Comments on: How can it be justified to have organic food to cost more than conventionally raised food?

By: anigma

anigma — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 23:51:51 +0000

For farmers to register as ‘organic’ there are many hoops to jump through, which is time consuming and expensive.
The yields are usually lower without using artificial fertilisers.
Supermarkets are fussy about the shape and size of the products and there is endless sorting and classifying.
There are probably more reasons as well but I can’t think of them at the moment.
I produce vegetables organically and three quarters of all my courgette plants were eaten by slugs before they matured enough to produce anything. Organic slug pellets don’t seem to work as well as the nasty blue ones with substance in them which harms birds and hedgehogs etc who eat the slugs affected.
Organic farmers have plenty of bigger problems than that and I for one am glad that they are pesevering.

By: Keebler

Keebler — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 01:00:03 +0000

Organics cannot use pesticides or even herbicides and certain fertilizers. These items are cheaper than organic versions this adds to the cost. Organic pesticide, herbicide and fertilizers are not always as effective as non-organic variations. This means not as high yeild for an organic crop. When there is a limited supply of something the price goes up.

By: audacious83

audacious83 — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:09:00 +0000

Crop rotations, higher animal welfare standards and restricted use of chemicals, leading to lower yields, all mean that organic food costs more to produce. Subsidies from the government are paid mainly to farmers with non-organic farms allowing them to keep their prices low. The pro-organic lobby argue that when buying non-organic food you are in fact paying threefold; once at the counter, second via taxation and third to remedy the environmental pollution. As the sector develops and technologies are improved, the cost of organic food should decrease as yields increase and production costs decrease.
Here is a link I provided you which I think you will find interesting.
Organic vs Non-organic Farming - The Debate

By: Irish_alley

Irish_alley — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:09:57 +0000

because its more rare and supply and demand also i big part of it think about when there is abundance of corn the price is real low but in drought the price is out the roof lol

By: swissgirl

swissgirl — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:50:09 +0000

it’s more time consuming and expensive to have organic food raised. not only are you not allowed to treat with chemicals, but also must the soil be free of any artificial stuff. plus, you probably don’t reach the same capacity and lower numbers usually means higher price.

By: pixieotr

pixieotr — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 21:08:04 +0000

there is a very simple answer to your question. I drove semi and delivered produce for a while. a lot of the organic farms are located in california as are the larger commercial farms. the large farms are thousands of acres and ship mass amounts of food. the commercial farms are 100 acres or less and do less shipping. it takes more work to fertilize and do pest control on an organic farm per acre than on one who sprays chemicals therefore more$ for labor the small guy pays 4X as much in shipping because he ships less than a truck load at a time therefore more $ in shipping
more$ labor +more $ for shipping = higher cost