Let me not admit impediments

Organic is a star burst of goodness

Let me not to the commitment of eco-minds

Admit impediments. Organic is not organic

When it pesticides or antibiotics finds

Organic labels are not lies, nor prices satanic

O, no! Organic is an ever-fixed mark

That grows more crop when droughts awaken

And yields the key to solve world’s hunger lock

Organic’s worth’s unknown, though soils health be taken

Organic’s not Monsanto’s fool. Whose policy grip

Puts carcinogenic foods on our plate

Rather organic adulterates not with fads and flip

But bears life out even to the edge of fate

If this be error and upon me proved,

Flowers never blossomed, nor earthworm moved.

Begging Shakespeare’s indulgence at my poor attempt to use his lovely sonnet to discuss organic practices, allow me to expand a bit on the thoughts that went behind this mutilation. Even though I’ve written about organics in A Drop of Grace, I felt the need to readdress the topic as it is one of the most important choices we can make as consumers. The reasons range from hugely impactful environmental ones, to personal health benefits all the way to fighting the corporatisation of our economy.

To start, let’s explore what an organic label in the grocery store means. Except for small farmers (who sell less than $5,000 a year of organic products), any product labeled as organic in the US must be USDA certified. And the process is rather rigorous. Requirements to get organic certification include not using synthetic or sewage fertilizers. Second, most synthetic pesticides are not allowed. And a third group of certification prerequisites, which I shan’t touch on much in this article, are that organic certified foods must not include irradiation treatments, genetic engineering nor antibiotics or growth hormones for livestock.

Let’s allow the first step of growing food to be the planting. In an industrial farm, heavy farm equipment is used to till the earth and even plant the seeds or seedlings. This compacts the soil column - and can shut down water filtration and gas exchanges. As a result of harming the soil’s structure and the soil ecosystem, industrialized crops need more intervention from the farmer to get a good crop. One of these interventions is the addition of chemical fertilizers, and because these are often over applied and put onto compacted soils, much of the fertilizer tends run off into local streams and eventually to oceans. This is a massive problem for our water ways as it causes algal blooms which then starve water ways of oxygen. The end result being eutrophication and dead zones. Livestock alone is responsible for most fresh water pollution and 78% of eutrophication. Organic practices aim to cut these kinds of damaging cycles by taking care of the soil column as the first order of business.

After over fertilization, industrial farming must also use pesticides, in part because the large scale mono-culture and the unwell soils do not support biodiversity. Therefore, natural predators and consumers of problematic pests aren’t present. Thus, pesticides are applied. The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants list the top 12 deadliest pollutants, nine of which are pesticides. It is now well known that the chemicals in the popular herbicide “Round up” are carcinogenic, while other pesticides are known to be linked to kidney disease, shortened pregnancies, endocrine disruption, DNA damage, disruption of gut microbiome, fatty liver disease and decreased sperm function. Numerous reports show how Monsanto, the producers of Round Up, influenced the EPA such that acceptable levels of glyphosate have actually risen 300 fold since the 1990s. The US allows more than 70 pesticides banned in the EU. Almost all of us have pesticide residue in our blood stream including most new born babies.

And all these damages, when there is a simple alternative. Organic growing. According to the United Nations authoritative and comprehensive review (“Agroecology and the Right to Food” A/HRC/16/49, 8 March 2011), in the medium to long term, organic farming out produces industrial farms. Indeed, even on the short term, organic farming practices can dramatically improve yield in times of drought. Given the incoming changes to climate that our farmers are facing, organic farming is seen as the most resilient food production practice. Don’t ever believe the lie told to us by Big Ag that industrial farming is the only way to feed the world. A more recent UN report goes even further, stating that organic practices will not only improve food security and reduce hunger, but will also help to support biodiversity and clean our waterways. It’s always nice to have one’s opinions repeated by panels of world experts.

Turning to direct health benefits of organic foods, I’ll summarize the Mayo Clinic’s report. Organic livestock, dairy and eggs have higher levels of the heart healthy omega 3 fatty acids. There is less of the toxic metal cadmium in organic grains and of course less pesticide residue, with all its health hazards, on organic produce. Finally, conventionally produced meat may have more bacteria that are resistant to antibiotic treatment, with the overall risk of bacterial contamination about the same between organic and conventional foods. You may be aware of the worrisome over use of antibiotics leading to new super bugs which we can’t treat. Antibiotic use in industrial livestock farms accounts for 73% of global usage and this alone will be enough of a reason for some people to choose organic meats over industrial ones.

And a bottom line about the bottom line. While organic foods may seem outrageously expensive, it is in fact the cheapness of industrialized food which is an outrage. In 1919, the average American had to work over 2 and 1/2 hours to buy a 3 pound chicken. Nowadays, it only takes 15 minutes to earn a chicken. Put another way, the percentage of disposal income which we spend on food has fallen from 17% in 1960, to less than 10% in 2019. So it turns out the price of organic food is in fact more in line with historical food costs than the industrial food available at our grocery stores. Here, our the bottom line needs to not be about the cheapest price, but rather the wisest choice.