How Beneficial Are Organic Foods?Essay title: How Beneficial Are Organic Foods?How beneficial are organic foods?What is organic? Something that is organic is natural and produced without the use of genetically modified organisms. Research shows that consuming organic foods is healthier for ones body. Consuming only organic foods is a simple way to restore, maintain or improve ones health by reducing the level of toxin intake and increasing the level of nutrients in ones body. Farmers use pesticides on their crops to keep bugs and insects away. Pesticides enable farmers to grow apples without worms, green beans without bug bites scarring them and ears of sweet corn without bugs in the kernels (Goldberg, 2005). This is good for the farmer, but what about the humans consuming that food? It is best to find organic products and only consume them. People choose to buy organic food not only because it healthier, but also it is fresher and tastes better. Some even say that eating organic products gives them more energy.
Organic farming became popular around the early 1900’s because farmers were looking for a healthier approach to farming. The organic approach emphasized all natural products for soil, plants and animals. Animals feed on plants and in order for the animals to be considered organic they must only consume organic plants. The soil the plants grow on must be organic as well in order for the plants to be considered organic. Stores are even required to shelve organic products in an area where the products will not be exposed to excess water runoff from nonorganic foods because it can contaminate organic items with pesticide residue (Consumer Reports, 2006). For a product to be considered organic everything must be natural, thus making it very difficult to be an organic farmer. It takes extra work, careful attention, and it is also more costly. It costs a lot more to grow everything without the use of pesticides, as pesticides do serve a purpose. Pesticides keep away bugs and insects from getting to the produce and eating away at it. Without the use of pesticides farmers run a bigger risk of losing a good majority of their crops to bugs and insects. However, using these pesticides and toxins creates a potential danger to the humans consuming these products.
There are many different types of pesticides and chemicals that are used that can harm the human body. Hormones are injected in animals to help them get fat. Consumer Reports states “Studies show that synthetic growth hormones may be carcinogenic and that exposure to them may be linked to the precocious onset of puberty in girls” (2006). There also antibiotics used to help speed up the growth of animals and help protect the animal from potential health issues from being cooped up so closely with other animals. Humans that consume these antibiotics run the risk of increasing resistance to other drugs and medicine. Chickens may consume heavy metals, or even arsenic if not raised right. Animals feet are sometimes dipped in motor oil as a treatment for an ailment called scary leg mite (Consumer Reports, 2006). Humans should not be consuming things like motor oil, arsenic, heavy metals, pesticide sprays, and hormones as long as one can prevent it.
By eating an apple that is not organic is does not mean that one is swallowing a great amount of pesticide. The amount of toxins in one apple is small, but is still poison consumed. One can simply wash the apple but it does not remove the pesticides and other harmful toxins away completely. What about eating a steak? If a cow is raised in an environment surrounded by toxins then the cow ingests the toxins. When the human eats a piece of meat from the cow, the human ingests those toxins the cow was subjected to. For every product consumed that is not organic, one consumes a tiny bit of toxins and chemicals that certainly are not good for the body. Over time, those small amounts of toxins become harmful and potentially dangerous to ones health. Eating organic products reduces the amount of toxin intake and results a healthier body. Many people across the world are now making an effort to be conscious of what they consume and the organic food industry is growing rapidly.
It was not until the 1970’s that organic farming really began to boom. Global movements became popular and people became more concerned with the environment than ever. Around the 1980’s consumers began to pressure the government to step in and create regulations for organic farmers. Certification standards were placed on organic foods. By 1990 organic food was on the retail market and in grocery stores everywhere (Goldberg, 2005). Today consumers have become more concerned about the quality of food, their environment and their bodies and organic food is becoming something that is in every household. Consumer Reports (2006) states, “During the past decade, U.S. organic sales have grown 20 percent or more annually. Nearly two- thirds of U.S.
The Organic Market in India and India’s Organic Food
The main market for all organic food is India, which has some 600 million people (i.e. approximately 1% of the world’s consumer population) (Zumahiri, 2005). It is the only food and vegetable market in India (2), with prices ranging from Rs.12 to Rs.25 per gram and availability is limited mainly to pulses (4) and vegetables (5) (Zumahiri, 2005). Many organic markets, such as India’s Organic Market and the Indian Organic Food Market (ODFA) (in Gujarat), are run by a single national government (Gadu, 2011).
While all the food and vegetable in India is produced by different manufacturers and sold on various markets in different countries (Zumahiri, 2005), there is no competition. Indian organic farmers come from more than 200 different countries (Gadu, 2011). It is the only country that has not produced a single vegetable or fruit as a commodity. So the only competition is the lack of knowledge by the farmer about the products of organic farming. This problem has contributed to the fact that all the organic food (which is a major factor in India’s organic market) is produced by producers, and the majority are organic certified (UCCs). The quality of the organic food has been decreasing for the past 10 years, mostly as a result of the price reduction introduced in 2014 by the Ministry of Agriculture (Uttarakhand). Currently, there are over 100 organic growers in India. It is estimated that around 80 percent do not have enough permits to produce a large quantity of food per month (Gadu, 2011).
In May, the European Union introduced regulations on organic markets (Federate Regulation, 2014, P. 27, §5, EEC 2013, P. 11/8/2013). At the time, all producers in India, including that of the two major organic countries of India, agreed to have their products reviewed by the European Commission. Currently, farmers still have to purchase all organic food at 100 percent of their cost (Ori, 2007). But, in March 2015, the European Commission launched a public campaign to get some clarity on the situation regarding the market, and the organic food companies have announced plans to bring in more stringent regulations for the food and vegetables in their organic markets.
The Organic Industry and The Food Industry in India
India’s traditional food industry has remained intact. There were around 5 and 6 million tonnes harvested in India in 2004, mainly from the potato and black market and other organic products. But in the 1990s, it was the focus of agriculture on improving the quality of the organic food that led the way to the invention of the Bharat Agricultural Marketing (BAMMA) system. The Bharat-Agricultural Marketing (BAMMA) is the first commercial version of the BAMMA system in India (Z