A recent scientific study has caused some alarm after it demonstrated, shock horror, that organic produce was likely no better for you than eating food produced by more conventional means. For some time now, certain eccentric corners of the green movement have warned of the apparent dangers of ingesting low levels of pesticides used to cultivate much of our supermarket produce, and praise organic food as a healthier alternative. The empirical ground for this claim was always flimsy, and it would appear that this line of reasoning has been dealt another blow. Knowing the dogmatic nature of many beholden to this view, I unfortunately don't see them changing tack anytime soon.
This is something of a pity as there are other more important, and more scientifically sound, reasons to support organic farming. What the furore over this recent study has revealed is that we often think about food production in ways that are much too narrow or simplistic. If we want to support organic farming, we need to question our assumptions about what organic farming is, how it differs from conventional farming, and what the benefits of choosing organic really are. My contribution to this question would be to suggest that the true value of organic food lies not in its flavour or its supposed health benefits, but in its contribution to limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Again, however, it would be a mistake to base our choices on this assumption alone - it's not as simple as organic = good and conventional = bad. I think we can best demonstrate the complexity of the issue by looking at a few specific examples.
Let's take French beans. It might seem self-evident that if we buy French beans grown in the UK, rather than beans imported from Nigeria, we would be doing the environment a favour. Things aren't that simple, though. If it turns out that the beans we bought in the UK, though local, were grown using mechanised labour and high levels of pesticides, the emissions associated with their production actually outweigh the emissions produced by the transportation of the beans from Nigeria. Provided the Nigerian beans were, as is likely, grown using more organic methods like hand-picking, it turns out they are the more sustainable product.
Another example: British tomatoes are often a good choice of sustainable produce when bought in the warmest summer months. However, if we buy British tomatoes towards the end of the season, or out of season, they are often grown using energy-intensive heated polytunnels or greenhouses. If we were to instead purchase tomatoes that had been grown in the warmer Spanish climate, we would actually be saving carbon emissions comparatively.
Aware of complications like these, the Soil Association decided to continue awarding organic status to food that had been transported by air, provided it met a certain criteria of cultivation. This decision was made in spite of the emissions associated with transportation of food to the UK, and recognised that looking at 'food miles' alone does not always give us the full picture. Whilst air-freighting remains a contentious issue, the Soil Association did at least try to recognise the complexity of establishing what is or is not organic or environmentally sustainable produce. What they demonstrated is that you can't simply focus on one aspect of food production, like transportation. Just as important as where our food comes from, is the question of how it is produced.
The difficulties do not stop there. Let me give you a final example. Chickpeas, as I'm sure you know, tend to come either raw and packaged in bags, or pre-cooked in tins. On the face of it, one might quite logically assume that purchasing the raw chickpeas was the more sustainable option. After all they are simply picked then dried in the sun before packaging. In this instance, it is the way the two products are cooked that causes the discrepancy. Raw chickpeas will be taken home and cooked in reasonably small quantities as needed, which is a relatively carbon-intensive process depending on your cooking method. This contrasts sharply with the tinned chickpeas which have also been cooked but in far greater quantities. The industrialised cooking of the tinned chickpeas actually makes them the more sustainable product.
Hopefully these examples will make you appreciate some of the challenges facing the conscientious consumer. Trying to find the most environmentally friendly produce is difficult enough when we consider individual products in isolation. The problem becomes magnified when you come to pre-cooked meals, for example, which contain many different individual ingredients. We can't, even at our most self-righteous, expect people to be able to make informed decisions about everything they buy. Quite simply they don't have the time, the information, or often the inclination.
The answer from many quarters has been to establish labelling systems for supermarket food, and I'm sure you will have noticed dozens of labels attached to a variety of produce. What you might not necessarily be aware of is the criteria that these organisations apply to the product you purchase. Red Tractor, for example, characterises its label as one that guarantees high standards of animal welfare. It has, however, been beset by accusations that many of the farms working with the organisation are in fact riddled with animal cruelty. It is only by knowing the values that your label represents that you can be sure that it meets the criteria you expect.
This leaves us in a bit of a quandary. In the same way as we can't legitimately expect people to research every product they buy, we can't also expect them to thoroughly research the evaluative methods employed by the organisations that label the produce in the first place. Short of labelling the labelers, what can be done? My answer to this question would be to suggest that without government intervention, most likely very little will change. Labels will remain confusing, companies will continue to place profits and customers above the demands of the planet and our food system will become ever more unsustainable. The sad but also completely understandable fact is that a great many people simply do not think about these issues, and changing the attitude of a nation towards food is something that takes an awful long time. Progress has doubtless been made, but progress is what it remains.
To achieve definite success, national or European government involvement is essential. In the same way as the EU has sought to provide minimum standards of animal welfare, by banning battery caging for hens and sow-stalls for pigs, so we must also look to provide minimum environmental standards across all food crops. A joint consultation between government, the public, and industry needs to take place to understand how far any change in our current model would impact upon food prices for both consumer and producer. But we should not forget that the planet has been made to bear the cost of our unsustainable food system for too long, and now, with time pressing, we should act to try and change it.
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