The world needs to increase agricultural production dramatically through the rest of this century to accommodate increasing demands for food and biofuels without causing substantially higher food prices that will inevitably lead to worsening hunger and malnutrition. Food demand growth will come from population growth and rising consumer incomes, which cause more demand for both food and a greater diversity of foods. Expanded demand for biofuels comes mainly through public policies that mandate their use in automotive and aviation fuels.
No one disputes that the best way to expand agricultural production is through intensification—getting more production off a given land base. Bringing additional lands into agricultural production, known as extensification, exacts a high cost in terms of deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, and other environmental harms.
Historically, intensification has been achieved through growth in agricultural productivity—getting more output from a given amount of land and other inputs. The evidence is strong, however, that agricultural productivity growth in the United States has declined significantly from the halcyon years of 1960–90, and that no return to those glory days is in the offing. Most likely the US productivity story also reflects what is happening in other parts of the world. We also face unique twenty-first century challenges to agricultural productivity due to climate change, pest resistance, and the need to rein in use of polluting inputs in much of the world.
The focus of this article is on little-discussed policies that are also working to reduce food production amidst the looming challenge to produce more food. They include policies in support of organic foods, foods produced without genetic modification (non-GM) or gene editing, local foods, and foods embodying humane treatment of animals. Foods embodying any of these attributes are associated with significantly lower yields and productivity relative to the conventional alternative and collectively contribute to the challenge of adequately feeding the world as we move forward in this century.
Attributes of foods that consumers can neither discern from search nor from experience are called “credence attributes.” As consumers we cannot tell through search or experience if a product is organic, non-GM, locally produced, etc., so we need to rely upon a certification process that we trust or that has “credence.” Government is a potential candidate to provide such certification. For example, the US Department of Agriculture provides standards for organic foods and certifies that standards are met through a network of accredited certifying agents.
However, national governments’ reluctance to wade too deeply into the stream of products demanding certification of their credence attributes has opened the door for independent, third-party certifiers to fill this market niche. Many have rushed through it. For example, at least three organizations, Global Animal Partnership, A Greener World, and Certified Humane, set standards for animal welfare and certify compliance with those standards.
In the many cases that both the credence and conventional product are available in grocery stores, most consumers are not willing to pay the premium for the credence-attribute product, resulting in low market shares for the credence product.
Low penetration achieved by market forces alone is no doubt the reason that advocates for the farming practices associated with particular credence attributes seek to stimulate their adoption through subsidies, or imposing them on the consuming public through voter referendums, as has been the case with animal welfare in California, or through legislation and regulation, as exemplified by the European Union and its member countries with animal welfare laws, bans on GM products, and a 25% target for organic land share by 2030.
In what follows, I take a closer look at four types of credence claims found today on our food shelves: organic; non-GMO; locally produced; and, humane animal treatment. I show that each is associated with higher costs, lower productivity, and reduced yields and contributes to the challenges of adequately feeding the population in the twenty-first century. The virtues often claimed for these products simply do not stand up to scrutiny, especially when one factors in their lower productivity relative to the conventional alternative.
Organic agriculture
About 100 countries have adopted standards pertaining to organic foods. People who buy organic foods do it for a combination of three main reasons: they think it is safer, healthier, and better for the environment, all relative to consuming the conventional alternative. No clear evidence supports that organic is healthier or safer. The environmental benefit claimed for organic foods is due to organic agriculture avoiding (in the absence of fraud) use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers and the fact that organic practices may restore nutrients in the soil.
Looming on the negative side of the environmental claim is the substantial yield decrement associated with organic agriculture. Every acre converted from conventional production to organic yields less, often substantially less. This means less food on a given land mass in agriculture and higher food prices that incentivize the expansion of food production onto forested lands, destroying the ability of the native landscape to capture carbon and releasing the carbon in the soils. The new agricultural lands called into production will likely produce conventional crops and therefore use chemical fertilizers and pesticides, offsetting any reduction in their use due to organic production.
What I just described is known as indirect land-use change or ILUC. The concept was first introduced to measure expansion of agricultural lands due to use of agricultural products, mostly corn and soybeans, to produce biofuels. The policy-induced expansion of biofuels raised corn and soybean prices, incentivizing expansion of the land base in agriculture in the United States and elsewhere. The same principles apply to any policies that expand production via yield-reducing methods such as organic.
Most of the comparisons to date of conventional and organic yields have been based on test plots, but we have a great many such studies, including meta studies, so not much is left in doubt. A highly cited review study by Meemken and Qaim (2018) finds a 19%–25% organic yield decrement across crops and growing locations. The organic-conventional yield gap in commercial applications is higher, potentially much higher—on the order of 30%–45% (Kravchenko, Snapp, and Robertson 2017).
These findings indicate that every time an acre of conventional production is converted to its organic equivalent, we need to bring an additional one-third of an acre or more into production to just maintain food production—extensification and the environmental harms it brings forth.
Genetic modifications
Genetic engineering involves using laboratory methods to alter the DNA makeup of an organism. Transgene genetic engineering or modification (GM) involves the transfer of genetic materials associated with a desirable trait from unrelated species, such as bacteria and molds, into a target organism. corn, soybeans, cotton, and canola comprise an overwhelming share of GM crops.
The legal status of GM crops varies greatly across countries. Sohi, Pitesky, and Gendreau (2023) list 26 countries, 19 of them in Europe, with full or partial bans on GM crops and another 60 countries with significant restrictions on them (Sohi, Pitesky, and Gendreau 2023). Still more countries, including the United States, have mandatory labeling of GM products.
There is no evidence that GM products are unsafe. No safety hazards have been reported from genetically engineered crops, and thousands of studies on this question have been conducted (NASESM 2016; Teferra 2021).
GM crops are also on net a plus for the environment because the genetic modifications have enabled plants to release the Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) bacterium, which is toxic to many insect species. A meta study that involved 451 comparisons including both field trials and farm surveys found the GM crop utilized 37% fewer pesticides than its non-GM counterpart due to crops modified to achieve insect resistance (Klümper and Qaim 2024).
The same meta study finds an average yield gain of 21.6% for the GM crop relative to its conventional alternative. The largest yield gains occur in the developing world, where, absent the GM alternative, farmers could not afford to use the pesticides that US farmers would apply if the GM alternative were not available. These yield increases represent intensification—getting more off an existing agricultural land base and capturing the associated environmental benefits of avoiding expanding the agricultural land base. Of course, places that have banned this technology have foregone these benefits, needlessly causing environmental damages, reducing food production, and increasing food prices, hunger, and malnutrition.
Local foods
The local-foods problem is not due to people growing summer fruits and vegetables near population centers and selling them through farmers markets, food stands, or food box subscriptions. The issue is with people who think that producing more local foods is a serious solution to any of our problems concerning food and the environment. The local-foods paradigm violates a basic economic concept—the principle of comparative advantage—about which there is no disagreement. Comparative advantage is the idea that people and places should specialize in what they are relatively good at doing and engage in trade to acquire products they are not efficient at producing themselves.
Proponents of the “re-localization movement” point to two supposed benefits—reduced transport costs and the environmental harms associated with transport and increased resilience against extreme events like the COVID pandemic. The transportation-cost argument is based largely on one discredited scientific study (Li et al. 2022; Tubiello 2022). Transport costs comprise only from 3%–4% of US food dollar expenditures per the USDA, and most likely a food production system based upon re-localization would have higher transport costs.
Diversifying production locations might make the food system less susceptible to extreme events. This benefit, however, has to be weighed against higher food costs in normal times due to inefficient production, which, at least to date, have been far more prevalent than extreme-event times. One study (Sexton 2009), simulates a localized production system in the United States that required each state that produces a specific crop to produce a share of that crop equal to its population share among all producing states. Across 40 major field crops and vegetables, the hypothetical localized system required a 23% expansion in agricultural land area—environmentally damaging extensification—to match output from the present system.
Despite the dubious merits of the re-localization movement, the US government has bought into the idea. The USDA has committed hundreds of millions of dollars in funds to a myriad of programs designed to support local food production. This includes money for local foods as part of the school lunch program, grants to state agencies to buy local foods for food banks, a Local Agricultural Marketing Program to support local food connections for schools, hospitals, and other institutions, and a Local Food Promotion Program to “develop, coordinate, and expand local and regional food business enterprises and increase access to locally and regionally produced agricultural products.”
Animal-friendly policies
The ethical conundrums associated with animal welfare are many. An unquestionable fact is that the animal welfare policies implemented and under consideration in the United States and Europe raise the costs of producing these products and reduce the amount of them produced and, accordingly, the number of farm animals alive at any point. The animal welfare policies implemented to date primarily pertain to animal housing, with specific policies mandating minimum space allocations, banning specific types of housing such as gestation crates for breeding sows and cages for egg-laying chickens, and requirements to provide bedding materials. In its Farm-to-Fork strategy, the European Commission (2020) recognizes an “urgent need” to improve animal welfare and contemplates additional legislation to strengthen the policies already in place. Farm-to-Fork also envisions using the EU’s clout as a trading partner “to obtain ambitious commitments from third countries in key areas such as animal welfare . . .” (p. 18).
The United States has very little animal welfare legislation at the federal level, leaving stepped-up protection to the individual states. California voters approved Proposition 12 in November 2018. It set minimum space requirements for egg-laying chickens, breeding sows, and veal calves. Proposition 12 applies to egg, pork, and veal products sold in California, regardless of where they are produced.
Lee, Sumner, and Sexton (2023) find that prices in California for regulated pork products would rise by about 7% due to these higher costs, and that pork consumers in California would lose about $260 million annually due to paying higher prices. The short-run impact was even more severe, as research by the USDA’s Office of Chief Economist (Hawkins, Arita, and Meyer 2024) shows that prices of affected pork products increased on average 20% when the Proposition was partially implemented in July of 2023.
Even if you think that these investments in animal housing are worth it, a measure like Proposition 12 is a decidedly foolish way to do it. Proposition 12 raises costs throughout the supply chain, not just at the farm level, because the California-compliant hogs and pork and chickens and eggs need to be segregated from the rest of the supply.
Credence claims come at a high cost
Organic, non-GM, local foods, and animal-friendly production practices are actively supported by public policies implemented mainly in rich countries, such as the United States and those in the European Union but also affect production and food costs elsewhere through trade policies imposed by the rich countries.
The claims made by advocates of these policies have for the most part been debunked, but nonetheless they continue to be supported with goals for their expansion. Bad policies, once put into place to benefit a specific constituency, are hard to reverse. Producing enough food in the decades to come to meet rising demand and not cause higher prices and more hunger and malnutrition presents plenty of challenges without our leaders imposing additional burdens through a myriad of supply-reducing and, thus, environmentally damaging policies.
Richard J. Sexton is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Davis. This article is based upon Professor Sexton’s book, Food Fight: Misguided Policies, Supply Challenges, and the Impending Struggle to Feed a Hungry World, University of California Press, 2025, https://www.ucpress.edu/books/food-fight/paper.
References
European Commission. 2020. “Farm to Fork Strategy for a Fair, Healthy, and Environmentally-Friendly Food System.” European Commission. https://food.ec.europa.eu/document/download/472acca8-7f7b-4171-98b0-ed76720d68d3_en?filename=f2f_action-plan_2020_strategy-info_en.pdf
Hawkins, H., S. Arita, and S. Meyer. 2024. “Proposition 12 Pork Retail Price Impacts on California Consumers.” ARE Update 27. University of California. https://s.giannini.ucop.edu/uploads/pub/2024/03/19/v27n3_2_e40mBEN.pdf
Klümper, W., and M. Qaim. 2024. “A Meta-Analysis of the Impacts of Genetically Modified Crops.” PLOS One (9). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0111629
Kravchenko, A.N., S.S. Snapp, and G.P. Robertson. 2017. “Field-scale Experiments Reveal Persistent Yield Gaps in Low-input and Organic Cropping Systems.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (114). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1612311114
Lee, H., R.J. Sexton, and D.A. Sumner. 2023. “National and Subnational Regulation of Farm Practices for Consumer Products Sold within a Jurisdiction: California’s Proposition 12.” Agricultural Economics (54):838-853. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/agec.12801
Li, M., N. Jia, M. Lenzen, A. Malik, L. Wei, Y. Jin, and D. Raubenheimer. 2022. “Global Food Miles Account for Nearly 20% of Food-systems Emissions.” Nature Food (3). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-022-00531-w
Meemken, E.-M. and M. Qaim. 2018. “Organic Agriculture, Food Security, and the Environment.” Annual Review of Resource Economics (10):39-63. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-resource-100517-023252
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). 2016. “Genetically Engineered Crops: Experiences and Prospects.” Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/23395
Sexton, S. 2009. “Does Local Production Improve Environmental and Health Outcomes?” ARE Update 13. University of California. https://giannini.ucop.edu/filer/file/1453327753/16819/
Sohi, M., M. Pitesky, and J. Gendreau. 2023. “Analyzing Public Sentiment Toward GMOs via Social Media Between 2019-2021.” GM Crops Food (14). https://doi.org/10.1080/21645698.2023.2190294
Teferra, T.F. 2021. “Should We Still Worry About the Safety of GMO foods? Why and Why Not? A Review.” Food Science and Nutrition (9). https://doi.org/10.1002/fsn3.2499
Tubiello, F.N., M. Crippa, K. Karl, E. Solazzo, S. Cerilli, A. Flammini, and A. Leip. 2022. “Making Food Transport Data Matter.” Nature Food (3). https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-022-00638-0
Suggested citation
Sexton, R.J. 2025. " Feeding the World and Preserving the Environment in the Twenty-first Century and Policies That Make It Harder." Agricultural Policy Review Fall 2025. Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, Iowa State University. https://agpolicyreview.card.iastate.edu/fall-2025/feeding-world-and-preserving-environment-twenty-first-century-and-policies-make-it-harder