Certified Crop Adviser with Sustainability Specialty Organic Farming & Certification: practice questions

1 · Organic soil fertility: manures, composts, biofertilisers · medium

The main reason nitrogen limits organic cereal yields is that:

1. Mineralisation lags behind crop demand at peak growth
2. Organic soils contain no nitrogen at all
3. Legumes cannot fix any nitrogen in organic fields
4. Cereals absorb only synthetic nitrogen

2 · Organic pest, disease and weed management · medium

Organic standards expect pest problems to be handled first by:

1. Applying permitted sprays on a fixed calendar every fortnight
2. Preventive design such as rotation and resistant varieties
3. Using copper wherever any disease appears
4. Importing natural enemies before any monitoring

3 · Organic livestock and aquaculture · medium

Under the US NOP pasture rule, ruminants must graze during the grazing season for at least:

1. 60 days, with at least 10% of dry matter from pasture
2. 180 days, with at least 60% of dry matter from pasture
3. 365 days, with all dry matter from pasture
4. 120 days, with at least 30% of dry matter from pasture

4 · Conversion planning · medium

Parallel production is restricted in organic standards because:

1. Growing the same crop both ways makes separation hard to verify
2. It always lowers the yield of the organic crop grown on the same farm
3. It is prohibited by all national tax laws
4. It prevents the farm from rotating its crops

5 · Conversion planning · medium

Buffer zones in a conversion plan are mainly meant to:

1. Provide space for parallel conventional crops
2. Prevent contamination such as spray drift from neighbours
3. Store purchased synthetic fertiliser safely away from crops
4. Increase cropping intensity on the farm

6 · Conversion planning · hard

Conventional revenue is 100 units/ha. During conversion yields are 20% lower with no premium; afterwards yields are 90% of conventional with a 30% premium. Revenue per hectare during and after conversion is:

1. 80 during and 130 after
2. 90 during and 117 after
3. 80 during and 117 after
4. 100 during and 120 after

7 · Organic yields, economics and environmental performance · hard

Tuomisto and colleagues (2012) found that, per unit of product, organic farming in Europe often had:

1. Higher nitrogen leaching and land use
2. Lower impacts in every category
3. No land use at all for grazing
4. Zero ammonia emissions per kilogram

8 · Organic yields, economics and environmental performance · hard

Conventional: 5 t/ha at 20 per kg, costs 60,000/ha. Organic: 4 t/ha, costs 50,000/ha. The organic price needed for equal profit is:

1. 25 per kg
2. 22.5 per kg
3. 20 per kg
4. 27.5 per kg