Organic Farming Benefits

Nourishment and Flavor: Organic farming begins with the nourishment of the soil, which eventually leads to the nourishment of the plant, and ultimately to our palates for complete nourishment and enhanced flavor.

Help Small Farms: Most organic farms are small and independently operated. Organic farming could be one of the few survival tactics left for family farms.

Support a True Economy: Conventional food prices do not reflect hidden costs of non-organic farming borne by taxpayers, including billions of dollars in federal subsidies, pesticide regulation, hazardous waste disposal and environmental damage.

Keep Chemicals Off Your Plants: The EPA considers that 60% of all herbicides, 90% of all fungicides, and 30% of all insecticides are carcinogenic. In addition to cancer, pesticides are implicated in respiratory problems, birth defects, nerve damage, and genetic mutation.

Promote Diversity: Agricultural mono cropping on large, industrialized farms has reduced the natural diversity of plant life and left the soil lacking in natural minerals and nutrients, which are then replaced by chemical fertilizers. Single crops are also much more susceptible to pests, making farming more reliant on pesticides.

Protect Farm Worker Health: A National Cancer Institute study found that farmers exposed to herbicides had six (6) times greater risk than non-farmers of contracting cancer. In California, reported pesticides poisonings among farm workers are increasing, and field workers suffer the highest rates of occupational illness in the state.

Protect Future Generations: The average child receives four times more exposure than an adult to at least eight widely used cancer causing pesticides in food. The food choices you make now will have an impact upon your child's health in the future.

Protect Water Quality: The EPA estimates that pesticides, some cancer causing, contaminate the groundwater in 38 states, polluting the primary source of drinking water for more than half the country's population.

Prevent Soil Erosion: Under present day conventional farming, soil is eroding seven times faster than the rate of the soil's natural replacement. Soil is the foundation of the food chain in organic farming.

Save Energy: Modern farming uses more petroleum than any other single industry, consuming 12% of the country's total energy supply. More energy is now used to produce synthetic fertilizers than to till, cultivate, and harvest all U.S. crops. Organic farming uses green manures and crop covers rather than synthetic fertilizers to build up soil. Organic produce also tends to travel fewer miles from field to table.

Cost of Conventional Food: "Cheap" food has hidden costs that we must evaluate. Damage to water supplies, topsoil runoff, harm to wildlife, health problems of farm families and workers bring the social and environmental costs of "cheap" food to an estimated $8 billion per year. We pay that cost through our taxes. If these costs were factored into the price of conventionally grown food, the cost of organically grown food would compare very favorably and constitute a better overall value.

Cost of Organic Food: Organic agriculture utilizes conservation practices that protect soil, water, and air. These costs are an investment in the future. The industry is small and cannot take advantage of the economies of large-scale production. Organic practices are labor-intensive. Organic farming is not subsidized to the same extent as conventional agriculture.

For more information on organic farming:

[Alternative Farming Systems Information Center]  [Organic Agriculture at FAO]