Certified Organic - Pro's & Con's
People are beginning to believe that organic food is a bit of a con, that it is not all that it is cracked up to be and they resent having to pay a premium for it. The organic movement itself has not helped matters much, either. There are several groups of bodies licensed to declare products as organic, each with differing criteria for what constitutes organic. They all have their own organic certification systems, with no real consistency of standards. We apparently don't have enough organic food to meet demands so we have to rely on other countries to make up our shortfall. More than 30 percent of organic products are imported, some even flown in from sub-Saharan Africa. Does that make sense? Especially when so many hungry people there are too poor to buy the food grown in their own countries? The differential in price is not matched by a discernible improvement in quality. Whether or not the organic sector flourishes or fades will not depend on public demand or public scepticism. It will depend on what the supermarkets decide to sell us. And, Tesco's sell £1bn of organic produce a year (Source: Guardian article 2002).
Organic certification mainly applies to food products at present. There are several organic certification bodies within the UK, all of which conform to the standards laid down by the EU (Taken from aboutorganics.co.uk) Look out for independent certification codes or logo's on the products you purchase.
UK1 - DEFRA
UK2 - Organic Farmers and Growers (OF&G)
UK6 - Demeter / Bio-Dynamic Agriculture Association (BDAA)
Note: Food Certification (Scotland) Ltd provides organic certification for farmed salmon in the UK. While UK regulations permit local certification, EC regulations do not yet address organic fish farming.
Officials say it costs £500 to go through certification and then once you are approved, you pay a percentage of your sales to the certification group. It currently takes 3 years for a farm to pass the rigorous conversion to the higher farming standards. This is a difficult time period for any farmer where the time and effort to produce their food is greater, but they can only sell their food at commercial prices. It is often thought that organic food prices are too high! After all the ideals behind organic farming lay the standard by which food should be farmed as a minimum. Perhaps it is because we have become conditioned to the artificially lower prices of poor quality, nutrient deficient fodder that we take this view that organic is expensive.
Despite all this the organic sector of the food market has been consistently growing over the last 10 years to the point that many larger food corporations have begun not only to show an interest but to purchase successful organic companies in order to have their share of the market. Some examples of this include American food giant, Dean Foods bought Welsh brand Rachel's organic; Cadbury Schweppes purchased the original organic chocolate brand Green and Black's; confectionery giant Mars bnow own Seeds of Change; and French giant Danone own Brown cow and Stonyfield organics. It is difficult to accept the very opposite ethical stance taken by such companies who trade at such opposite ends of the quality and nutrient spectrum. When big business get involved the need to maiximise profit always begins to have it's influence and quality starts to become affected. Instead of producing the best food possible the focus may become on skimming the absolute surface of EU organic standards to be sure they can be certified and sold in this highly lucrative market.
The Soil Association state that the standards set by organic agriculture ensure that
- Organic farming prohibits the use of artificial chemical fertilisers and severely restricts the use of pesticide
- Instead, organic farmers rely on developing a healthy, fertile soil and growing a mixture of crops
- Animals are reared without the routine use of drugs, antibiotics and wormers common in intensive livestock farming
This is the ideal! This is what is being sought after from organic farming. However we must not assume that just because something is certified organic that is is healthy. It is still possible to buy organic chocolate chip cookies which contain highly refined ingredients that will not build good health. If anything organic standards generally guarantee the removal of most of the undesirable elements that have crept into the food chain, no pesticides, no GMO, no harmful additives, no routine antibiotics, no irradiation and no damaging animal husbandry. These are all great, but foods can still be damaged in processing and made less nutritious through certain business practices. If an organic apple is shipped from New Zealand then it will be picked unripe. This can significantly reduce the nutrient levels within that apple as it will be many more weeks before it is eaten by the consumer. The sooner food can be eaten buy the consumer the better chance that indiviual has of receiving maximum nutrient density.
In some cases it may be better to eat well produced, non certifed local produce in order to ensure higher levels of nutrients. Remember the ideal of organic is what should be sought for, whether it is certified and carries the organic stamp of approval or not. In order to eat your produce seasonally see our guide.
