Credit: Jim Wehtje/Photolibrary
I love my local organic food store. From the moment I enter, I enjoy the aromas that greet me and the folksy look of the place. But is organic food really any better for me? The perceived wisdom is that it's more 'pure' and 'natural', devoid of disease-causing pesticides; that organic farming "generates healthy soils" and "doesn't poison ecosystems with toxic chemicals".
Organic food is riding a surge in popularity; across the globe, sales of organic food are burgeoning. The global market in 2006 was estimated at close to an impressive US$40 billion (A$47.9 billion) by Organic Monitor, an industry research body, and growing 20 per cent annually in the U.S. and Canada.
And where consumers go, the multinational food companies follow: everyone from Uncle Tobys to Kraft, Heinz, Kelloggs and even Coca-Cola has jumped on the bandwagon. And developing countries are joining in too: China's organic exports grew 200-fold in a decade to reach US$200 million in 2004. Australia is also a major exporter, and plans to increase its organic produce by 50 per cent by 2012.
But is this belief in organic food based on faith, or evidence?
THE SURPRISING FACT IS that this mass migration to organic food has not been on the back of scientific evidence. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find comprehensive evidence that organic food is healthier – either for us or the planet. Nevertheless, in the public consciousness, organic farming is unquestioningly bundled with the reigning moral imperatives of sustainability, protecting the environment and reducing greenhouse gases.
Certainly there are historical reasons for concern. In the 1950s and 1960s, the pesticide DDT was blamed for the widespread thinning of bird eggs across North America, and the rapid decline of the bald eagle and peregrine falcon. Over-intensive grain farming in the U.S. Midwest led to fertiliser run-off into the Mississippi River that ultimately created a 20,000 square kilometre dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, as algal blooms sucked up available oxygen. Soils that were tilled for decades without crop rotation or replacing organic matter led to dust storms that wreaked havoc across Australia in the 1960s and the American and Canadian prairies in the 1930s, the latter so vividly depicted in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.
These days, modern farming techniques have evolved after decades of pressure from the environmental movement and decades of work by a generation of scientists inspired by environmental awareness. In fact, conventional farming is starting to look a lot like organic farming.
The earthworm-rich soils, so prized by organic farmers, are being achieved through contemporary no-till (or no-plough) techniques. In Australia, most farmers use rotation to get crops out of synchronisation with weeds and to return nutrients to the soil. Natural predators are being used to control pests, and companies such as Dow Chemical are producing safe, short-acting pesticides. In fact Dow's latest pesticide, Spinosad, is also happily used by organic farmers because it is naturally produced by bacteria.
"There's been a quiet revolution in Australian farming over the last decade," says Mark Peoples, the assistant chief of the Division of Plant Industry at Australia's national research agency CSIRO.
ON THE OTHER HAND, organic farmers are bound to an ideology that demands they only use natural techniques. In some cases, such purism gets in the way of practices that are better for the environment and more sustainable for farmers. For example, organic farmers will use litres of BT spray (BT is a 'natural' pesticide made by the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis), yet they often demonise the genetically modified (GM) cotton crops that carry an inbuilt supply of BT, and which therefore require less spraying.
However, these GM varieties spare farmers – and the environment – from the risks of pesticide overuse. For instance, according to Richard Roush, the Dean of land and food resources at the University of Melbourne, cotton farmers in India have reduced their use of pesticides and accidental poisonings by 80 per cent since the introduction of genetically modified BT cotton.
The ultimate test of sustainability is whether organic farming could feed the planet. Scott Kinnear, president of Australia's Organic Farmers Federation, believes "it is imperative that the world moves over to organic farming as soon as possible".
Yet many agricultural scientists estimate that if the world were to go completely organic, not only would the remaining forests have to be cleared to provide the organic manure needed for farming, the world's current population would likely starve.
Norman Ernest Borlaug, the American plant geneticist who won a Nobel Peace Prize for breeding the high-yield, disease-resistant wheat varieties (triggering agriculture's 'Green Revolution'), is despairing of the organic fad. "This shouldn't even be a debate. Even if you could use all the organic material you have – the animal manures, the human waste, the plant residues – and get them back on the soil, you couldn't feed more than four billion people."
Another thought. Regardless
Another thought. Regardless of the debate of whether or not organic products are more eco-friendly and healthy, I think that conscientious people are comforted by the idea of know SOMETHING about the product they are consuming. With only two classifications of food (non-organic and organic) I think many people would opt for the organic simply because this labeling gives them SOME information about their food.
If a product is non-organic, then producers are not required to offer any more information (other than and ingredients list) about the history of their product. So with only two choices:
1)totally in the dark about where your food has been, or
2) somewhat informed
is it a wonder that many would rather may the extra cash for organic products even if they don't have concrete evidence that they are better for human health or the environment?
(BTW, I'm not saying they aren't better, but I need to do more research on this. I do think that GMCs are creepy and dangerous however.)
Another thought
Another thought. Regardless of the debate of whether or not organic products are more eco-friendly and healthy, I think that conscientious people are comforted by the idea of know SOMETHING about the product they are consuming. With only two classifications of food (non-organic and organic) I think many people would opt for the organic simply because this labeling gives them SOME information about their food.
If a product is non-organic, then producers are not required to offer any more information (other than and ingredients list) about the history of their product. So with only two choices:
1)totally in the dark about where your food has been, or
2) somewhat informed
is it a wonder that many would rather may the extra cash for organic products even if they don't have concrete evidence that they are better for human health or the environment?
(BTW, I'm not saying they aren't better, but I need to do more research on this. I do think that GMCs are creepy and dangerous however.)
Ok, sorry for the multiple
Ok, sorry for the multiple repeat replies, but right after I sent that last on, I immediately regretted it. I said "BTW, I'm not saying they aren't better, but I need to do more research on this". What I meant to say was that anyone who would totally dismiss the possibility that synthetic compounds have the potential to impact human/animal health and behavior is a hand-waving fool.
I invite all to do some lit searches for things like "environmental signalling", "endocrine disruption" and "atrazine". There is a whole field devoted to the studying of environmental signalling, which shows how exposure to man-made compounds (yes, including those in pesticides and herbicides) can alter the behavior, physiology and sexual characteristics of organisms.
Here are a few good articles to get you started, but you should always find your way to the primary literature if you can.
"Man-made chemicals blamed as many more girls than boys are born in Arctic" http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,330722948-110592,00.html
"Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals" http://e.hormone.tulane.edu/learning/endocrine-disrupting-chemicals.html
Also, this is a GREAT SITE on environmental signalling, this site is run by Tulane University: http://e.hormone.tulane.edu/ehormone.html
And, here is a link to The California Environmental Contaminant Biomonitoring Program, which monitors the exposure and concentration of humans to environmental contaminants, in order to find links between exposure and human health. YES, someone is doing this!!http://www.dhs.ca.gov/ehlb/BPP/default.htm
Also, remember that this is an emerging field--just because the effects of something are not known, does not mean it does not have an effect.
ORGANIC FOOD vs GM
Well, this article certainly has taken an interesting slant... one could be tempted to call it rather biased reporting!
For some straight talking on GM it's worth listening to a pod cast with Bob Phelps of Gene Ethics see wonderfulworldmedia.net. Or if you want to get some idea of how many Australian farmers (not just organic farmers) feel about GM see www.non-gm-farmers.com - there are heaps of references and resources here. Check out what the Institute of Independant Scientist in the UK have to say www.i-sis.org.uk or perhaps see the results on one of the few independant (non Monsanto funded) trials on rats feed GM corn organized by the National Association for Genetic Security (NAGS)and conducted by Doctor of Biology Irina Ermakova www.regnum.ru/english.
The panels on lifting GM canola bans in Australia are sitting right now and we cannot unscramble eggs - it may soon be all over and the luxury of having a choice of whether you can eat clean non-GMcontaminated organic food will be a thing of the past. For (food)goodness sake wake up Australia and get off your hands... do we really need to collapse our relatively clean agriculture for the sake of keeping Monsanto and Bayer even more powerful in controlling the food stuffs of the world!!
Organic Food
The problem is that the term "organic food" became everything to everybody. And when the certification criterion was defined by boards that represented all stakeholders who wanted a piece of the organic action, the intent became diluted. It became a grab bag term to satisy the interests of food producers who wanted to be seen as "doing it" the "organic way". So now, as long as "your food" fit the recognized, politicized definition of "organic food" well, you could say that it was . The original and innocent intent of terming food, "organic", spoke to chemically uncontaminated, wholesome foods grown with low intensity farming practices that nourished the soil and earth. If the earth friendly hippies, or whoever first coined the term had known Rudolph Steiner, they might have called it Biodynamic food (although they probably would have still called it organic because "Biodynamic" sounds like some edible bullshit produced by the food scientists at Kellogs!)
Contrary Scientific Study
An article published in News Corp The Australian newspaper on Monday 30th October claims the largest study yet has revealed that organic is more nutritious.
With scientific study results being bandied about with little scrutiny by publishers, the lay person is in limbo.
"she loves her organic shop"
"she loves her organic shop" right, that is soo clear in this page...
I am very young and not very experienced about science but there is one thing in which i have experience, wasting of food in agriculture, this lady argue that organic food will not feed the world, but does not consider that in reality the developed countries are producing far more then what they actually need, in my country (Italy) just to make an example the farmers receive money to throw away the milk produced by cows because is too much. and in my region tons of oranges and lemons are thrown away because we have to export other countries onces. even in organic agriculture the food is selected to be big enough and nice enough to satisfy the standard of good looking food without caring of the fact that this food is in perfect good conditions and that it is sold by kilo, so shouldn't matter if they are smaller.
My uncle works in a pesticide company and he has been working on the fields for several years he was wearing a gas mask and appropriate protected clothings. After getting married the company allowed him to work in the office because is not good for you if u have a family to risk your health. if they don't know, who does?
He also told me he some times was exposed to those chemical elements by accident, and it was not fun to be, he could feel sick for weeks.
The article does not consider that the reason why the pests are so hard to get rid of is because the pesticide killing good and bad insects destroy the ecosystem in which the plants are suppose to live in making for the plan impossible to survive without human help, this can not be a good thing.
I think is absurd to believe that the plant itself is dangerous and not the chemicals we put in it, why would human even eat them to begin with then?
The journalist argue that the food we produced now a day is very close to the organic one but then she suggests that the organic one is the one which is bad..does that mean we should use something stronger on her opinion?
sounds a lot like "i believe that smoke does not cause cancer".
Cancer is not caused by one element but by the accumulation of many bad elements i the body, so as little of them we have the better it is.
Beside cancer is not the only illness that can be cosed by pesticides.
The chemical elements used by organic growers my not be the best choice but that is why the standard should be higher to pursuit for the healthiest way possible of making food.
Are you sure
Why did you say those "chemical elements"?
Pesticides are not base chemical elements, they are multiple simple and complex compounds. If pesticides were base elements they would either be in gaseous or solid form.
stress = illness
So many posters have brought up great points. Organic food is starting to become more and more mainstream. The scare of chemicals is growing day by day. Anyone who invests in the selling and trade of organic products may find that they will be earning some money. Even if at the end of the day they go shopping and buy non-organic foods themselves.
Is the time and effort really worth it though? Organic food, whether or not it could feed the entire world, is it worth the stress of unifying everyone to certain standards? There are some places in the world that are still just now finding out about common viruses that have vaccines. Even though these places are still learning about cleanliness and proper nutrition, are we going to make them skip a billion steps to catch up with us while we start growing solely organic food? That may cause too much stress.
Personally the point I find most daunting in Ms. Finkel’s report is that there are more natural carcinogens in one cup of coffee; than in a year’s supply of regularly grown food, pesticides and all. I have been drinking coffee for a while now, a few cups a day actually, and I’m not dead yet. It’s the stress of it all that probably causes more health issues for people. The old saying, “If you believe it, you can achieve it!” holds true in so many ways, mentally and physically. People are believing, so full heartedly, that they will get illnesses from regularly grown food. That stress builds up and does cause illness. I say we should all sit back and enjoy a cuppa. If the cup of coffee is organic, then great! If is non-organic then that is perfectly fine too.
Organic Lies: 'Fertilizer Laundering' & those "Bad" chemicals
Di-hydrogen oxide is a chemical.
Plants and humans both, cannot exist without it.
We normally refer to this chemical by it's common name: Water. Yep... pure water is a chemical.
I cannot count the number of times I've heard the uninformed claim that "organic" foods are grown without chemicals, what to speak of the vast % of organic food buyers who incorrectly think that toxic pesticides are not used!
The USDA website may open some folks eyes to the truth about "certified organic" foods.
For instance:
Since the cereal grains and grasses fed to animals to obtain that "organic fertilizer" (the resultant manure) are grown using the exact same "synthetic" fertilizers and pesticides used in modern, traditional (non-organic) agriculture, all the organic bunch is doing really, is what organized crime does with money: they hide the *true* source of the nutrients used to produce organic foods, by "laundering" the fertilizers! (Think too, about the added tilling to grow the plants used to feed the animals, the added trucking/transport of the heavy manure, wet with excess water. *Lots* of extra greenhouse gases there.)
Since it's impossible, when scaling-up "organic" production, to NOT use the "synthetic" fertilizers to grow the feed to get the manures, (unless you want to cut down the rest of the forested lands, as you deplete the lands used to "grow" the manure,) the USDA "organic certification" program allows all this to be done by the organic growers.
Additionally, since organic growers are "philosophically" constrained from allowing the naturally-occurring chemical "potash" to be lightly processed, they must use FIVE truckloads of potash for every ONE truckload that modern, non-organic farming uses. (Potash is obtained via mining the earth's crust, so organic farming causes a five-fold increase in that mining, as well as the added greenhouse gases from trucking five times as much, all over the place.)
The yields are actually lower with organic as well, so there's another avenue of irresponsible waste.
The truth is, that the only thing "green" about organic foods, is the extra money the organic growers put in their wallets!
(BTW: I'm a vegetarian, who grows the majority of his family's food in our large garden, and I've never used ANY pesticides of ANY kind, and I add kitchen compost & a few bags of composted manure, about once every four or five *years*. I have NO idea why the big farms, traditional and/or organic, have so much need for all the stuff they add to their soil!?)
Have a nice day, all.