2020. Effects of such large-scale conversions at the national level have been rarely studied, particularly in cases of genuine pursued policies. Analysing recent on-farm data in Bhutan we find organic crop yields on average to be 19.1% lower than conventional yields. Based on these yield gaps, we assess the effects of a 100% conversion policy employing an economy-wide model with detailed representation of Bhutan’s agricultural sector incorporating agroecological zones, crop nutrients and field operations. Despite Bhutan’s low dependency on conventional inputs, we find significant welfare losses, particularly for non-agricultural households. The yield gap is the main driver for a strong decline in agricultural output (13.5%). Food supply is largely compensated by increased food imports, which results in a weakening of the country’s cereal self-sufficiency (9.4%). Nitrogen availability declines strongly (22.2%), underlining the need of improved soil-fertility practices e.g. biological fixation of nitrogen. Our results show no benefits for rural labour markets as agricultural wages decrease (1.3%), despite higher labour intensity. The study further highlights policy implications and areas of future research.

Keywords: Agricultural; and; Food; Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/332674/files/8722.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:pugtwp:332674

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Conference papers from Purdue University, Center for Global Trade Analysis, Global Trade Analysis Project Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by AgEcon Search ().