By Robert McFarlane
5 May 2024
Most people will likely hear the word “organic” used to describe various produce, meat, and dairy products. For most people, this word also carries a certain connotation. For some it may be a positive one, associated with higher quality or sustainable production. And for others it may have a more negative connotation associated with increased prices or performative progress.
Everyone who has heard the word “organic” has built some sort of conception of or sentiment towards it. And, depending on the perspective, many of these conceptions and sentiments may hold some truth. Because it is a word used often by friends, family, governments, and corporations, it has lost any clear meaning or definition. We will discuss exactly what “organic” means and its implications with regards to health and sustainability, mainly focusing on the EU Commission’s different regulations on referring to or advertising food products as “organic”.
EU Commission Guide to Organic Food Production
The European Union has regulations in place that serve to maintain a standard for “organic” food production in its member states. These regulations are extensive and include details for every possible scenario including the very surprising ban on cloning animals. We will go over some of the main rules outlined by the regulations. The EU describes the main definitions of organic farming in the statement;
“Organic production is an overall system of farm management and food production that combines best environmental and climate action practices, a high level of biodiversity, the preservation of natural resources and the application of high animal welfare standards and high production standards…”. (Regulation - 2018/848 - EN - EUR-Lex, n.d.)
This is very vague but does give insight into the main intention of their regulations. The implementation of this principle comes in the form of regulations related to food quality, animal welfare, and ecological impacts.
The aim of establishing a clear standard for “organic” food is twofold, meeting the demands of consumers who are willing to pay a premium for higher quality food, and providing a public good by preserving certain ecosystem services. As it stands right now organic farming only makes up 0.9% of the world's food production (Niggli, 2015).
Health
In conventional agriculture, there are a lot of synthetic compounds that are incorporated in the processes between planting and the final product in the supermarket. Agriculture generally strips soil of nutrients needed for the next generation of plants to grow. Conventional agriculture sidesteps this obstacle by using synthetic fertilizers which reintroduce large amounts of these nutrients into the soil. Also, agriculture consisting of only a handful of crops is especially vulnerable to pests which can easily move from plant to plant feeding and destroying entire fields. This is prevented by spraying pesticides which are toxic to the pests. Both fertilizers and pesticides are dangerous in high quantities to humans. In order to prevent the toxic effects on humans, food processing involves removing as much of these pesticides and fertilizers to meet the maximum allowed amounts.
There will always be trace amounts of these synthetic compounds, but regulations by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and the EU Commission are based on medical studies researching the effects of small acute dosages. However, the effects of small amounts of these compounds over long periods is not well understood or researched, so there is no verdict on potential health implications. And in the EU for example, around 30% of conventional produce contained trace amounts of fertilizers and pesticides. (Vigar et al., 2019) Synthetic fertilizers and pesticides are banned under the EU Commission regulation of organic foods, so consumers of organic foods avoid chronic exposure to these compounds.
Sustainability
One of the most important factors in the ecological impacts of food production as well as its capacity to sustain higher levels of food production in the future is biodiversity. Conventional agriculture converts land which is often ecologically diverse into land producing only a handful of crops. Also, the use of pesticides and fertilizers which are carried away by runoff affects the ecological systems of surrounding areas. Avoiding biodiversity loss is necessary for preserving ecological systems, but is also important for maintaining food production. Bees pollinate plants, microorganisms improve soil quality, certain insects ward off pests, and many other ecosystem services are lost when we ignore the importance of biodiversity. The EU Commission has specific regulations in place to mitigate the ecological impacts of food production.
“Comparative biodiversity assessments on organic and conventional farms reveal a 30 % higher species diversity and a 50 % greater abundance of flora and fauna in organic fields.”
Regulations on any external synthetic inputs in organic food production are one of the main factors in this improvement. Also, the encouragement of agricultural practices such as crop rotation, weeding mechanically instead of chemically, and the incorporation of border crops which ward off pests all improve the biodiversity of surrounding areas.
Nitrogen is vital to the growth of all plants, and even though most of our air is composed of nitrogen in natural ecosystems the availability of nitrogen in a form that plants can use is limited. To bypass this limited availability conventional agriculture uses fertilizers synthesized from the nitrogen in our atmosphere. These fertilizers are highly reactive and react with other compounds in our atmosphere to create greenhouse gases. A study done on conventional farms in the US found that only 17% of the nitrogen used on plants was actually incorporated into their growth (Niggli, 2015). Meaning the rest either leeched into the ecosystems of surrounding areas or reacted with compounds in the atmosphere to produce greenhouse gases. Organic farms use nitrogen much more efficiently because instead of using synthetically derived nitrogen, they use nitrogen from animal manure or food waste. Instead of synthesizing more reactive nitrous oxides, “organic” farms recycle nitrogen that is already in a form that plants can use.
Implications
The EU Commission regulations on the standard for “organic” primarily involve the ban of external synthetic inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides, as well as regulations aimed to mitigate the ecological impacts of large-scale food production. These regulations encourage farming practices that are more difficult to implement such as incorporating non-harvestable plants or weeding by hand, this explains the higher costs once it finally reaches the supermarket. Having a well-enforced standard for organic food allows farmers to charge more for creating a public good and higher-quality products.
Citations
Azzurra, A., Massimiliano, A., & Angela, M. (2019). Measuring sustainable food consumption: A case study on organic food. Sustainable Production and Consumption, 17, 95–107. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2018.09.007
Niggli, U. (2015). Sustainability of organic food production: Challenges and innovations. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 74(1), 83–88. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0029665114001438
Organic Farming and Sustainability in Food Choices: An Analysis of Consumer Preference in Southern Italy. (2016). Agriculture and Agricultural Science Procedia, 8, 193–200. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aaspro.2016.02.093
Regulation—2018/848—EN - EUR-Lex. (n.d.). Retrieved May 1, 2024, from https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32018R0848
Vigar, V., Myers, S., Oliver, C., Arellano, J., Robinson, S., & Leifert, C. (2019). A Systematic Review of Organic Versus Conventional Food Consumption: Is There a Measurable Benefit on Human Health? Nutrients, 12(1), 7. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12010007