Long-term monitoring of different management systems within organic farming and their effects on arable land and landscape. Phase I: Monitoring of the conversion to organic farming

In Eastern European Regions, organic arable stockless farming becomes more and more significant since also bigger farms convert to organic farming. Nevertheless, even in Austria, which is among the countries with the greatest share of organic farms (13 % in 2005), less than 5 % of the farms in the eastern, pannonian region are converted (Schneeberger et al., 2005). Therefore, the practical experience and knowledge is limited, but also research on organic farming under these environmental conditions. Whereas research trials on the long-term effect of organic farming focus mainly on arable farms with animals and regions with a rainfall of more than 650 mm a