Organic Food Can Be Good For You, But Bad For The Environment – Food

Organic foods have been on the rise since they were all the rage; vegetables, fruits, grains, dairy products and meat grown and processed using unconventional methods not only tend to have a high price, but are generally considered to be of better quality and healthier, although producing organic food products may not be good for the environment.

“Our study shows that organic peas, grown in Sweden, have about 50% more climate impact than conventionally grown peas,” said Stefan Wirsenius, associate professor at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.

Recently, it was reported that organic foods have a greater impact on Earth’s climate than previously thought, mainly due to the amount of land needed to grow them compared to foods grown conventionally, according to Economic times.

Organic food has become so popular in the United States that the United States Department of Agriculture has even provided certain requirements for the certification of organic products based on the amount of organic product.

Read also: Can eating organic reduce the risk of cancer? Hard to prove

Health benefits aside, the yields that each hectare produces for organically grown foods are much lower than conventionally grown foods due to the lack of fertilizer.

“For some food products there is an even bigger difference – for example, with organic Swedish winter wheat, the difference is closer to 70 percent,” Wirsenius said.

To produce the same amount of organic food that is grown conventionally, farmers need more land, the researchers say. Other foods such as organic meat and milk produced by organically fed livestock also require more land and resources, which is bad for climate change.

“The more land used in organic farming, the higher the carbon dioxide emissions, thanks to deforestation,” Wirsenius explained.

“If we use more land for the same amount of food, we are indirectly contributing to more deforestation elsewhere in the world,” he added. (acr / kes)