Conventional vs. Organic and another argument for buying local

I came across the above cartoon this morning, and I have to admit that it kind of pissed me off.  I can’t argue with the value that makes this cartoon funny; eating organic is an activity that some people can’t afford.  There are people out there trying to feed their entire family with $100 a week, and if you’re one of those people, organic might be out of reach.  But is that really you?  Most people who say they can’t afford organic actually can, but choose not to prioritize it. While it’s true that some people simply don’t know the risks involved with buying conventional, I think plenty more do know, but choose to turn a blind eye anyway.  The eloquent and wise Barbara Kingsolver:

Whether on school boards or in families, budget keepers may be aware of the heath trade off (of buying conventional over organic) but still feel compelled to economize on food–in a manner that would be utterly unacceptable if the health risk involved an unsafe family vehicle or a plume of benzene running through a school basement.

It’s true, isn’t it?  Would you move your family to an area where chemicals were in the ground water?  Would you take your small children to a new home that had lead paint?  Most reasonably responsible people would say no, but don’t hesitate to expose their families and themselves to the very same dangers when it comes to food.

This cartoon is frustrating in a few ways.  First, it capitalizes on a well-accepted fallacy about food production, which pegs organic as an artificially inflated market, selling health at a premium just because it can.  Second, it goes to show how ignorant Americans really are about how food is grown in the first place.  Organic food is not more expensive because sellers know that conventional foods are poison; it’s more expensive because growing food is a labor-intensive (and therefore expensive) endeavor when done without chemicals.  Many conventional foods are also heavily subsidized by the US government, making them look much cheaper when you buy them at the store than they actually are.  Organic is left to fend for itself.

If all of this wasn’t bad enough, organic must also fight against it’s image of being exclusively for the wealthy.  If you too believe this, I’ve got news for you–you’re paying for conventional foods, and you’re paying dearly.  The cost is measured in the tax money you give to corporate farm subsidies (estimates put the number between $17 billion and $20 billion a year), the toll chemicals take on the soil, and the price you’ll pay for poor health (yours, or that of your fellow Americans whose hospital bills you foot if they can’t pay.)

Scientists aren’t sure about the long-term effects of chemicals in food, but they agree that chemicals are definitely going into what we eat.  It’s basic biology–food grown in synthetic fertilizer is going to be comprised of synthetic nutrients, even if it isn’t sprayed with pesticide.  Food grown in compost-enriched soil will be comprised of naturally occurring nutrients. The plant will always be a reflection of the soil it is grown in, and I’m not sure when humans decided that eating chemicals was safe.  So with all of that said, we agree that certified organic is better…right?

Well…it is and it isn’t.  Not all organics are created equal.

To be USDA certified organic, farmers must promise not to use chemical fertilizer or pesticide on their crops.  They can’t plant genetically modified or cloned seeds either.  For meat to be certified organic, animals cannot be treated with hormones or antibiotics, nor fed food that might contain these things.  These are all positive improvements over conventional, thought the organic goods you get from your local farmer’s market are almost certainly going to be of higher quality than the organic you find in the store.  There are several reasons for this.  The first and most simple reason is because fruits and vegetables taken from the soil in the morning and served on your dinner plate in the evening had as much time as possible in the soil, rendering them more flavorful and more nutritious than their prematurely picked and shipped counterparts.  Organic veggies cut green from a vine in Peru in the morning, loaded onto a truck in the evening, and then served on your dinner plate a week later are simply not going to compare–on the nutritional or the flavor front.  Nothing in the USDA certification process says that an organic plant has to be ripe when it leaves the fields.  Nor does the organic seal promise that a cow or chicken must be grass-fed, kept in a clean and humane area, afforded sunlight each day, or anything else you might think of when you see the re-assuring, ethical-looking stamp of certified organic.  I think it’s deceptive to sell people, who probably really care about the planet, a product that guzzled barrels of oil in shipping.  My closest commercial organic market was selling asparagus from Mexico last week, when I know for a fact that it’s currently in season here.  I find that down right blasphemous.

So what do you do with all of this information?  I choose to buy my organics locally from farmers I can question myself if I have any concerns.  Most of them are more than happy to answer my queries, as they pride themselves on their farming practices.  Many of them are not certified organic but don’t spray their crops, and fertilize with compost and manure instead of synthetics.  Actually, many of my favorite vendors have signs reading “no pesticide” but can’t call their food organic because they haven’t purchased the certification from the USDA.  Certification is cost-prohibitive, and many local farmers don’t see enough financial benefit to buy in.  They aren’t spraying their land, because many of them live on family farms that they expect to pass to their children someday.  Spraying chemicals has rendered 30% of the world’s farmlands unusable.  A farmer with a vested interest in his land won’t spray it, because he knows that in doing so he digs his own grave.

Organic certification has its problems, but the best way around them is to buy from the source.  It costs a little more to buy pesticide free products at the farmer’s market than it costs to buy conventional, but then again it costs a little more to produce pesticide free foods (you don’t think those potato bugs pick themselves off the plants, do you?)  I think it’s a worthy investment, and I hope that with this information in hand you will now agree.  I mean, what does your health insurance run you each month?  Car and house insurance?  We don’t shell out for these things because we love giving our money away; we purchase them because they make our lives safer and more secure.  I’m not waiting for science to catch up with conventional foods to let me know what sickness I’ve fated myself to have as a result of penny-pinching.  Something deeply instinctual inside me tells me not to eat chemicals, and for the most part, I listen.

Until we start paying for the actual cost of growing food (instead of accepting the “bargain” prices of toxic food) we’ll never have a chance of making it as a species.  In just over 50 years, 30% of the world’s previously fertile soil has become barren because of chemical fertilizers and sprays.  30%!  Remember that number, because as population growth spikes exponentially, so will the percentage of unusable land should we fail to pay a little more for the privilege of having land to grow on at all.  Are you going to be the one to hammer that last nail in the coffin?  It won’t be on my conscience.  You might want to think about whether or not it will be on yours.

Note:  This article was written with the aid of numerous insights provided by Barbara Kingsolver, in her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (chapter 8).

Tags: conventional food, environmental conservation, farm subsidies, farmer's market, local foods, locavore, oil spill, organic, organic food, organic vs. conventional