ORGANIC VS NON ORGANIC
Review by Fatima
Baloch
The knowledge in not uncommon among the masses, people are
well aware of the harmful chemicals in non organic foods that can cause damage
to their health. The process starts from the sowing of the crops when the crops
encounter many dangers posed by pests, pesticides are used to protect them from
these dangers, but these chemicals get absorbed in the food that we eat
resulting in various diseases and defects. The government policies do not help
much to stop these practices and save innocent soul from suffering harm at the
hands of the companies that sell these pesticides, the information provided to
the common man regarding the levels of harm caused by these chemicals is
disguised in such a way that one would not know the exact dangers of consuming
these non organic foods. Hormones are fed to the animals before they are
slaughtered so as to make them meatier and more tempting as food for man, where
in lies many threats for the animal’s health and ultimately for the health of
the consumers. These growth hormones can be cancerous for us, yet no severe
actions have been taken to ban these practices.
The problem lies in
the shortage of the resources that we once had in abundance to grow food,
plenty of fertile land and plenty of water and a suitable weather for cropping.
Man has exploited and exhausted all these to such great extents that the old,
simple and natural ways no longer serve the purpose for growing food. The seeds
are genetically engineered because they are more productive but in turn they
take up the fertility from the ground, the ground then would need artificial
ways of fertility to grow more crops and this is provided through chemicals
alone.
Sewage sludge is
often used to provide the required nutrition to the soil; sewage sludge is
basically human excretions and acts as a natural fertilizer. They are not
costly, easy to obtain and a reasonably good way of recycling human waste, but
it has been revealed now that those crops grown with the help of sewage sledge
can cause life long illnesses.
Antibiotics are fed
to the animals that we eat, these are absorbed in turn by our bodies in large
amounts, and one is required to know the mechanism of antibiotics to understand
how these can adversely affect our immune system, leaving man defenseless in
the face of thousands of diseases and infections.
These are the
various methods through which food is treated to make it free from pests and
bacteria, one such method is known as irradiation. This method requires the
food to be exposed to radiations as the bacteria are unable to survive effects
of the radiation process; unfortunately food processed in this way too is
disastrous for the human health.
The agriculture industry, therefore, can be held responsible
for half the diseases that man faces in his lifetime.
One may ask whether
this is all that non-organic food has to offer or there are some advantages to
it too. Well every man made thing comes with advantages and disadvantages, non
organic foods too have their own set of advantages, however, the disadvantages
here have an edge over them and are more prominent now.
Non organic foods can be more nutritious, less costly, free
from the contaminations that organic foods possess and most feasible to produce
with the limited natural resources man has in present times.
Now that people are
fast becoming aware of the dangers of consuming non organic foods and turning
toward organic food to preserve their health, we may discuss in detail the
benefits and disadvantages that are associated with non organic food. Organic
food is grown naturally and is free from all the above mentioned artificial
ways that are used to boost production,
they are free from antibiotics, growth hormones, radiations effects, contaminations
from human waste, artificial pesticides and fertilizers. Natural ways of
farming have always been preferred by the farmers as they give appropriate
amounts of nutrition back to the soil leaving it fertile for the next batch of
crops. However, organic farming is not necessarily traditional or natural
farming; organic foods strictly stick to organic means and traditional foods
use varied amount of artificial methods to enjoy protection, increase in yield
and nutrition. There is trend of moving towards strictly healthy food items, so
people are driven more towards organic than they are towards traditional foods.
Organic farming also is safer for the
environment as it does not cause as much pollution as non organic ways of
farming. A healthy, pollution free environment ensures better health for the
humans as well as for the livestock. Certain crops are food for certain animals
that man consumes, if these animals eat crops in the farm that are laden with
pesticides and other harmful chemicals then they would end up in our body when
we consume them, in the end the loss is suffered by man alone. The livestock
that has been fed with growth hormones might tempt one more as compared with a
naturally grown animal, as there would be considerable difference between their
weights and anyone would want more of something especially when that ‘more’ of
a particular thing is less costly. But
when one knows that the threats posed to our health by this non organic food
are too many to be counted on the fingers then one would know better than to
opt for the meatier livestock.
There is a
considerable difference in the tastes of both kinds of foods, organic food
tastes like real food aside from looking real too, but the problem is that
consumers have become used to the taste of non organic food and to their
appearance that makes organic food look small, hence less desirable. Non
organic food is much sweeter, juicier and addictive than organic food.
Non organic food can
make you lose your wealth that lies in being healthy, it can cause diseases
that have no cure, many birth defects, cancers, Alzheimer’s disease and obesity
are few that can be named after much research was done on these foods. Pregnant
women should avoid non organic foods at all costs unless they want their babies
to be born with defects and suffer all their lives. The foods carry all sorts
of nutrition in balanced amounts which is suitable for our bodies, but when man
decides to play with nature, tampering with the genes of crops and using
artificial methods, the balance is affected and becomes highly unsuitable for
our bodies.
It is indeed
ironical how people want to look young and smart yet consume pesticides to take
away all the youth and beauty that lies in them. Man can defend himself well as
provide many excuses of opting for non organic foods especially in this age of
recession when prices on all items are sky high and even the rich cannot afford
the luxuries they once used to take for granted. How can anyone afford healthy
or better put as organic food when it is expensive and lesser in amount or size
when compared with non organic food.
Globally there is a
different in the consumption of organic and non organic foods because all the
countries have different economies, agricultural practices, resources and
consumption needs to meet. America
is one of those nations which have taken steps in restoring natural ways of
agricultural. The Americans are quickly adapting to organic food and the
increase in sales in the past few years have revealed that this is becoming the
trend in health conscious nations, Americans are realizing fast now that they
have one of the highest disease rates in the world and it desperately needs to
be controlled.
European countries
are investing little land resources for the production of organic foods. Foods
that are considered organic in one country might not meet the terms and
conditions of being organic in other countries. Australia , Mexico , Romania , China , Denmark and Germany are
some of the winners among the top most organic food producing nations; these
nations are doing their citizens a huge favor by keeping themselves away from
unhealthy organic foods.
However, all nations do not think alike, it’s a capitalist
society and there is tough competition, therefore every agricultural country
would thrive for increasing the per acre yield of its crop, meeting the needs
of the citizens and exporting more and more food to countries that are facing
food shortage.
There is hype about
global warming nowadays and people are getting concerned about the practices of
man leading to warming of the climate, in the same as they are also concerned
about non organic farming activities that give rise to the amount of carbon in
the atmosphere. Global warming results when greenhouse gases are released in
excess into the atmosphere and these form a blanket over the earth’s atmosphere
trapping unnecessary heat from the sunlight and warming the climate. Global
warming is affecting the agricultural factors negatively, the weather becomes
warmer and unsuitable for crops and flooding at the coastal areas makes it even
more difficult for farmers to grow crops without the help of synthetics. Organic
farming however catches the carbon from the atmosphere and adds it back into
the ground which makes lands fertile for further cropping. Non organic crops
leave residues of pesticides in the soil whereas organic crops leave organic
matter into the soil making it nutritious for crops.
The food shortage in
the world is ever increasing pressing upon agricultural nations to produce
more, it’s a necessity to produce more but how can one do this with minimal
resources without damaging our climate and human health. Organic farming can
solve the problems of restoring nutritious soil and a pollution free environment.
Organic farming relies on methods that do not exhaust all the natural resources
and leave enough nutrition for the forth coming batches of crops. Soil
organisms are used as a substitute for pesticides, instead of using sewage
sludge, farmers should go back to the traditional methods of fertilizing the
soil which is through wastes of animals for example cow dung, even the
household wastes in the form of left over organic food or the peels of
vegetables can be reused as fertilizers for crops. Crop rotation is one way
farmers are adopting readily to save the essential minerals in the soil, crop
rotation is when the same piece of land in used to grow different types of
crops, as growing the same crop on the same land will eventually result in the
loss of nutrients from the soil in that area. Genetically modified seeds not
only absorb excessive nutrients from the soil they are grown in but also take
away fertility from the surrounding areas. Double cropping is one solution
which can be applied to the situation, double cropping is when more than one
crop is grown in the same growing period, the second crop is sown as soon as
the first is harvested. New ways of irrigation should be adopted by the
farmers, as the old and traditional ways result in the wastage of precious
water resources. Water logging is an old way in which a large volume of water
is released into the fields and as it keeps standing in fields, most of it is
evaporated into arid atmospheres and some of it is absorbed by the plants. The
traditional methods ultimately prove to be more costly and therefore in order
to get their money back the farmers and investors are forced to sell their
crops at higher prices. Spray irrigation is a new way of irrigating, as the
name suggests, fields are not flooded with water; instead it is sprayed onto
the crops providing them with a balanced amount of water. Drip irrigation is
yet another method that is comparatively new for the farmers, water is carried
to the fields by pipes that have holes in them and water is released from these
holes drip by drip and is absorbed by the plants and soil resulting in no
wastage of water. Tampering with genes of living organisms through cloning,
etc, can result in new species and this practice is even considered unethical
by many nations, especially when the modifications are applied to animals.
Genetically modified food can stay ripe over a longer period of time, changing
the taste of natural food during the process, this however is very tempting for
the investors and farmers but do not attract the consumers, many experiments in
the bio technological industry have backfired and these unnatural changes were
rejected by the masses. Cloning animals can be a topic for debate as people of
the world have varied thought regarding these practices for business purposes.
The laws still have not permitted companies to put meat and milk of cloned
animals up on the shelves for sale, the regulatory bodies are unsure of how
these products would be received by the public, will there be outright rejections
and protests or initial resistance followed by the gradual acceptance. However
recent information regarding genetically modified livestock has revealed that a
genetically modified salmon would be soon entering the food markets. The public
firstly detests the idea of having to eat artificial animals and bear concerns
regarding the harmful factors these may possess; after all it does look shady
to the people to be faced with a dinner table adorned by gigantic animals
available for their consumption.
The companies that produce pesticides and
chemicals have been bombarded with different allegations of posing dangers to
the human health and spoiling the climate, these companies defend themselves by
experimenting on human beings to demonstrate that their pesticides are not as
harmful for humans as they are made out to be by different sources. This,
itself is, even more unethical, these companies want governing bodies to relax
their policies and regulations regarding pesticides and chemical usage.
One can easily
predict that the future of agriculture lies in producing organic food, not only
it is readily accepted and preferred by the public; it also saves many
resources that can be then utilized for other purposes. Health friendly crops
and livestock are more than welcome in today’s world where man is at a loss for
finding the cure to the various diseases that have been popping up from
consuming non organic foods, diseases such as mad cow disease, bird flu, birth
defects and cancers. It is not fair to say that organic food cannot meet the
needs of the people in terms of its yield, the artificial ways are too
expensive for the farmers anyways and it is healthier for the environment as
well to apply only organic methods of farming and save the world from a
catastrophe. It is not only the farmers that can make this change, but every
household can contribute by classifying the garbage that is collected within
their homes, the organic waste should be separated from the non organic wastes
and used for gardening to ensure healthier vegetables and fruits growing in
their backyard. The households that live in rural areas where agriculture is
the primary source of income, these can be the households of the farmers or
neighboring houses, in the same way they too can provide natural fertilizers
without even making much of an effort. It is high time that people start taking
these tiny steps in order to secure their health and environment, the effort is
minimal as compared to setting up huge laboratories that conduct experiments to
modify the crops and livestock.
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