The Arguments against Organic
The Arguments against Organic
November 8th, 2007
Cost. Organic food is expensive. Organic vegetables cost an average of 50 percent more in Bangkok supermarkets, according to a study performed by the US Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service. [2006 Thailand Organic Outlook]
Safety. Farmers still spray organic crops with chemicals, but the chemicals are plant-based, not synthetic. Studies examining whether plant-based chemicals are safer than their synthetic counterparts have had mixed results. Also, organic farmers use manure (khee wua) in place of synthetic fertilizers, setting the climate for bacteria and other biological contaminants to flourish, which could result in E.coli.
Inefficiency. Another critic’s theory states that organic farming is inefficient. One rai of organically farmed land produces a smaller harvest than one rai of conventionally farmed land. Approximately half of the earth’s surface (which is not covered in ice or sand) is land devoted to food production. As the population increases, either more land will need to be dedicated to farming, or our farmland will need to start producing larger harvests. Simply not enough land exists for the entire world population to subsist on organically farmed food.
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