What is organic food?

All organic food is much more than a product without agro-toxics. It is the result of a system of agricultural production that looks to manage in a balanced way the soil and other natural resources (water, plants, animals, insects, etc.), preserving them for a long term and maintaining the harmony of those elements among each other and with human beings. In this way, to obtain a truly organic food, it is necessary to apply knowledge from diverse sciences (agronomy, ecology, sociology, economy, among others) so that the farmers, through their work in harmony with nature,can offer to the consumer food that do not only promote the good health of the latter, but also of the planet as a whole. To reach this objective, it exists a theoretical discipline that integrates the knowledge of several sciences, looking for the understanding in depth of nature and the principles that govern them. This discipline is the Agro-ecology.

And what is the Agro-ecology?

The Agro-ecology is a new approach of agriculture that integrates diverse agronomic, ecological and social-economic aspects in the evaluation of the effects of the agricultural techniques on the production of food and in society as a whole.

Making an analogy of the Agro-ecology with a big and leafy tree, we can imagine that discipline as the main trunk, from where diverse leaf clusters start, which are the alternative currents of agriculture. Those currents are the followings: organic and biological agriculture, bio-dynamic agriculture, natural agriculture and perma-culture.

Organic Foods

In the last years, the so called organic foods have become very popular, demonstrating a lot of people's interest for a positive change in nourishment and also the distrust in the security and production of conventional foods.

They are considered organic those foods, vegetable and fruits in general that at any stage of their production, fertilizers, herbicides or chemical pesticides are not added, including the soil where they are cultivated.

For some, the word organic means nutritious. For others it means cleaner and safer foods; there are also those who understand for “organic” those foods cultivatedwithout causing pollution or with the least possible damage of the air, the earth or the water.

In fact, the positive characteristics that are given to organic products are difficult to establish, as long as there is no regulation in force. For example, for the milk to be considered as organic, in theory the cow must be fed 100% with grains that have not been genetically treated and cultivated in soils without fertilizers. Such cows must not receive any antibiotics or hormones, either.

It is very difficult to cultivate foods that are completely free of pesticides, because in the soil, pesticides remain for long periods of time in insignificant quantities or they can be contaminated from soils that are next to them.

In few places in the world specific definitions have been determined for the use of the word “organic” and neither has the waiting period that should pass between the last application of a chemical in the soil and the cultivation of produce without them.

In most of the countries there are no laws regulating the use of organic foods. This absence of laws and regulations does not give the consumer guarantees that the food that is sold as organic, is really organic, and it is also exposed tounscrupulous merchants who sell foods as “organic” when they are not really so.

The federal government of the United States are no in their way to enact a law. This should define organic products in four categories:

"100 % organic”: are those products without non-organic ingredients.

“Organic”: for products with 95% of ingredients of organic type.

"Made with organic products": for the products made with 50% to 95% of organic ingredients.

"Products with less than 50%": of organic ingredients, it must be specified in each ingredient that is organic.

This should be an example that should be kept in mind in such a way that the situation become clearer and the consumer could know how to choose the type of product.

From the nutritional point of view, in organic foods it could not be demonstrated the advantages on flavor, safety and nutritional value, with respect to conventional foods; from the economic point of view their cost is much higher, approximately between20% and 100%.