Question

Mgmt exam

2. What are the benefits and pitfalls to both the farmer and consumer for producing and consuming organic foods?

Answer 1

Benefits organic food:

Here are the major benefits of organic farming: It helps in maintaining environment health by reducing the level of pollution. It reduces human and animal health hazards by reducing the level of residues in the product. It helps in keeping agricultural production at a higher level and makes it sustainable.

How your food is grown or raised can have a major impact on your mental and emotional health as well as the environment. Organic foods often have more beneficial nutrients, such as antioxidants, than their conventionally-grown counterparts and people with allergies to foods, chemicals, or preservatives often find their symptoms lessen or go away when they eat only organic foods.

Organic produce contains fewer pesticides. Chemicals such as fungicides, herbicides, and insecticides are widely used in conventional agriculture and residues remain on (and in) the food we eat.

Organic food is often fresher because it doesn’t contain preservatives that make it last longer. Organic produce is often (but not always, so watch where it is from) produced on smaller farms near where it is sold.

Organic farming is better for the environment. Organic farming practices reduce pollution, conserve water, reduce soil erosion, increase soil fertility, and use less energy. Farming without pesticides is also better for nearby birds and animals as well as people who live close to farms.

Organically raised animals are NOT given antibiotics, growth hormones, or fed animal byproducts. Feeding livestock animal byproducts increases the risk of mad cow disease (BSE) and the use of antibiotics can create antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. Organically-raised animals are given more space to move around and access to the outdoors, which help to keep them healthy.

Organic meat and milk are richer in certain nutrients. Results of a 2016 European study show that levels of certain nutrients, including omega-3 fatty acids, were up to 50 percent higher in organic meat and milk than in conventionally raised versions.

Organic food is GMO-free. Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) or genetically engineered (GE) foods are plants whose DNA has been altered in ways that cannot occur in nature or in traditional crossbreeding, most commonly in order to be resistant to pesticides or produce an insecticide.

In organic farming, crops, meat and other food are produced without chemicals. Fertilizers, pesticides, growth hormones and antibiotics are forbidden. During thousands of years of civilization the raising of animals and growing of plants have always been organic.

Chemicals for farming first came up at the turn of the 20th century. Widespread use of chemicals began after World War II.

In the 1950s and 60s farmers started using chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Recently, however, more and more farmers have been returning to more natural ways of producing farm products.

Instead of chemicals, organic farming uses a lot of organic matter to give crops the nutrients that they need to grow. Clover, for example, has a lot of nitrogen in it and farmers use it to make the soil better. Manure from animals and compost are also used to enrich the soil. These fertilizers also help conserve the soil, not destroy it after a few years.

Organic farmers also use crop rotation to preserve the good qualities of soils and avoid monoculture.

Chemical pesticides destroy or weaken many of the natural enemies of pests, like birds or frogs. They also can kill those insects that control a great number of pests.

Organic farming creates new living areas for wasps, bugs, beetles and flies by giving them water and food.

Weeds are controlled by using special machines. Hay, straw and wood chips are put between the rows of plants to stop weeding.

Many agricultural products can be produced in an organic way. Meat, dairy products and eggs come from animals that are fed organically and can graze outdoors. They live in conditions that are natural to them. Cows, for example, are kept in pastures and fields. Vegetables

For Farmers

• PGS can be adapted to local conditions (e.g. processes can be defined to fit cultural habits and the capabilities of the producers) and involve ongoing farmer-to-farmer exchange.
• Low-cost certification with much less bureaucracy compared to third- party alternatives. This gives farmers access to organic markets they could otherwise not sell their produce at.

For Consumers

• A credible guarantee that the food they are buying has been grown organically. As there are no high third-party certification costs, the price remains affordable for the consumer and fair for the farmer.
• The chance to become more involved in the food-growing process e.g. by visiting farms and participating in the peer review process to make sure the farmer is complying with organic standards.

Disadvantage: The Cost Factor

Let's start with the most obvious disadvantage of organic food: It almost always costs more than conventionally grown food. That's a small wonder when you consider the long list of cost- and production-optimizing practices that are common on conventional farms but aren't allowed on organic farms.

These include genetically modified organisms, conventional pesticides, herbicides, petroleum-based and sewage-sludge-based fertilizers, antibiotics, growth hormones and irradiation. Depending on what's being produced, the scarcity of organic raw materials can ratchet costs up too.

For many consumers of organic food, the mandated absence of these practices is worth the extra cost. But the stark truth is that many people simply can't afford the difference in cost.

There's a different sort of cost factor for farmers: the learning curve they must undergo if they choose to transition from conventional to organic farming. Suddenly they must master a whole new set of agricultural principles, with both guidance and skilled labor less readily available than they are for conventional agriculture.

Too Costly and Restrictive

Some farms follow largely organic production practices but haven't actually pursued organic certification, either because they find the letter of the organic standards to be too restrictive (consider the previous point regarding sustainable farming), or because of the extra costs involved that they don't want to pass on to the consumer. (Becoming USDA Certified Organic can cost anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars.)

While those might be considered disadvantages to the organic label, they're also a great reason to get to know your local farmers. If you stop by the farmer's market or farm stand during a time when it's not very busy, farmers are often happy to discuss their philosophies and farming practices.

Other problems for organic foods include changing perceptions about just how much healthier they are than non-organics. “Many devotees of organic foods purchase them in order to avoid exposure to harmful levels of pesticides,” writes Henry I. Miller in Forbes. “But that’s a poor rationale: Non-organic fruits and vegetables had more pesticide residue, to be sure, but more than 99 percent of the time the levels were below the permissible, very conservative safety limits set by regulators—limits that are established by the Environmental Protection Agency and enforced by the Food and Drug Administration.”

He adds that just because a farm is organic doesn’t mean the food it produces will be free of potentially toxic elements. While organic standards may preclude the use of synthetic inputs, organic farms often utilize so-called “natural” pesticides and what Miller calls “pathogen-laden animal excreta as fertilizer” that can also end up making consumers sick and have been linked to cancers and other serious illnesses (like their synthetic counterparts). Miller believes that as more consumers become aware of these problems, the percentage of the agriculture market taken up by organics will begin to shrink.

Another challenge facing the organic sector is a shortage of organic raw materials such as grain, sugar and livestock feed. Without a steady supply of these basics, organic farmers can’t harvest enough products to make their businesses viable. Meanwhile, competition from food marketed as “locally grown” or “natural” is also cutting into organic’s slice of the overall agriculture pie.

Organic agriculture is sure to keep growing for years to come. And even if the health benefits of eating organic aren’t significant, the environmental advantages of organic agriculture—which are, of course, also public health advantages—make the practice well worth supporting.