Reasons to Support Organic, Locally Grown Produce

Recently, the organic food industry has been faced with criticism. People are starting to question the practicalness of even growing organic. Here are two key issues:

1. Why grow organic when you can have double or triple the yield using genetically modified crops and fertilizers & pesticides? People are starving in the world! Don't be so ungrateful, be happy that there's even food on the table!

Answer: People are starving in the world while billions of pounds of wasted food are being dumped into landfills every year. This has been going on since we started to increase our yields using chemicals and hormones. Where do you think all those perfect grapes go at the supermarket...do you think they are all bought up by the expiry date? They get thrown out. Ever go behind a supermarket and see how much good food they dump? People are starving because of selfish political reasons, not because there is not enough food to go around.

2. The impact on the planet may actually be worse when transporting organic food from remote locations.

There is an idea behind the whole organic movement. Its about sustainability, not "I must buy organic at any cost." It's about locally grown produce from farms in your area. The only reason it's getting so carbon inefficient is because of faceless corporations trying to make a quick buck (and people who mindlessly buy stuff that is trendy.)

Corporations are the ones who are shipping organics from a million miles away. They are buying out the small local organic farmers or out-competing them by offering the lowest prices on organic foods. They have taken this organic idea and "spun" it to become "organic food for everyone, RIGHT NOW!" and obviously the fastest way to do this is to ship it from other places. They don't care about making real changes, they're just driven to make money.

If you care about this, next time you go to your supermarket, try getting organic LOCAL food and if they don't have any request the manager to stock it.

Another thing to think about is that growing organic does not mean going back to being an Amish farmer and regressing 100 years in time. Organics may be less efficient without using chemicals NOW but only because we have been relying on chemicals for a hundred years and not developing/perfecting natural ways to counter pests. When given time and $ to research it, I'm sure we can think of millions of ways to stop crops from getting eaten by bugs (for example getting ladybugs to eat pest aphids.)

If you think about this whole issue a little more, the inefficiency is a result of infrastructure segregation. Meaning, farms are way out THERE and cities are dense concrete monstrosities, with no room for crop gardens of any kind. A simple, gradual, cost effective solution is to integrate gardens into the cities and to increase the number of local farms. Not only would that be easy on the eyes, but introducing more plants into the city can help get rid of CO2 emissions and other toxins.

If you are a "glass is half empty" person/don't want anything to change/think that nothing can be improved/prefer ingesting chemicals then keep doing what you're doing.

Feedback appreciated :)