On Feb 24, 2007, at 14:23, Rebecca Stallings wrote:
>But [organics] will never be able to be as cheap as conventionally
>grown products. It take more land and more resources to make organics.
Depends on what you mean by "resources". Organics take more labor
(i.e. create jobs) but how else do they use more resources or more
land? Don't forget to take into account the manufacture of,
transportation of, and pollution caused by the chemicals applied to
conventional crops.
It also depends on the type of crop. Apples tend to fare better when
grown organically. From Scientific American:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000F36A1-998D-1C5E-
B882809EC588ED9F
"As it turned out, the soil quality in the organic fields was far
better than in the conventional fields, and the apples tasted sweeter.
High yields came as a surprise: "There's been criticism that organic
yields are lower than conventional yields," Reganold says. "In general
that is true, but not always. This study showed that with apples,
organic yields can compare favorably with integrated and conventional
systems." The organic fields were also more energy efficient—and, by
far, the most profitable."
:-j