Can We Go Organic Sustainably

Think about that fact that when you walk into the grocery store that offers both organic and conventional options the organic ones always cost more. Why is this? Advocates claim that organic produce, because it is unexposed to chemical pesticides and has not been pumped with growth hormones is cleaner and better for you, which although it has been contested sounds like a good argument but does it mean we should be paying more?

I’m concerned that too little of the public’s attention has been directed, toward the relationship between organic farms and the sustainability movement. Food safety and sustainability are two movements happening today that in my mind, want a world that has similar standards for human and environmental health, but do their respective practices actually line up? Often critics (like ones noted in this article) of organic produce will claim that organic farms have smaller and less efficient yields and are ultimately worse for the environment than conventional farms. It seems like the question is up in the air so I decided to do some investigating.

First of all, I think it is easy for people to believe (without knowing) that organic farms require more energy and effort than conventional farms because they have to pay more for organic produce. What is being misunderstood is that even though organic farms have different methods of coping with the hardships of farming like disease and nitrogen resources they have methods that work. This article uses a table shown here explain the methods of each type of farm.

If you do a little research, it’s clear from the variety of studies on energy costs of organic farming that the issue has not escaped the lens of the academic microscope. Cornell University, a top dog in the agricultural studies world put out this study in which Dr. David Pimentel, a professor of ecology and agriculture, states "Organic farming approaches for these crops not only use an average of 30 percent less fossil energy but also conserve more water in the soil, induce less erosion, maintain soil quality and conserve more biological resources than conventional farming does,” Other studies have made similar assertions.

So if all the experts say organic is more efficient and you can sell organic food for more, what stops all the farms from going organic? The answer is labor. An organic farm while it does have innovative solutions to the problems of farming sometimes those solutions require a lot more labor than conventional farms. For example, a conventional farm deals with the problem of invasive species of weeds by spraying chemical herbicides that prevent those weeds from growing and hurting crop yields.

Organic farms, which don’t want to use these, have to hand weed or mulch, which costs a lot compared to the spray on weed killers. Ultimately it becomes a numbers game, and from observation alone it seems that more often than not, the conventional farm wins. In the end, it’s not all wrong to believe that the cost of organic food reflects the effort put into growing it. What is doesn’t mean is that it is less efficient or out of line with the move towards sustainability, which is a happy notion. It would be a shame to see the two movements towards sustainability and organic farming pitted against each other when their worldviews seem to match up so well.

If you are still curious here are some more articles on the matter:

1. http://food.change.org/blog/view/organic_farming_can_feed_the_world

2. http://www.hodgeslab.org/2008/05/organic_farming_efficiency.html

3. http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/~christos/articles/cv_organic_farming.html