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10 Reasons To Buy
Organic
1. Protect Future Generation
"We have not inherited the Earth from our
fathers,
we are
borrowing it from our children." - Les Brown.
The averaage child receives 4 times more
exposure than
an adult to at least eight widely used
cancer-causing
-pesticides in food. The food choice you
make now will
impact your child's health in
the future.
2. Prevent Soil
Erosion
The Soil
Conservation Service estimates that more than
three
billion tons of topsoil are eroded from United States
croplands
each
year. Thaat means soil is eroding seven times faster
than
it is being
built upp naaturaally. Soil is the foundation of the
food
chain in organic farming. But in
conventional farming the soil
is
used more as a medium for holding plants
in a vertical
position
so that can be chemically fertilized. As a
result, American farms
are suffering from the
worst soil erosion in history.
3.
Protect Water Quality
Water makes
up two-thirds of our body mass and covers
three-fourths of the planet. Despite its
importance, the
Environment Protection Agency
(EPA) estimates pesticides
(some
cancer causing) contaminate the ground water
in 38 states, polluting the primary source of drinking
water for
more than half the country's
population.
4. Save Energy
American farms have changed drastically in the
last
3 generations, from family-based small
business dependent
on human energy to large
scale factory farms highly dependent
on fossil
fuels. Modem farming uses more petroleum than
any
other single industry, consuming 12% of the
contry's total
energy supply. More
energy is now used to produce synthetic
fertilizers
than to till, cultivate and harvest all the crops in
the
United States. Organic farming is still
mainly based on
labour intensive
practices such as weeding by hand and
using
green manures and crop covers rather
than synthetic fertilizers
to build up soil. Organic
produce also tends to travel fewer
miles from field to table.
5. Keep Chemical Off Your Plate
Many pesticides approved for use by the EPA were
registered
long before extensive
research linking these chemicals to
cancer and other
disease had been established. Now the EPA
considers
that 60% of all herbicides, 90% of all fungicides
and
30% of all insecticides are carcinogenic.
A 1987 National Academy
of Sciences
report estimated that pesticides might cause an
extra
1.4 million cancer cause among Americans over
their lifetimes.
The bottom line is that
pesticides are poisons designed to kill
living
organisms, and can also be harmful to humans. In
addition
to cancer, pesticides are implicated in
birth defects, nerve
damage and genetic
mutation.
6. Protect
Farm Worker Health
A National Cancer Institute study
found that farmers exposed to
herbicides had a six times greater risk than
non-farmers of
contracting cancer. In
California, reported pesticide
poisonings
among farm workers
have risen an average of 14% a
year
since 1973 and 1985. Field workers
suffer the highest rates of
occupational
illness in the state. Farm worker health also
is
a serious problem
in developing nations, where pesticide used
can be
poorly regulated. An estimated one million people
are
poisoned
annually by pesticides.
7. Help Small
Farmer
Although more and more larger scale farms
are making the
conversion to
organic practices, most organic farms
are
small independently
owned and operated family farms
and
less than 100 acres.
It's estimated that United
States has lost
more than 650,000 family farms in the past decade.
And with
the U.S.
Department of Agriculture predicting that half of
this country's farm
production will come from one percent of
farms by the year 2000, organic farming could be one of the
few
survival tactics left for family farms.
8. Support A True Economy
Although organic foods might seem more
expensive than
conventional foods, conventional food prices do not reflect
hidden
costs borne by tax payers, including nearly
$74 billion
in federal subsidies in 1988. Other hidden
costs include
pesticide regulation and testing, hazardous waste
disposal
and clean-up,
and environmental damage.
Author Gary Null says: "If... you
add in the real environment
and social costs of irrigation to head of lettuce, its price
can range between two
and three dollars."
9. Promote Biodiversity
Mono-cropping is the practice of planting
large plots of land
with the same crop year after
year. While this approach tripled
farm production between
1950 and 1970, the lack of natural
diversity of
plant life has left the soil lacking in natural
minerals
and nutrients. To replace the nutrients,
chemicalfertilizers are,
used, often in increasing
amounts. Single crops are also
much more susceptible
to pests, making farmers more reliant
on pesticides.
Despite a tenfold increase in the use of
pesticides
between 1947 and 1974, crop losses due to
insects
have doubled
- partly because some insects have become
genetically resistant to certain pesticides.
10. Taste Better Flavor
There's a good reason why many chefs use
organic foods
in their recipes - they taste
better! Organic farming start with
the nourishment
of the soil which eventually leads to the
nourishment of the plant and, ultimately our
palates. | 
