On Organic Lovers and Haters

         Whether to buy organic or not has been a hot topic for decades, and the debate doesn’t appear to be diminishing with time.  Some people say they cannot afford to buy organic, others say they cannot afford not to buy organic, citing concerns with soil health, water scarcity, air pollution, climate change, not to mention the health effects of conventional products on the consumers themselves. 

        Furthermore, many people are becoming more interested in local farming, making how far the product has travelled more important than how it was grown.  And then there are the people that do not believe organic even exists: are they not all just seeds, grown in the ground, watered, harvested, and then sold to the masses? Many people simply do not see or care about the differences. Whether it is the price, the distance travelled, or even if there is such a thing as organic, there is one thing for sure:  people either love it or hate it. 

        The price difference between organic and non-organic produce is not as great as some people believe it to be.  In a price-comparison investigation, Consumer Reports found that many organic items were less costly than conventionally-grown items, and for those that were not less expensive, common foods such as bananas and apples were as little as 10-20% more than their conventional counterparts (Marks).  Even with the generally-higher price of organics, however, many people now believe that the true cost of conventionally-grown products can be found in the toll they are taking on the planet, and not in what they are charged at the till.  

        Conventionally-grown products may not be less expensive when we factor everything into the equation: 29 different food chemicals can be found in the average human body; 13 major health risks are linked to pesticides in produce including ADHD and birth defects; cancerous tumor development and endocrine disruption is greatly increased (Rangan).  Not to mention the cost to our earth and environment.  Research has now proven that the risks of pesticides greatly outnumber any potential benefits” (Mahmood et al. 254, 260).  An organic apple and a conventional apple may look the same, but unfortunately, they are not.  Do not let the cheaper prices mislead you. 

        Many people that choose not to spend their money on organic produce are still choosing to buy local, and there are those, of course, that buy local and organic.  It gets even more confusing when we consider that many consumers do not realize that buying local is not the same thing as buying organic.  As the certification of “organic” becomes a more commercialized industry, the local-farmer movement becomes more appealing to many people.  Adams and Salois write that important aspects of “organic” are no longer even associated with the term, such as farm-worker welfare, animal welfare, resource conservation, and sustainability (333).  Buying local is often no better than traditional.  There is one major advantage, however:  your lettuce did not travel 3000 km to get to your table.  

        Besides the fossil fuels burned enroute, the exportation process demands gasses to ripen and irradiation at the borders. So, we must buy local. But must we buy local and organic? Research has proven that honeybees, butterflies, turtles, birds, worms, frogs, not to mention the farmworkers, surrounding residents, and consumers themselves, are all dying due to the toxicity of pesticides ("From Crop to Table" 23-25, Mahmood et al. 262-265).  We can no longer pretend that this is not relevant.                 The debate on whether to love or hate organics is exacerbated by the consumer distrust of the concept of organics in general. In 2002 the USDA fundamentally changed the development of organic foods with their new federal standards, resulting in its commercialization.  Adams and Salois write that the production of organic food was forced toward large-scale, least-cost standards, and that it became a small number of very powerful “organic giants” handling as much as 80% of the production (332).  

        Of even greater impact to the consumer psyche, however, are the blog sites and web sites that profess to “know” that organics are not worth the price. Organic Shmorganic is a classic example, telling the world that: 1. Organics are not worth the money, and 2. Conventional produce does a person no harm (Moyer). The problem is that the public generally spends significantly more time reading these posts passed around through Facebook or popping-up on their smart phones than they do on authentic research-based studies.

        Love it or hate it, organics are a big deal. Yes, all apples are picked from a tree, but how that tree grew, and how that apple came to be are two different worlds.  It comes down to this in the end: there are vast chasms between industrial conventional farming, local conventional farming, industrial organic farming, and local organic farming. Somehow we must find a way to choose.  

        It seems clear the best choice would be local organic farming: it is the best for you, your family, your planet, and your planet’s resources.  If price is a real factor, the next best choice would be to buy local.  Get to know your local farmer, and develop a relationship with those that you believe you can trust.  

        The reality is that there will always be “organic haters” in the world, but the truth is that they are not proving anything to anyone, and they are mostly hurting themselves.  And anyway, haters love to hate.  Like when you see all the negative reviews on Amazon, and you know it’s not true; it’s just that all the lovers are too busy being happy to write.

Works Cited

Adams, Damian, and Matthew Salois. “Local versus organic: A turn in consumer preferences and willingness-to-pay.” Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems, vol. 25, no. 4, 23 April 2010, pp. 331-341, ResearchGate, www.researchgate.net/publication/231858753_Local_versus_organic_A_turn_in_consumer_preferences_and_willingness-to-pay.  Accessed 4 April 2019. 

“From Crop to Table Pesticide Report.”  Consumer Reports, Food Safety & Sustainability Center, March 2015, article.images.consumerreports.org/prod/content/dam/cro/news_articles/health/CR_FSASC_FromCroptoTablePesticides_Mar2015.pdf. Accessed 3 April 2019. 

Mahmood, Isra, et al. “Effects of Pesticides on Environment.” ResearchGate, Dec. 2015, www.researchgate.net/publication/286042190_Effects_of_Pesticides_on_Environment.  Accessed 1 April 2019. 

Marks, Tod. “The Cost of Organic Food.” Consumer Reports, 19 March 2015,   www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2015/03/cost-of-organic-food/index.htm.  Accessed 3 April 2019. 

Moyer, Melinda W. “Organic Shmorganic: Conventional Fruits and Vegetables are Perfectly Healthy for Kids.” Slate, 28 Jan. 2014, slate.com/human-interest/2014/01/organic-vs-conventional-produce-for-kids-you-dont-need-to-fear-pesticides.html. Accessed 2 April 2019. 

Rangan, Urvashi, et al. “Eat the Peach, Not the Pesticide.” Consumer Reports, 19 March 2015, www.consumerreports.org/cro/health/natural-health/pesticides/index.htm.  Accessed 3 April 2019.