What is Organic Food?

What is organic food?
Organic refers to an "earth friendly" and health-supportive method of farming and processing foods. Weeds and pests are controlled using environmentally sound practices that sustain our personal health and the health of our planet. The term "organic" applies to both animal and plant foods.

Organic farmers do not use chemicals (pesticides, fungicides or fertilizers) in an environmentally harmful manner. They utilize a blend of old and new technologies and scientific research to balance the earth's natural ecosystem. Examples of organic farming methods include:

Rotating crops between fields. This helps keep pests from building up and improves soil fertility.
Planting select bushes and flowers to attract beneficial insects which ward off unwanted pests.
Organic farming produces nutrient-rich, fertile soil which nourishes the plants, and it keeps chemicals off the land to protect water quality and wild life. Organic farming also gives us food that is safer to eat and much more likely to keep us healthy.

Organically Grown Crops:

The crop must be produced on land without the use of synthetic substances (pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers) except those provided by the standards.
No prohibited substances can have been applied to the land for 3 years prior to harvest.
The land must have defined boundaries and buffer zones preventing the crop to have contact with prohibited substances from adjoining land.
Soil fertility and crop nutrient management must be done in a manner to improve soil conditions, minimize soil erosion, and to prevent contamination of crops, soil or water by plant nutrients, pathogenic organisms or heavy metals:
Use of crop rotation
Use of composed animal manure with specified carbon to nitrogen ratios and temperature readings.
Use of uncomposted plant materials
Use of sewage sludge is prohibited
Seeds, seedlings and planting stock are organically grown except as provided in the law.
Genetic engineering is prohibited
Pest problems controlled by mechanical and physical methods including:
Introduction of predators or parasites of the pest species
Development of habitat for natural enemies of the pests
Use of lures, traps and repellants
Weed problems controlled by:
Mulching
Hand weeding and mechanical cultivation
Mowing
Flame, heat, or electrical
Grazing livestock
Plastic or synthetic mulches that are removed at the end of the harvest
Disease problems controlled by:
Management practices to suppress the spread of disease
Application of non-synthetic biological, botanical or mineral inputs

Organically Grown Meat, Poultry, Eggs and Dairy:

Livestock must be fed rations composed of agricultural products, pasture and forage that are organically produced and, if applicable, handled.
Prohibitions regarding animal feed include:
Administering of animal drugs in the absence of illness
Use of hormones to promote growth
Use of supplements in amounts above those for adequate nutrition
Use of mammal or poultry slaughter by-products for feed
Excessive use of feed additives
Routinely administering synthetic parasiticides
Producer must provide conditions to maintain and promote the health and welfare of livestock including:
Sufficient nutritional feed rations
Appropriate housing, pasture, sanitation conditions
Conditions allowing for exercise, freedom of movement and minimizing stress of the animals
Administration of veterinary care

Origin of livestock:
Organic livestock must be from livestock under continuous organic management from the last third of gestation or hatching
Organic poultry must be under continuous organic management beginning no later than the second day of life
Milk or milk products must be from animals that have been under continuous organic management beginning no later than 1 year prior to milk production.

Organic production is managed with the intent to integrate cultural, biological and mechanical practices to promote the cycling of resources, promote ecological balance and biodiversity. Practices help to protect the soil, groundwater, provide health promoting conditions for animals and ultimately help promote the health of the consumer.
Can organic foods really improve my health?
Yes. Organically grown food is your best way of reducing exposure to toxins used in conventional agricultural practices. These toxins include not only pesticides, many of which have been federally classified as potential cancer-causing agents, but also heavy metals such as lead and mercury, and solvents like benzene and toluene. Minimizing exposure to these toxins is of major benefit to your health. Heavy metals damage nerve function, contributing to diseases such as multiple sclerosis and lowering IQ, and also block hemoglobin production, causing anemia. Solvents damage white cells, lowering the immune system's ability to resist infections. In addition to significantly lessening your exposure to these health-robbing substances, organically grown foods have been shown to contain substantially higher levels of nutrients such as protein, vitamin C and many minerals.

Research Suggests Organic Food is Better for Your Health

Rats fed organic food were significantly healthier than their peers given conventionally-grown produce, shows research reported by the Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences, February 2005.

During the experiment, 36 rats were divided into three groups. All were given potatoes, carrots, peas, green kale, apples, rapeseed oil, and the same vitamin supplements. One group was fed organic food, another conventionally grown food with high levels of fertilizer and some pesticide, and the third group received minimally fertilized conventionally grown food.

Although pesticide residue was measured and found to be below detection levels in all groups, the scientists found that the rats fed organically-grown produce were measurably healthier, slept better, had stronger immune systems and were less obese.

Lead researcher, Dr Kirsten Brandt, of Newcastle University's School of Agriculture, was careful not to overstate the findings, but noted: "The difference was so big it is very unlikely to be random. We gave the food to the rats and then we measured what they were doing. We can say the reason why the rats have different health was clearly due to the fact that there was a different growing method, and this was enough for this result. If we want to understand how and why, we need another study."

How do organic foods benefit cellular health?
DNA: Eating organically grown foods may help to better sustain health since recent test tube animal research suggests that certain agricultural chemicals used in the conventional method of growing food may have the ability to cause genetic mutations that can lead to the development of cancer. One example is pentachlorophenol (PCP) that has been found to be able to cause DNA fragmentation in animals. Mitochondria: Eating organically grown foods may help to better promote cellular health since several agricultural chemicals used in the conventional growing of foods have been shown to have a negative effect upon mitochondrial function. These chemicals include paraquat, parathion, dinoseb and 2-4-D which have been found to affect the mitochondria and cellular energy production in a variety of ways including increasing membrane permeability, which exposes the mitochondria to damaging free radicals, inhibiting a process known as coupling that is integral to the efficient production of ATP. Cell Membrane: Since certain agricultural chemicals may damage the structure and function of the cellular membrane, eating organically grown foods can help to protect cellular health. The insecticide endosulfan and the herbicide paraquat have been shown to oxidize lipid molecules and therefore may damage the phospholipid component of the cellular membrane. In animal studies, pesticides such as chlopyrifos, endrin and fenthion have been shown to over stimulate enzymes involved in chemical signaling causing imbalance that has been linked to conditions such as atherosclerosis, psoriasis and inflammation.
How can organic foods contribute to children's health?
The negative health effects of conventionally grown foods, and therefore the benefits of consuming organic foods, are not just limited to adults. In fact, many experts feel that organic foods may be of paramount importance in safeguarding the health of our children.

In two separate reports, both the Natural Resources Defense Council (1989) and the Environmental Working Group (1998) found that millions of American children are exposed to levels of pesticides through their food that surpass limits considered to be safe. Some of these pesticides are known to be neurotoxic, able to cause harm to the developing brain and nervous system. Additionally, some researchers feel that children and adolescents may be especially vulnerable to the cancer-causing effects of certain pesticides since the body is more sensitive to the impact of these materials during periods of high growth rates and breast development.

The concern for the effects of agricultural chemicals on children's health seems so evident that even the U.S. government has taken steps to protect our nation's young. In 1996, Congress passed the Food Quality Protection Act requiring that all pesticides applied to foods be safe for infants and children.

Organic foods that are strictly controlled for substances harmful to health can play a major role in assuring the health of our children.

Eating Organic Dramatically Lowers Children's Exposure to Organophosphate Pesticides

Eating organic foods provides children with "dramatic and immediate" protection from exposure to two organophosphate pesticides that have been linked to harmful neurological effects in animals and humans, shows a study funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and published in the September 2005 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.

The pesticides-malathion and chlorpyrifos-while restricted or banned for home use, are widely used on a variety of crops, and according to the annual survey by U.S. Department of Agriculture Pesticide Data Program, residues of these organophosphate pesticides are still routinely detected in food items commonly consumed by young children.

Over a fifteen-day period, Dr. Chensheng "Alex" Lu and his colleagues from Emory University, the University of Washington, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention measured exposure to malathion and chlorpyrifos in 23 elementary students in the Seattle area by testing their urine.

The participants, aged 3-11-years-old, were first monitored for three days on their conventional diets before the researchers substituted most of the children's conventional diets with organic foods for five consecutive days. The children were then given their normal foods and monitored for an additional seven days.

To ensure that any detectable change in dietary pesticide exposure would be attributable to the organic food rather than the change in diet, the researchers substituted organic foods that were the same items the children would have normally eaten as part of their conventional diet. Organic food items were substituted for the conventional diet of fresh fruits and vegetables, juices, processed fruits or vegetables (e.g. salsa), and wheat-based or corn-based products (i.e. pasta, cereal, popcorn, or chips).

"Immediately after substituting organic food items for the children's normal diets, the concentration of the organophosphorus pesticides found in their bodies decreased substantially to non-detectable levels until the conventional diets were re-introduced," said Dr. Lu.

During the days when children consumed organic diets, most of their urine samples contained zero concentration of the malathion metabolite. However, once the children returned to their conventional diets, the average malathion metabolite concentration increased to 1.6 parts per billion with a concentration range from 5 to 263 parts per billion.

A similar trend was seen for chlorpyrifos. The average chlorpyrifos metabolite concentration increased from one part per billion during the organic diet days to six parts per billion when children consumed conventional food.

A second study, published in the February 2006 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives, confirmed these results. Once again, another group of 23 children from the Seattle area aged 3-11 years participated. When the conventionally grown foods in their diets were replaced with comparable organically grown foods, concentrations of compounds in the children's urine indicating exposure to organophosphate pesticides immediately dropped to non-detectable levels and remained nondetectable until they once again consumed conventionally grown foods.

The children were first monitored for three days on their normal diet. Then, most of the conventionally grown items in their diets were replaced with comparable organically grown items for 5 days. Substituted items included fruits and vegetables, juices, processed fruit and vegetable products and wheat or corn based products. Lastly, the children returned to their normal diets for a further 7 days.

Researchers analyzed two spot daily urine samples, first-morning and before-bedtime voids, throughout the 15-day study period. Urinary concentrations of compounds indicating the children were ingesting the organophosphorus pesticides, malathion and chlorpyrifos, became undetectable immediately after the introduction of organic diets and remained undetectable until the conventional diets were reintroduced.

The repetition of this research clearly demonstrates that an organic diet provides a dramatic and immediate protective effect against exposures to organophosphorus pesticides, which are commonly used in agricultural production.

Organophosphate pesticides account for approximately half the insecticide use in the United States and are applied to many conventionally grown foods important in children's diets. Organophosphates work by poisoning the nervous system in pests. When exposure to organophosphate pesticides is sufficiently high, these neurological poisons can also interfere with the proper functioning of the nervous system in humans.

Children are especially vulnerable to the toxic effects of organophosphate pesticides because their bodies and brains are still growing. Even low body levels of organophosphate neurotoxins can contribute to developmental delays, behavioral problems, attention problems/hyperactivity, poor school performance and learning disabilities.

In 2000, the Consumers Union reported that the conventionally grown foods with the highest levels of pesticide residues were apples, peaches, pears, grapes, strawberries, cantaloupe, green beans, winter squash and spinach. The message is clear: to minimize your children's exposure to pesticides, choose organic!

Are organic foods nutritionally superior to conventionally grown foods?
Yes, and significantly more. Proof of their superiority has been demonstrated in numerous studies. In 1998, a review of 34 studies comparing the nutritional content of organic versus non-organic food was published in the peer-reviewed, MEDLINE-indexed journal Alternative Therapies (Volume 4, No. 1, pgs. 58-69). In this review, organic food was found to have higher protein quality in all comparisons, higher levels of vitamin C in 58% of all studies, 5-20% higher mineral levels for all but two minerals. In some cases, the mineral levels were dramatically higher in organically-grown foods-as much as three times higher in one study involving iron content.

Organic foods may also contain more flavonoids than conventionally grown foods, according to Danish research published in the August 2003 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. In this study, 16 healthy non-smoking participants ranging in age from 21-35 years were given either a diet high in organically or conventionally grown fruits and vegetables for 22 days, after which they were switched over to the other diet for another 22 days. After both dietary trials, the researchers analyzed levels of flavonoids and other markers of antioxidant defenses in the food and in the participants' blood and urine samples. Results indicated a significantly higher content of the flavonoid quercitin in the organic produce and in the subjects' urine samples when on the organic produce diet, plus the subjects' urinary levels of another flavonoid, kaempferol, were also much higher when on the organically grown compared to the conventionally grown diet.
A review of 41 studies comparing the nutritional value of organically to conventionally grown fruits, vegetables and grains, also indicates organic crops provide substantially more of several nutrients, including:

27% more vitamin C
21.1% more iron
29.3% more magnesium
13.6% more phosphorus
The review also found that while 5 servings of organically grown vegetables (lettuce, spinach, carrots, potatoes and cabbage) provided the daily recommended intake of vitamin C for men and women, their conventionally grown counterparts did not. Plus, organically grown foods contained 15.1% less nitrates than conventionally grown foods. Nitrates, a major constituent of chemical fertilizers, bind to hemoglobin and, particularly in infants, can significantly reduce the body's ability to carry oxygen. For more information on nitrates, click Nitrates - North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service

In another study whose findings are based on pesticide residue data collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, organic fruits and vegetables were shown to have only a third as many pesticide residues as their conventionally grown counterparts. Study data, which covered more than 94,000 food samples from more than 20 crops, showed 73% of conventionally grown foods sampled had residue from at least one pesticide, while only 23% of organically grown samples had any residues. When residues of persistent, long-banned organochlorine insecticides such as DDT were excluded from the analysis, organic samples with residues dropped from 23 to 13%. In contrast, more than 90% of USDA's samples of conventionally grown apples, peaches, pears, strawberries and celery had residues.

When it comes to choosing between organic or conventionally grown foods, size is definitely not everything, suggests another study published in Science Daily Magazine. Chemistry professor Theo Clark and undergraduate students at Truman State University in Mississippi found organically grown oranges contained up to 30% more vitamin C than those grown conventionally. Reporting the results at the June 2, 2002, meeting of the American Chemical Society, Clark said he had expected the conventionally grown oranges, which were twice as large, to have twice the vitamin C as the organic versions. Instead, chemical isolation combined with nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy revealed the much higher level in organic oranges.

Why the big difference? Clark speculated that "with conventional oranges, (farmers) use nitrogen fertilizers that cause an uptake of more water, so it sort of dilutes the orange. You get a great big orange but it is full of water and doesn't have as much nutritional value."

Eating organic may also help protect against chronic inflammation, a major factor in both cardiovascular disease and colon cancer. Another study, published in the European Journal of Nutrition, found that organic soups sold in the UK contain almost 6 times as much salicylic acid as non-organic soups. Salicylic acid, the compound responsible for the anti-inflammatory action of aspirin, has been shown to help prevent hardening of the arteries and bowel cancer. Researchers compared the salicylic acid content of 11 brands of organic soup to that found in non-organic varieties. The average level of salicylic acid in 11 brands of organic vegetable soup was 117 nanograms per gram, compared with 20 nanograms per gram in 24 types of non-organic soup. The highest level (1,040 nanograms per gram) was found in an organic carrot and coriander soup. Four of the conventional soups had no detectable levels of salicylic acid.

What substances do we avoid by eating organic food?
Over 3,000 high-risk toxins routinely present in the U.S. food supply are, by law, excluded from organic food, including: Pesticides: By far the largest group of toxins to be largely prohibited from organically grown foods are synthetic pesticides, which are found virtually everywhere else in the food supply. Several hundred different chemicals and several thousand brand-name pesticide products are legally used in commercial food production in the U.S. Act of 1992; the Environmental Protection Agency had classified 73 pesticides authorized for agricultural use as potential carcinogens (cancer-causing agents). And pesticides don't just remain where they are applied. A 1996 study by the Environmental Working Group found 96% of all water samples taken from 748 towns across the U.S. contained the pesticide atrazine, and at least 20 different chemical pesticides are routinely present in municipal tap water across the U.S. Heavy metals: The toxic metals cadmium, lead, and mercury enter the food supply through industrial pollution of soil and groundwater and through machinery used in food processing and packaging. Cadmium, which can be concentrated in plant tissues at levels higher than those in soil, has been linked to lung, prostate and testicular cancers. Despite lead's long-recognized serious adverse impact on health, especially that of young children, lead solder is still used to seal tin cans, imparting the lead residues found in many canned foods. Even low levels of lead are harmful and are associated with decreased intelligence, impaired neurobehavioral development, decreased stature and growth, and impaired hearing. Mercury is toxic to brain cells and has been linked to autism and Alzheimer's disease. Solvents: Used to dissolve food components and produce food additives, solvents are also virtually omnipresent in commercially processed food. Solvents, such as benzene and toluene have been linked to numerous cancers. Benzene, specifically, has been repeatedly associated with rheumatoid arthritis-an auto-immune condition involving pain and degeneration in the joints that affects over 2 million adults in the U.S.

Not only are these toxic substances harmful singly, but when combined, as they are in commercially grown and processed food, and in the human body where they accumulate, their effects have been found to be magnified as much as a 1,000-fold.

Why Organicically Grown Foods Are Better for the Health of Our Planet
What are the environmental benefits of organic farming over conventional farming methods?
Organically grown foods are cultivated using farming practices that work to preserve and protect the environment.

Most conventional farming methods used today adhere to a chemical-dependent model of agribusiness. Residues from conventional farming methods use toxic chemicals that remain in the soil, leach into groundwater, and frequently end up either on the skin or become internal constituents of commercially grown foods. The predominant use of this model has resulted in adversely affecting the earth's environment and the health of its inhabitants. These methods have adversely affected:

Soil quality
Water purity
Biodiversity
Safety and health of farm workers
Survival of small and family farms
Connection to the land
Taste and quality of foods
Organic farming is seen as the alternative to chemical farming. It is often inaccurately and simplistically described as farming without the use of pesticides. More accurately, it is a method of farming which partners with nature rather than altering or controlling natural processes which includes:

Absence of use of dangerous synthetic pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers
Improving soil quality
Conserving and keeping up water quality
Encouraging biodiversity
Minimalizing the health and occupational hazards to farm workers
Maintaining a restorative and sustainable biosystem.
Organic Farming Significantly Improves Soil Quality

Results recently published from a long-term study conducted by researchers at the Rodale Institute in Kutztown, PA, show that organic farming practices help retain significantly more carbon in the soil, making the soil more productive, better able to retain water, and helping to prevent global warming.

Data gathered since 1981 from the Rodale Institute's experimental farms in east-central Pennsylvania on organically grown corn and soybeans shows that the soil retained 15-28% more carbon than conventionally farmed soil, the equivalent of 1,000 pounds of carbon, or 3,500 pounds of carbon dioxide per acre foot of soil. According to Paul Hepperly, research manager for the Rodale Institute, converting the nation's 160 million acres of corn and soybeans would significantly reduce the carbon dioxide produced each year by the United States.

Some conventional growers have responded that the Rodale Institute's numbers are too high to be believable, but Hepperly explains that his excellent carbon sequestration results are due to the fact that organic farming keeps a variety of crops in the field longer than conventional farming. "We grow diversified crops in the organic system, and actually that looks like it's more important than whether it's plowed or not," Hepperly said. "It's the extended cropping season and the crops grown through a longer portion of the season that seem to be very important for the trapping of carbon and nitrogen in the soil. They're retaining the nutrients and building the organic matter through a longer season." State Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff and Environmental Protection Secretary Kathleen McGinty said their offices would build on the Rodale Institute research to help develop policies that would allow farmers to benefit from environmentally sound practices.

Organic farming is highly preferable to conventional agriculture in terms of its effects on the environment, confirms a study published in the March 6 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The yearlong experiment, conducted in an established apple orchard on a 4-acre site in the Yakima Valley of central Washington, used some trees raised with conventional synthetic fertilizers; others grown organically without pesticides, herbicides or artificial fertilization; and a third group raised on integrated farming, which combines organic and conventional agricultural techniques.

Each tree in all three groups was given the same amount of nitrogen at two feedings, one in October and another in May. Organically grown trees were fertilized with either composted chicken manure or alfalfa meal, while conventionally raised plants were given calcium nitrate, a synthetic fertilizer widely used by commercial apple growers. Trees raised using the integrated system got a blend of equal parts chicken manure and calcium nitrate.

One goal of the study was to compare the amount of nitrogen leaching into the soil from each of the four fertilizer treatments. Nitrogen fertilizers release or break down into nitrates-chemical compounds plants need to build proteins. When present in excess of the amounts needed by plants, however, nitrates percolate through the soil, contaminating surface and groundwater supplies.

Besides their harmful impact on aquatic life, high nitrate levels in drinking water can cause serious illness in humans, particularly small children. According to the PNAS study, nearly one of 10 domestic wells in the United States sampled between 1993 and 2000 had nitrate concentrations that exceeded the EPA's drinking water standards.

"Nitrogen compounds also enter our watersheds and have effects quite distant from the fields in which they are applied, as for example in contaminating water tables and causing biological dead zones at the mouths of major rivers," said study co-author Harold A. Mooney, the Paul S. Achilles Professor of Environmental Biology at Stanford.

The researchers measured nitrate leaching during the entire year and found it was 4.4 to 5.6 times higher in the conventional treatment than in the two organic treatments, with the integrated treatment in between.

"The intensification of agricultural production over the past 60 years and the subsequent increase in global nitrogen inputs have resulted in substantial nitrogen pollution and ecological damage. The primary source of nitrogen pollution comes from nitrogen-based agricultural fertilizers, whose use is forecasted to double or almost triple by 2050," wrote study co-authors.

The research team also compared the amount of nitrogen gas released into the atmosphere by the four treatments. Nitrogen compounds from fertilizer can enter the atmosphere and contribute to global warming.

Air samples collected in the orchard after the fall and spring fertilizations revealed that organic and integrated soils emitted larger quantities of an environmentally benign gas called dinitrogen (N2) than soils treated with conventional synthetic fertilizer.

This may be due to the fact that the organic and integrated soils contained active concentrations of denitrifying bacteria-naturally occurring microbes that convert excess nitrates in the soil into N2 gas. Communities of denitrifying microbes were much smaller and far less active and efficient in conventionally treated soils.

Modern conventional farming practices have also led to nutrient-poor food. The mineral content of vegetables has dropped significantly over the last few decades. Today, you need to eat almost twice as many carrots and three times as much broccoli to get the same of calcium you would have received from one carrot in 1950. The lesson is clear: organically grown foods are the clear choice to promote the health of both ourselves and our planet.

How do conventional farming methods affect water quality?
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates pesticides (some which are known to be cancer causing) contaminate the groundwater in 38 states, polluting the primary source of drinking water for more than half the country's population.

What is sustainable agriculture?
Sustainable agriculture is farming practices that preserve and protect the future productivity and health of the environment. Sustainable agriculture is, however, a wider topic than organic farming. The way food is processed, packaged and transported may pose a threat to the environment, even when the food was cultivated organically. For example, pretzels may be organic-meaning 95% of their ingredients are organically grown-but have been produced from highly refined flour processed using energy-wasting machinery, packaged in non-recyclable plastic, and shipped around the world using large amounts of fossil fuel. Growing foods organically is, therefore, only the first step in achieving sustainable agriculture. Most environmentalists and ecologists and many individuals involved in the production of organic foods believe that sustainable agriculture is necessary if we are to reach the long-term goals of personal health and ecological balance.

In 1988 the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization adopted the following official definition of Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development:

Sustainable development (in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors) should conserve land, water, plant and animal genetic resources, is environmentally non-degrading, technically appropriate, economically viable and socially acceptable.
In the 1990 Farm Bill, the U.S. Congress defined sustainable agriculture as an integrated system of plant and animal production practices that:

Satisfy human food and fiber needs
Enhance environmental quality and the natural resource base upon which the agricultural economy depends
Make the most efficient use of nonrenewable resources and on-farm resources and integrates, where appropriate, natural biological cycles and controls
Sustain the economic viability of farm operations
Enhance the quality of life for farmers and society as a whole.
In 1992, during the UN Conference on Environment and Development, a number of non-governmental organizations (NGO) drafted their own Sustainable Agriculture Treaty which states:

Sustainable Agriculture is a model of social and economic organization based on equitable and participatory vision of development which recognizes the environment and natural resources as the foundation of economic activity. Agriculture is sustainable when it is ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just, culturally appropriate and based on a holistic scientific approach.
Sustainable Agriculture preserves biodiversity, maintains soil, fertility and water purity, conserves and improves the chemical, physical and biological qualities of the soil, recycles natural resources and conserves energy.

Sustainable Agriculture uses locally available renewable resources, appropriate and affordable technologies, and minimizes the use of external and purchased inputs, thereby increasing local independence and self sufficiency and insuring a source of stable income for peasants, family small farmers and rural communities, and integrates humans with their environment. Sustainable Agriculture respects the ecological principles of diversity and interdependence and uses the insights of modern science to improve rather than displace the traditional wisdom accumulated over centuries by innumerable farmers around the world.

Article By Worlds Healthies Foods


The National List provides a list of allowed and prohibited substances for organically grown meat, poultry, eggs and dairy.

Organically Handled:

Mechanical or biological methods used to process an organically produced agricultural product for the purpose of retarding spoilage or otherwise preparing the agricultural product for market. This includes acceptable processing aids and ingredients, appropriate packaging materials and labeling, cleaning methods, waste disposal and pest management at processing facilities.