This was my last and also the longest essay in this Language Center. To preserve the memories, I decided to post it here. I have tried my best to be neutral, although I am never a supporter of organic food. All the information wasn't made up. They are all in those references, which will be the last part of this essay.
Finally, please, don't let me find my essay in other place...
I. Introduction
According to anthropologists, ancient human society had transformed from a hunter-gather lifestyle into the era of agriculture 10,000 years ago, and improved the agricultural practice skills since then (Chassy, 2007). Both the development of civilization and climate change contribute transformative effects on this process. One of the recent contributions to it was the “Green Revolution” have started in 1960s, which introduced both the improvement of breeding skills and the application of chemicals to the old farming system, and also opened the new era of using synthetic chemicals to improve the food production.
However, just a few decades later, the fact that those chemicals has led to the severe pollution of the environment and harm to human bodies has stimulated the public awareness of food safety, and consumers have started to demand a much safer food producing system (Ferretti et al., 2010). Currently, several alternative farming systems have been introduced. One of the widest used systems is “organic” farming system.
A. What Does It Mean to Be “Organic”?
Before we start to discuss the whole topic of organic farming and organic food, we have to define the word “organic” first. What does the word “organic” means? The word “organic” can be referred to the word “organ”, which can be traced back to organum in Latin and organon in Ancient Greek, or the word “organism”, which came from organismos in Greek. The original meaning of organic, according to the definition of organ and organism, was related to the state of living and also can be referred to something specifically owned by a living entity. However, this definition fails to describe the meaning of “organic” when it is in front of the word “food”, “farming”, or “agriculture”; thus, we need a new definition of “organic”. There are many articles which offer different kinds of answers from their views on it. In this term, the opposite of “organic food (farming, or agriculture)” is “conventional food (farming, or agriculture)”, and based on most articles, the consequence of the difference between these two terms is the variation in the way the process is carried on it.
Basically, the principles of farming in an “organic” way can be divided into two main rules – first, the usage of synthetic fertilizers is prohibited, and second, no utilization of synthetic herbicides and pesticides (Trewavas, 2001). In other words, the chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides are forbidden to use in organic farming, whereas the natural “substitutes” of those essential items during the farming process are allowed, such as manure and natural pesticides. Thus, currently, as the most common definition, the term “organic farming” means the “not using synthetic chemicals” in agriculture practice.
B. Why Do We Choose Organic?
According to most researchers, one of the main reasons why people, especially the Europeans and North Americans, show increasing preference for consuming organic food during these decades is basically because of the concern of food safety and health, while the other one is the food ethic topics, such as the concern of environmental containment and the consideration of animals’ right (Magkos et al., 2006; Mazar & Zhong, 2010; Napolitano et al., 2010). Because of those reasons, consumers are also more willing to pay more to buy more costly organic food (Napolitano et al., 2010). In other words, from the end of last century, people’s increasing consideration of food safety, personal health, and ethical topics pushes them to choose to consume organic food. This change of preference makes a novel huge business, known as “green business”, which created approximately $20 billion profits in North American in 2007 (Cranfield et al., 2009).
Nowadays, purchasing organic food seems to be the mainstream idea in present and also the future. However, before we really take this idea as gospel, we have to think about it more thoughtfully – are we really making the best decision? And, have our government and those “green” companies really told us all the truths? Thus, this article will mainly focus on the comparison of images held by the public and the current conclusions made by most scientists based on the reviews of scientific data, and this will hope to give a whole view of organic consumption.
TBC.
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