Pesticide Use and Cropland Consolidation in California Organic Agriculture

As has long been the case for conventional agriculture, organic agriculture is increasingly characterized by the consolidation of production into the hands of larger operations. Using historical pesticide applications records from the California Pesticide Use Report (PUR), this study identified individual organic fields, to document the occurrence of cropland consolidation, and assess the correlation between cropland consolidation and pesticide use. Our results show that pesticide use is correlated with the consolidation of organic cropland. Farms with more organic acreage applied sulfur and fixed copper pesticides more frequently after controlled for the crop type and field size. As the result, larger farms had greater environmental impacts on surface water and smaller impacts on soil and air because sulfur and fixed copper are more toxic to fish and algae, and less toxic to earthworms and have lower Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) emissions than other pesticides used in organic fields.