OORGANIC FOOD is not nutritionally superior to conventionally produced food.
This finding, in an independent review commissioned by the United Kingdom’s Food Standards Agency, has given fuel to the unproductive controversy over organic versus conventional food production.
Wrote lead researcher Alan Dangour of the study that reviewed 162 scientific papers published over the last 50 years: “Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority.”
The finding was a surprise to many. But perception of superior nutrition is – or was – only one of the reasons some people choose organic food over that which is conventionally produced.
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Other reasons include perceived superior taste, concerns about possible pesticide residue, source country or region, ideas about environmental sustainability, animal welfare issues or labour practices related to food production and trade.
From an organic grower’s point of view, the choice of production method may be made for any or all of the above reasons, in addition to the fact that it can be profitable.
From a conventional farmer’s point of view, the important point in this study is not that organic food is no healthier, but that conventionally produced food is no less healthy.
Conventional farmers and their supporters may feel vindicated by this study, which supports their long-held contentions.
Organic farmers and proponents may feel threatened and obliged to discount the research findings. In fact, this is already happening.
These reactions, though understandable, will serve to widen the gap between two methods that each has a place in modern food production.
Food is about more than nutrition.
Conventional agriculture, with its use of fertilizer, pesticides, intensive production methods and biotechnology, will be tasked to feed a steadily growing world population.
As Texas A & M professor and Nobel peace prize winner Norman Borlaug wrote in the Wall Street Journal on July 30, “consider that current agricultural productivity took 10,000 years to attain the production of roughly six billion gross tons of food per year.
“Today, nearly seven billion people consume that stockpile almost in its entirety every year. Factor in growing prosperity and nearly three billion new mouths by 2050, and you quickly see how the crudest calculations suggest that within the next four decades the worlds’ farmers will have to double production.”
That doubling of production isn’t going to occur via organic agriculture. That is not to say that such production doesn’t have its place, its growers and its consumers.
However, it is time for us to put aside the unproductive debate over the superiority of one production method over another. We have the means to feed the world and the means to address specific consumer desires in terms of food production.
Arguing over method is a distraction from the important tasks of improved production and optimum land use that will allow all kinds of farmers to help feed a hungry world.
Bruce Dyck, Terry Fries, Barb Glen, D’Arce McMillan and Ken Zacharias collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.
