Ökonomische Bewertung von typischen Nährstoffmanagement-Systemen im ökologischen Gemüsebau

Organic vegetable growing is a particularly nutrient intensive branch of organic farming and is often practiced on specialized farms without livestock keeping. As a consequence, the nutrient management on these specialized farms is challenging in terms of cultivation and farm economics. During the past few decades, in vegetable growing practice a set of different strategies and measures was developed to meet these challenges. But farm economic analyses are largely missing in this field. This study aims to contribute to closing this gap. Based on a series of 23 expert interviews with managers of organic vegetable farms in Germany, five exemplary models of different nutrient management systems were developed. These models are compared with regard to their economic efficiency. It appears that the economic efficiency of nutrient management systems with their respective strategies and measures does not only depend on their costs but also on the production orientation (field vegetables vs. fine vegetables) of the farms.