Organic Food and Locally Grown Food: Are They the Identical?

In the U.K., consumers are gobbling up organic food by the bushel. In fact, according to how to go vegan the Organic Centre Wales, "Direct sales of organic food via box schemes, farmers' markets and farm shops grew by much more than a third to L144 million during 2004." And those numbers have continued to rise as buyers turn out to be increasingly concerned about the long-term effects of the chemical fertilizers and pesticides used on crops grown by non-organic farms. Even though most men and women agree that organic food is preferable more than non-organic, a debate has begun about the supply of organic foods. For instance, is imported organic food as desirable as UK organic food?

Producing the Case for Neighborhood Organic Food

These on a single side of the debate insist it does not matter where organic food is grown rather, the essential aspect is that the food meets stringent requirements to make sure that it is really organic. Those on the other side of the debate are equally vehement that locally grown organic food is preferable to imported organic food, both simply because the fossil fuels used to transport imported organic food add to worldwide warming and simply because UK organic food supports the best local farmers.

Advocates say that you can uncover UK organic food at an organic farm shop, or even arrange for organic food delivery correct to your door. You can even uncover organic fish, such as organic trout from an organic fish farm. There, the organic trout could live in 400-year-old spring water and eat natural shrimp that comes from organic watercress beds.

These who favor importing organic food point out that an organic farm shop will only have seasonal foods, which severely limit the selections consumers have when preparing meals. Imported organic food, they say, retains its superior nutritional good quality although delivering a bountiful selection of fruits and vegetables.

Some men and women, of course, take the middle ground, and opt to choose their foods from an organic farm shop when what they want is in season and shop for imported organic food the remainder of the year.

The Bottom Line

Folks may possibly differ in their opinions about no matter whether or not to limit one's consumption of organic food to that grown locally, but practically everyone is it possible agrees that organic fruits, organic vegetables, organic fish, and organic meats are preferable to those that are grown with chemical fertilizers, insecticides, and fungicides.

At the moment, non-organic growers are authorized to use over 1,000 chemical substances on crops. This translates into every little thing from soil erosion due to over-farming to unsafe toxic runoff into our drinking water. Developing food organically is a way to reverse this trend. With more than 700,000 hectares committed to UK organic food, farmers are trying to meet customer demand. Nonetheless, some markets import practically half of the organic food they sell. As for who will win the debate over locally grown organic food vs. imported organic food, only time will tell.