One major change in today’s nutritional culture is that organic foods are becoming increasingly popular. According the American Academy of Pediatrics, the US market for organic foods has grown from $3.5 billion in 1996 to $28.6 billion in 2010 (e1406). Organic foods are those produced without the use of any chemicals or growth hormones. These food types can range from vegetables, fruits, and even meats. The majority of the food that people consume today can be purchased organically. A man by the name of J.I Rodale is known to be the founder of modern organic farming back in the 1940’s. I’ve never been one to go out of my way to follow an organic food diet, but after doing research about this argumentative topic, I feel that organic foods are better for your health and nutrition, the environment, and the food is fresher.
Although there are many positive benefits from organic foods, some people focus on a few of the negatives. One of the predominant criticisms of organic foods is that they are higher priced than those foods not produced organically. Organic foods can potentially cost up to 40% more than regular foods at a store. How can that be possible? Silvertsein wrote that a few factors can contribute to these higher costs like higher-priced organic animal feed, lower productivity, and higher labor costs because of the increased dependence of picking weeds by hand (e1412). Unlike conventional farmers, organic farmers work is way more labor intensive. This leads to hiring large amounts of people in order to keep up with all work that needs to be done in the fields. Not being able to use pesticides on their crops, producers need to spend more time in the fields closely monitoring things like bugs and diseases. There aren’t as many organic farmers as conventional farmers, so the yield production is much lower. To go along with that, one study showed that organic farming yields 25% fewer crops on average than conventional agriculture (Seufert, V., Ramankutty, N. & Foley, J. A. Nature). Since less organic crops are being produced, the price rises so the farmers can make up for the loss of yield. The last point that leads to these high prices is the organic animal feed. Organic farmers care about their job and they want their products to be safe and healthy for the people consuming it. In order to accomplish this, they need to feed their livestock the best organic food possible. The biggest problem they have is finding a reliable source they can trust to invest in. Most of the time the only companies they can find are many miles away because of the lack of organic feed mills. So, the farmers need to have the feed shipped to them, and that is what makes it more expensive. These three are only a few of the things that lead to the high prices of organic foods, but I feel like they are the most significant.
Another negative point that comes from organic farming is the accessibility people have to invest in organic meat and produce. Unlike your regular food stores, organic stores are harder to find because there aren’t as many. Depending on where you live, you may be nowhere close to a store that offers organic food. The lack of organic food stores is another reason why it is so expensive to purchase in the first place. The chances of finding a store in a small town are very slim. The bigger city you live in, the better chance you have in finding an organic food store to buy your groceries from. For example, I live in a pretty decent sized town and there is only one small store that sells organic food. So just imagine if you live in a very tiny town or out in the country somewhere, you’re not going to have access to an organic food store. However, organic foods are very influential in many other positive ways to society that outweigh some of these negatives.
The first way organic foods have positively changed society is the variety of health benefits they attribute. Studies around the world have concluded compositional differences in health benefits between organic and conventional foods. They even have been known reduce risk of different cancers and diseases. Organic crops have higher antioxidant activity, and between 18 and 69% higher concentrations of a range of individual antioxidants. A study by Barański, Średnicka-Tober, and Volakakis showed that these increased intakes of polyphenolics and antioxidants have been linked to a reduced risk of certain chronic diseases such as cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases. Not only are there benefits in the crops, organic meat, milk, and dairy products have relatively higher numbers of nutritionally desirable omega-3 fatty acids, long chain omega-3 fatty acids in Western diets and there are recommendations to at least double their intake daily (Średnicka-Tober D, Barański M, Seal C. Composition differences between organic and conventional meat: a systematic literature review and meta-analysis). Unlike conventionally grown livestock, organic animals do not obtain antibiotics and growth hormones. Instead, they use different kinds of feed, and also give animals the chance to graze outside. Organic meats have also been found to contain less fat, reducing the risks of heart problems. Conventionally grown meat has higher numbers of saturated fatty acids. Let’s talk about a few of the plant products that have been proven to be more nutritionally healthy. Levels of vitamin C have been shown to be greater than the conventional foods in peaches and tomatoes. They’ve also been found to be greater in organic leafy vegetables, such as spinach, lettuce, and chard versus the same conventionally produced vegetables in 21 of 36 (58%) studies (Williams CM. Nutritional quality of organic food: shades of grey or shades of green?). Higher carotenoid numbers were discovered in vegetables like organic peppers, yellow plums, tomatoes, and carrots (qtd. in 104). Some studies have discovered a decreased nitrate content in organic foods in contrast to conventionally grown foods, which is potentially enticing because of the association of nitrates being involved in gastrointestinal cancer.
By not using pesticides at all, organic farmers are at less of a risk of being exposed to harmful chemical which can improve their health. Chronic exposure among farm workers has been associated with various adult health problems ranging from respiratory problems, memory disorders, skin conditions, and brain deficits including Parkinson disease, miscarriages, birth defects, and even cancer (qtd. in e1411). The estimated environmental and health care costs of pesticide use at recommended levels in the United States run about $12 billion every year (Pimentel 2005). In theory, we are actually consuming pesticides if we are not eating food that has been produced organically. In 1993, the primary form of exposure to pesticides in children was from eating conventionally farmed produce (qtd. in e1411). If people today became more interested in organic foods, they could worry less about chemicals being on their plate. Some could argue that washing fruits and vegetables will take off all of the chemicals. In reality, there is no way that you can get every single bit of pesticide off with just water. Not only is organic farming beneficial to our health, but there are also many positive benefits to the environment.
Organic farming is exceptionally better for the environment in several different ways. One very important reason is that no pesticides whatsoever are used on the crops. Conventional farmers use countless varieties of chemicals to keep their crops free of bugs. This practice is advantageous to air, soil, and water quality. A major problem that conventional farmers practice is spraying fields by airplane. This releases dangerous pesticides into the environment, into people’s own gardens, and even their homes. Animals can also be at risk to these terrible chemicals. Birds and other creatures eat off the crops we grow in our fields. This can lead to their deaths or a serious disease. All of this goes together in ruining the environment in other ways. The pesticides will at some point run off as ground water therefore contaminating our drinking water. With organic farming, there is no need to worry about this because they don’t use the harmful pesticides and fertilizers. This reduces the volume of nitrates that leak into the ground and surface waters. The methods of organic farming protect water quality by using safer forms of fertilizers that discharge nutrients slower, diminishing the number of nitrates that seep into our waters. Some of these organic fertilizers include compost, animal manure, and green manure.
Organic farming practices have been known to improve soil quality. According to D. Pimental, organically managed soil has been exhibited to be of higher quality and have higher water retention. This may lead to an increase yields for organic farms in drought years (qtd. in e1411). Organically-farmed soil has been known for its higher organic matter content, thicker topsoil depth, higher carbohydrate content, and less soil erosion. This study indicated that in the long run the organic farming system was more effective in maintaining soil productivity as a whole. This type of farming has also been known in increasing soil diversity. Another big part that leads to improved soil quality is crop rotation. Crop rotation means changing the type of crop grown on a particular piece of land from year to year (Mohler 1). This is very necessary in maintaining field and soil productivity. The amount of organic matter being produced in the ground is greatly improved if you practice crop rotation. Many farmers believe that a soil high in organic matter will lead to a healthy, biologically active soil that will have fewer crop fertility, and pest problems. Some other things that crop rotation contributes to include: weed control, erosion control, improved biodiversity, and increased yield. All of these methods used on the organic side aid in making it better for the environment.
The last point that has changed society for good is how much fresher organic food can be. A reason for this is because they don’t contain preservatives to make it last longer. Organic fruits and vegetables tend to not last as long as conventionally grown foods. You could look at this as a negative or a positive. I look at it as a positive, because the food is fresher so you might as well eat it as soon as possible. Since there aren’t as many organic food farms, a lot of the food you purchase is grown and sold locally. These farms tend to be smaller so they care about how their product turns out for the people that will eventually buy.