Is organic food more ethical than intensively produced food?
Here are some Druidic opinions, what are yours? Please send them to the ethical coroinator for sharing within the ethical debate pages.
Cathi Yarrow : Yes, most of the time. But if organic production is done with the same mindset as intensive production - that is, for profit alone, then it's no more ethical although physically it may be better for the earth. If we buy organic from supermarkets rather than support local non-organically certified producers (who may still be growing organically) then it's no more ethical, and just as self-obsessed. Food produced with love and honour is always best. And food produced with love, honour, organically and biodynamically is just tops!
Hrafn : Organic would be my preference, but it is hardly ethical to not feed people, and practically that means intensive agriculture.
Willowwind : From the point of sustainability, long term use of chemical fertilizer kills the organic component in the soil (all the little beasties that make the exchange of nutrients between soil and plant happen). This is known at all the soil science departments at all the universities in the US. My own alma mater is a land grant university with a huge agricultural department and they have known this for years. They teach it to their regular students and they teach it to their Master Gardener program. Once the organic component is dead, the soil is dead. It won't matter how many tons of chemical nitrogen you dump on it, it will no longer produce unless you can somehow re-introduce the organisms - by organic methods like compost. Organic is not just a matter of ethics. It's a matter of long term necessity. Why is chemical fertilizer still the norm in commercial farming? Pure short term economics. Which we will all pay for in the long run.
