The Truth About Organic Farming

Do buy organic produce? Do you feel that the extra $ is worth it? Do you feel that products that bear the lable “organic” are safer? How much of these are true, and how much is pure marketing ploy?

In his newly released book — The Truth About Organic Gardening: Benefits, Drawbacks, and the Bottom Line  — Jeff Gillman examines gardening practices and products to prompt gardeners and consumers alike to make informed, responsible, and effective choices.

Here are some examples of eye-openers you will encounter in the book:

• A big reason to choose organically grown food is a pronounced reduction in the amounts of synthetic pesticide residues on organic food. A common belief among people who eat organic food is that pesticides are never, or at least only rarely, used on these foods…it’s highly likely that organic produce, and especially organic produce from plant species that need to be sprayed a lot in conventional production systems—apples, pears, and peaches, among others—contains residues of organic pesticides that may be just as harmful as their synthetic cousins, or, as in the case of some toxins like rotenone, perhaps even more so.
• In truth, gardeners face very few situations where they need to apply a pesticide, especially if other methods of pest control are used. Growers, who depend on their crops for their livelihood, are a different story. If they lose their crops, they lose their livelihood. Certainly pesticides are poisons, but in the quantities found on food, especially if we clean it before we eat it, we just don’t have any reason to believe that they’ll cause problems. Washing fruits and vegetables, especially with hot water, can significantly reduce the amount of pesticides on them and is a good idea for anyone concerned about residues.
• Fruits, vegetables, and other foods that are grown organically are usually touted as being more nutritious than similar foods grown conventionally. More nutritious or not, these foods often do taste a heck of a lot better than foods grown conventionally simply because they’re usually grown locally, meaning that they can ripen on the plant before being picked. Data on the nutritional quality of organic foods isn’t so firmly in favor of organic as taste data is. Many factors are involved in the production of food and when it comes to the nutrient content of food, the factor of organic production versus conventional approaches insignificance compared to the mountain of other factors such as the cultivar of fruit that you’ve selected, the amount of sun the plant received prior to harvest, the climate the plant was growing in, and the amount of water the plants received.
• People who regularly purchase organic food will be aware of the fact that often, and especially with locally grown food, a certain amount of insect damage is found. This damage is the result of a few things inherent to organic growing systems, including less reliance on pesticides, lower efficacy of organic pesticides, and higher tolerance for damage on produce before pesticides are applied. Although it makes fruits and vegetables look less attractive, insect and disease damage might actually be a good thing: it signals the affected plant to produce chemicals to defend itself, and by and large these chemicals are the very antioxidants that are considered beneficial in human diets.
• If you’re worried about synthetic pesticide residues, selecting organic foods for your table is an option, but really that’s just trading one set of pesticides for another that’s been less intensively researched. If you’re really worried about pesticides on your food, you should research plants that are less likely to contain pesticides at all, such as onions, sweet corn, and sweet potatoes, select those for your dinner table, and wash your food well with hot water before eating it.

For more about organic farming and organic foods, get your copy of Jeff Gillman’s The Truth About Organic Gardening: Benefits, Drawbacks, and the Bottom Line (Timber Press 2008, $12.95).