Energy Use and Economic Evaluation of a Three Year Crop Rotation for Conservation and Organic Farming in NE Italy

The paper examines the efficiency of agricultural production systems and particularly the efficiency of energy use in a 3-yr soya bean, maize and wheat rotation. The study also aimed to analyse the production cost and the role of EU subsidies on farm strategies for important emerging management systems namely conservation farming (CF) and organic farming (OF) systems. Experiments were carried out in NE Italy, on a farm situated near Rovigo. Energy inputs were generally higher in the CF system but counterbalanced by a higher yield (output), while the OF system had generally reduced energy use (due to no chemical inputs) but lower yield. The economic net return was higher for the CF system, but when the economic subsidies from EU were considered, the integrated net return was higher in the OF system for soya bean and wheat.