Comparison of Organic and Integrated Farming Systems: The Case of Sultana Table Grapes in Korinthos, Greece

‘Alternative’ cultivation systems are gaining ground, in the place of intensive ‘conventional’ ones. In this paper, economic (costs and revenues) and environmental (inputs used) elements of organic and IM systems are compared for a very intensive cultivation, sultana table grapes in the Prefecture of Korinthos in Greece. The data were collected from 30 farmers of each system (via face to face interviews). The farms and the households that run them were very similar and both systems performed very well economically, with higher gross revenues per ha for IM and higher prices per kg for organic farming. Overall, IM appears to represent a certification that farmers use to be able to sell their grapes for export and not an alternative production system for many farms and differences of environmental inputs and management are important and in favour of organic farming with lower fertilization, irrigation and plant protection inputs per ha than those of IM.