Evaluation of Beneficial Function for Organic Paddy Farming in Korea

In order to evaluation of beneficial functions for organic farming, we have divided beneficial functions as 9 sub-functions such as flooding control, fostering water resources, purifying the air, mitigating summer climate, purifying water quality, decreasing soil erosion, accumulating soil carbon, conserving biodiversity, and preventing accidents from pesticides. And they were quantified by searching related repots and statistics, and surveying fields. Organic farming, especially organic paddy farming, showed that some functions like fostering water resources, accumulating soil carbon, conserving biodiversity, and preventing accidents from pesticides were higher than conventional paddy farming, while the others were almost similar. The fostering water resources function was evaluated as 4,297 ton $ha^{-1}\;year^{-1}$ to increase about 3.6% comparing with that of conventional farming. New function for accumulating soil carbon at organic paddy fields has been assessed by 4.67 ton $ha^{-1}$ in terms of long periods over 10 years. Considering area of organic paddy farming in Korea and value of carbon price, it was evaluated monetary value as 22.4 to 84.1 billion won using replaced method. It could be also evaluated that flooding control, fostering water resources, purifying the air, mitigating summer climate, purifying water quality, decreasing soil erosion, and preventing accidents from pesticides were 2,980, 123.4, 482.6, 87.5, 0.9, 55.6, and 284.1 billion won, respectively. Conserving biodiversity function would be very big at organic farming though it couldn't be evaluated as monetary value.