I am not being sarcastic but grow your own!... If you do not have a yard you can usually get a plot in a community garden and grow tamotoes and Zucinni squash and swiss chard and you will have so much of them you won't want to eat them anymore. Your climate might make your growing season shorter, So it that is the case go to flee markets, Move to California and you can grow tons of vegetables, you just have to live with the nuts out here.

It's not that Organic is so expensive, its that CRAP is so CHEAP! Instead of buying what is real and nourishing, people are looking to get filled up by the Dollar Menu at a fast food place.

Americans spend less on their food as a percentage of total income than anyone else (something like 9%, where Europeans spend like 16%-- I am trying to remember off the top of my head).

It used to be that meat was something special (Sunday Roast), and people mostly ate vegetables, eggs, dairy, grains and legumes. Now facory farmed (corn fed, antibiotic shot up, sickly) meat is so cheap, that we eat it breakfast, lunch and dinner! Our bodies were not designed to eat that much meat! I would welcome the general cheap meat going up in price, I think overall it would improve the health of our country.

I also think that when you spend more for food, you evaluate what quantity goes into your body. When we cook chicken a couple nights a week, I cook 2 organic, free range chicken breasts (cost: about $8 at Trader Joe's). That is for me, my husband, my 9 yo son, and my 5 yo daughter. DH eats about 3/4 a breast, DD eats the other 1/4, and DS and I split the other one 50/50. We are getting more than enough animal protein, but are not gorging ourselves (more room for veggies). This is better for our bodies and the animals and the environment-- and I am not spending twice that so we can *each* have a chicken breast.

Do I spend more for Organic? You bet--- but I am saying that I will support local farmers, support humane animal raising, support Organic Farming, and I am actually SAVING money on long term medical issues we are avoiding by eating healthfully.

So I guess the question really is not why is Organic expensive, it is.... why are other people willing to settle for such cheap food?

VoR to Mommy, WTG.

Lloyd

Your tax dollars help subsidize the production of those deprived of nutrient foods produced on the factory farms. What you pay for Organic food is closer to the real cost of production because few organic farmers qualify for these subsidies.

Grow your own. And you mentioned one of the key items (perhaps unwittingly) in your first sentence. Look no further than your own self........

Good points, the bottom line though is sadly that people don't want to buy organics because it's expensive.

By the time I buy organic cheese, milk, humanely/organically raised chicken, and organic bread, even I am feeling weary from spending extra money on all this stuff, because it truly is more expensive and it seems to add up for a lowly college kid on a budget. Other people are scared off too. You would think organic would be cheaper somehow. There's gotta be a way.

Many of the same folks who complain about organic food being too expensive (generally a few dollars at a time) will still go to see a movie for $9 a person plus $6 for a soda and $8 for a popcorn, or buy a new $150 cell phone every year or two, or buy a $300 i-pod, or pay $200 a year for a gym membership.

If you want it you will pay for it, many people just don't believe organic is any different than conventionally grown and so only see the price increase.

I agree with those above who say organic is priced closer to what it should actually cost. As a people we need to rethink what we spend our money on.

Cheers,
Kyle

And that is the problem - people see expensive food and would rather buy the cheap stuff because they see the difference in health/environment as negligible when compared to their financial needs. So the idea is to bring organics down. Even if they are not "really" expensive compared to other food, the price alone scares people off, and stifles the organic revolution's progress. I do agree people need to manage their money more wisely like you said but we can't rely on people doing that, the vast majority won't.

It is more expensive, but part of that I think is that fresh vegetables are just plain expensive, no matter whether they're conventional or organic. A while ago I switched from eating mostly lentils and rice with an occasional frozen spinach to eating a lot of fresh vegetables, eggs, and dairy, and I was shocked at how my food bill zoomed. Needless to say, I will be growing a lot more veggies this year.:)

I usually pass up "organic". It just sounds quasi-religious to me.
Religious I can take or reject. Quasi-religious annoyes me And I am annoyed by the government getting into the labeling business.

I do buy "Kosher" hot dogs. "Organic" is just too cult-like. When "organic" gets a reputation like "Kosher" I might consider it -- if I like the product anyway.

Wow @ Albert.

How can someone accept "Kosher" but then turn around and not support a set of growing guidlines because it "sounds religious?"

Absolutely amazing, boggles my mind.

Kind of weird to hear that "organic" sounds too religious on an organic gardening forum. Is this place just chock full of trolls or what?

I am Jewish, and I can tell you that "kosher" does not mean better. It means the animal is slaughtered in a certain, a way that some people have critized as being inhumane, and the meat is then treated with salt to get rid of the blood, so it will be much saltier. Something to keep in mind if you have high blood pressure. With hotdogs, it means there won't be any pork in there. It doesn't mean there won't be any lips and etc.

It's obviously the best practice for the environment but people won't buy into it until it's cheap.

People are buying organic. I'd be out of business if they weren't.

How about buying clubs? Is there a farm that offers a buying club you can join? How about locally produced food? My prices are lower than grocery store non-organic vegetables this year because I don't have a fertilizer bill than went from $90 a ton last year to $900/$1000 a ton this year. I don't have high transportation costs association with trucking food in 1,500 miles.

Does your university have an ag problem that grows vegetables? UMaine has a farmstand on the campus and offer CSA shares. If you don't have those options and it might be possible, making this suggestion is probably a good way to spend you spare 3 seconds a day.

As so many others said, grow your own. Do you know how to container garden? A five gallon bucket will handle a tomato plant. Three gallon buckets will handle root crops. A plant pot on the window sill is great for lettuce.

Cheer up. It does get easier when college doesn't consume so much of your time and energy.

I think I got Alberts' message.

Quasi-religious is what he said and then referenced it to cult-like. As in the total devotion to an issue without thought or consideration that the issue may not be completely true or correct. When a person is so consumed with a specific subject that they lose perspective and refuse to consider alternative theories or practices.

There is a difference between "try and use less chemicals in your efforts to grow something" and "a pox on your house, children, dog, cat and your lawn mower if you so much as buy a bag of fertilizer". That kind of thing.

But that is what I thought Albert meant and I could be completely out to lunch. Sorry if I got it wrong Albert.

Lloyd

Hooray you said: You would think organic would be cheaper somehow. There's gotta be a way. You'd be well served by taking a few economic and market courses while you are in college. If organic food is better nutritioanlly and is considered by some to be the best practice for the environment then many consider it a superior product, create a demand for it and the price is higher. It's not voodoo economics.

arwmommy, it's great you can afford the organic food you want but you sound like you won't be happy until our % income cost of food equals that of the Europeans. You think it would be good if the price of meat went up. You've set yourself up as the standard bearer and the heck with those who can barely afford food now, yes there still are some. You are right and they are wrong.

This forum should stick to organic gardening where we have many knowledgable and experienced posters. Tom

Lloyd understood, exactly.

Tom/skagit-

You are misunderstanding me. What I said was it would be great if MEAT went up in price, so that people bought less (and substituted it with grains, veggies, dairy, etc,) and we would have a HEALTHIER country.

I fully realize that some cannot afford food (trust me, I volunteer with the homeless). But unfortunately we as a culture are used to meals that take virtually no time to prepare, and are filled with preservatives and corn syrup. People actually think that it costs more to eat healthfully than to eat at McDonnalds! It certainly can, but it doesn't have to. You can grow some of your own food, you can spend more time actually cooking (a dying art) and teaching your children that healthy food is worth the time and energy and money it takes to make it.

This is our typical dinner for a family of 2 adults and 2 kids: 2 org/free range chicken breasts ($8) roasted and topped with a honey lemon sauce (honey, lemon juice, chicken broth, salt/pepper- maybe $1). Brown rice pilaf, made by sauteeing an onion ($.75) in some butter ($.25), and adding 2 c. org/free range chicken broth ($1), rosemary and thyme from our garden, and 1 c. org brown rice ($1). Served with org broccoli on the side ($2.50), org milk for the kids ($.50) and Diet Cokes for the adults ($.50--OK, so we have a weakness).

This meal adds up to: $15.50. Our family spends at least this much when we have to hit a fast food place when traveling! And I was certainly not trying to do it cheaply, that is just how we do it, and you could certainly do it more economically, even organically. I am just trying to show that it is not necessarily SO MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE.

We are not at all the standard bearer.... DH and I go out to dinner with friends every week and eat at places that do not have organic food....we love Diet Coke more than we should.... and we can only buy about 80% of the things we need organically. But we *get it*, we get that we want to support local farming, humane animal treatment, refusing to put pesticides into our bodies and those of our growing children. Those ARE worth more to us, so we will pick the $4 organic granola bars rather than the $3 conventional ones with corn syrup. We will go out of our way to hit the Farmer's market on Wednesday between the hours of 3:00 and 5:00, rather than hit Albertson's whenever we want to, 7 days a week from 7 am to midnight, and we will "reward" the farmer who lets his animals have normal lives on pasture rather than in the horrific feed lots, by buying his chicken-- and ourselves enjoying what real chicken tastes like and knowing that we are reducing demand of feedlot meat.

I think the original question was why is organic so expensive? I will repeat myself here: why are other people willing to settle for such cheap food?

**I think the original question was why is organic so expensive? I will repeat myself here: why are other people willing to settle for such cheap food?**

Here, here arwmommy! Two excellent posts from you.

And the food that seems "cheap" really isn't in the long run. All those McDonald's burgers and Lunchables and frozen pizzas cost both money and lives, because they contribute to chronic diseases and health problems. So as you said, is it really worth it to buy the seemingly cheaper food?

Also, part of the reason food is so "cheap" at the grocery store is that much of it is jam-packed with the United States' two favorite commodity crops: corn and soybeans. Because those crops are subsidized, we have an entire country growing just those two crops, and a grocery store full of those items in various forms (read Michael Pollan's _The Omnivore's Dilemma_ for a wonderful description of just WHY we have so much processed food, and the dominating presence of soy and corn in every processed food).

There are NO subsidies for farmers who grow food crops, so there's no incentive for anyone to grow spinach or carrots or anything else that actually feeds America....so of course fresh produce, even conventionally grown, is expensive! A box of crackers made from corn and soy is cheaper than tomatoes.

It's a horrible cycle that drives down the value and quality of food, and the government is responsible in large part for it.

I'm off to eat some of the rice/wheat/flax crackers I made yesterday. I'm pretending I have nothing else to eat.......

Some good comments so far.

@buffburd--I think you are 100% correct in your comments. People (outside of the very poor) will buy exactly what they want and there are so many items they believe that they "need", but not until they are walking around with an IV pole based on years of horrible eating habits will they realize these things.

@albert_135--Quasi-religious and cult-like?! Sheesh.....Are you kidding me? I do agree with you on the government getting in on the organic game to generate another revenue stream. The USDA rules for organic certification are easy for mid-size/large companies to achieve. The reality is that many local farms follow the same (if not more strict) rules as the CERTIFIED ORGANIC products, but do not have the money to get the stamp from the USDA, but coupled with the fact that they are local and did not impact the environment in a negative way like the apple flown thousands of miles from chile simply because it has a USDA sticker on it...

I do feel that organic in the mainstream has come a long way, but we all need to consider how we offer our financial support to various food items and consider local produce first and organic second and conventional third.

Sometimes local and organic foods may not look good and I will certainly opt for conventional grown versus some other synthetic "food-like" substance.

Be careful what you wish for. The cost will equalize, but it won't be because organics come down, but because the rest will go up due to high oil prices.
Oil is used extensively in mass production farming, from running machinery to making chemicals & fertilizers. Add to that the idiots who thinks that ethanol (when made with corn it uses more energy to make than it produces) is the answer are causing corn prices to go through the roof, which means higher prices on all feed products as well as higher prices for other produce because it still is supply and demand and more farmers are growing the subsidized corn instead of something else.
I have gone to growing my own and using the neighbors' horse manure for fertilizer.

arwmommy,when you list your meal contents here you are acting like a standard bearer. You present yourself as being right for eating as much organic as you can while those who eat the cheap stuff are wrong and need to change to your way of thinking. Your joints must be sore from patting yourself on the back. Tom

I didn't interpret arwmommy that way at all, I thought it was a reasonable opinion as to her thoughts and what she does to handle the issue for her family. I didn't get a 'being preached to' attitude at all. When I eat too much fast food, I feel like crap so I got that part of the message. (and I eat WAY too much meat :(

I sorta got the message that eating a smaller portion of a more expensive product beats the heck out of eating a larger amount of processed food. It may appear to cost more, but really doesn't have to when all the factors are taken into consideration. I'm gonna let her keep her VoR.

Lloyd

P.S. I thought her dinner menu was exactly what I would like to eat and was hoping for an invite. :)

Those who eat the cheap stuff when they can afford better ARE wrong. They are burdening all the rest us with their bad health, for one, and with the chemical-laden agriculture they support for another. We all pay for government-subsidized agriculture whether we want to or not, and subsequent generations will be paying for the cleanup.

As for being a standard-bearer, I say go for it. We have way, way too many human sheep in the US.

I know several cattle producers who are not certified organic simply because they don't want the government "helping them" with their business. Still they use no chemicals, no herbicides, no fertilizer, no hormones, no antibiotics, and no deworming medicine. By careful culling they have extremely productive cows and calfs that do not develop diseases. When you couple all that with lots of small fenced paddocks (which relieves the producer of having to round up the herd with expensive cowboys), these producers expenses are cut to the bone (no pun intended). They produce beef at a fraction of what arwmommy's factory farms can produce it for. While this does not help arwmommy save us from eating too much beef, it does prove that organic beef can be produced for much less than factory farms. Oh and they've been operating like this, and increasing their herd size, for 20 years so it is sustainable.

you should get the paper to do an article about em. that'd be pretty cool

I would like to. The best stuff I've seen written on these people was written by me here in these forums. Unfortunately I don't have the pictures that really illustrate the success. I've seen the pictures but can't seem to get them in digital form. I'm still trying.

The underlying techniques they use go by the unfortunate name of "Holistic Resource Management." You can search on that term and go into a more of a theoretical direction or you can visit www.managingwholes.com and see some results. Then visit any links you find. Still nothing but the text books really gets into the details of how it all works together. You have to think in terms of banking sunlight in the grass, banking protein in the animals, biology (including soil biology, plant biology, animal biology, and some insect biology), banking rainfall, and not harming the surrounding ecosystem such that it will provide the natural benefits it has always provided. It is not an easy way of operating, but the physical labor usually done by machines or people-power is not nearly as intense. Hence the low cost.

Is organic really more expensive than non organic?

I use the term 'organic' very loosely here. If my lettuce is sprayed with a chemical pesticide or an 'organic' one I really don't see any difference worth mentioning.

What I am getting at is I do not pay more for something labeled as organic because in terms of what is sold at the grocery it really doesn't mean much. Is a Sevin coated product more or less 'healthy' than a rotenone or pyrethrin coated one?

For fruits and veggies I grow my own to the extent I can and for meat I go in with a friend once per year and we buy livestock before it's killed. The livestock is all free range/grain fed, no hormones or antibiotics at all. The cost to buy a whole cow works out to about $1-1.50 per pound of meat and that's half of what hamburger is selling for in the local grocery these days. It's *cheaper*

I think part of the problem is when people don't know people who know people and instead go to a commercial market and then pay the premium for the word 'organic' even though it means nothing of significance when it comes to nutritional content or absence of harmful substances.

Again, would you prefer rotenone or sevin on your salad?

I don't know what either one of those actually are. I would definitely prefer trace amounts of urine and slugs on my lettuce, which is what I get on mine......

Since I'm a big fan of bees, I would greatly prefer rotenone to sevin on my salad.

I don't know what chemicals are sprayed on lettuce....organic or otherwise. My lettuce doesn't even come close to needing some spray. I suppose the need for perfect looking produce drives the spraying on many crops. Granted, cucurbits are often a real problem

One of the reasons "organic" produce is more expensive than conventionally grown produce is due to the economies of scale conventional/traditional farming employs. Most organically certified growers are very small operations and they are very hands-on - no 1000's of acres under production, no fuel guzzling behemoth combines and other large equipment and no complicated and expensive fertigation systems involved. It is somewhat akin to custom crafted furniture being compared to the mass produced stuff available at Sofas-R-Us.

I'm not about to enter the fray about eating better one way or the other. EVERYTHING is more expensive these days and families have to economize any way they can just to make ends meet and if that means clipping coupons for prepared products (don't see many if any for organics) or stocking up when the regular boxed and canned goods go on sale, I'm not going to chastize them. And I don't know how any family can eat red meat three meals a day unless they've won the lottery!! Have you priced beef recently?? Or pork?? It's still a luxury item for me and I don't have a family to feed any longer.

One of the best and most economical way to fill your larder with organically grown food - if you are not able to grow your own - is to support CSA farms or community supported agriculture. These are small, local cooperative farming operations, nearly always with an organic philosophy. For the occasional weekend or evening of work weeding, watering or harvesting, you share in the product at a very modest cost. And some CSA just have simple memberships - for $XX each month, you receive weekly boxes of fresh fruits and veggies, often eggs and cheeses and other dairy products. And local farmers markets are a great, less expensive source of organic foods as well. My local markets sell a huge range of organic food at prices 20-30% less than the corner supermarket. They've just eliminated the middleman and his inevitable markup.

If only we all enjoyed the gardening climate and soils of the PNW! Sadly, many places in the east do not have a bounty of CSA operations and farmer's markets, and if they do they are available a shorter portion of the year. Here, for example, there is one CSA for the county, and it offers produce from late June to Thanksgiving, customers are on their own the rest of the time (the farmer's market is shorter than that). No fruit, no storage crops. There is one other vegetable grower, not organic. One dairy farmer, who rarely has more than one or two cows in milk. If one wants an extended season here, one must grow one's own.

And we are better off than a lot of places.

Faddism drives prices up. The organic movement in term of consumers and even organic practioners in gardening itself have more than their fair share of faddists, those who are as or more interested in talking about it (too often smugly) than in learning about it with some reasonably deep expertise. Other fads have similar attributes. My bet, supported by some of the posts above, is that conditions and prices are best where there is wider practice, more demands on economic performance, and thus more actual expertise. That is not where I live unfortunately.

But eating organic is cheaper ad I've suspected for a long time. So in the long run, you're better off buying/growing organic

http://backtocountrylife.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=136

There are several reasons organic produce is more expensive and it is all due to the USDA Certification protocols - read here: http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/!ut/p/_s.7_0_A/7_0_1OB?navid=ORGANIC_CERTIFICATIO&navtype=RT&parentnav=AGRICULTURE

Any time the government is involved red tape headaches are created. Paperwork is the same reason it costs so much to visit your doctor and why your health insurance is so high...thank you HMOs (another posting). First there is a list of prohibited and allowed substances that the producer must be aware of. And guidelines to follow for both growing and harvesting. Inspections are mandated. Everything the organic farmer does on his farm, every pest, disease or additive he has to deal with MUST be documented as to what was used, when and how much. Then there is a whole host of handling processes from farmers through any middlemen on up to the grocer stocking that produce in your local grocery. Every additional step drives the retail price up.

Back at the farm, the land must be uncontaminated by residual pesticides and non-organic fertilizers for at least two years before the first seed is even planted. The seeds themselves must be a product of certified organic production.

Synthetic fertilizers aren't used and compost takes time to make - requiring both space and labor - not to mention prevention of run-off into streams and other watersheds. Of course it doesn't do any good until added to the soils. Some farms are using no-till methods which may or may not be a requirement for organic certification; all to protect the watersheds.

If a non-organic farmer ends up with pests - he dumps pesticides to save the crop; the organic farmer does not and in fact, cannot. There are approved organic controls he can use, remember the list? But if they fail, he loses a good portion, if not all of his crop. Others in his area may be in the same boat or...worse, if neighboring farms are using pesticides, where do you think the pests will go? With reduced harvests, basic supply and demand principles come into play.

Everyone has a choice. You can eat less expensive vegetables that have been produced for quantity instead of quality, which may or may not be a time-bomb (unknown long term effects...remember DDT; or contaminated...currently tomatos - but they're not really sure???) Or you can pay a little more for foods certified "safe" because someone thinks its important enough to go through all the hassles of growing it "organically." Or...trade $$$ for time and grow one's own food. What is your time worth?

Off the soapbox now...

Organic will get cheaper as oil and natural gas get dearer. Oil-based pesticides and natural gas-based fertilizer will push growers to organic, and increasing transportation costs will take us back to local growers -- who you can look in the eye and find out the way they grow stuff and influence their choices. Regards, Peter.

I forgot about sources: try "Eating Fossil Fuels" and the report on Rodale's 20 (or so) side-by-side comparison of growing staple crops. After 5 (or so) years organic has equal or greater output than conventional -- especially in drought years -- and is less costly per unit of output. And the soil is much better for it of course. Regards, Peter.

It takes time to build or re-build soil. AS more and more people use organic practices, their yields should improve over time. I've seen improvements in my garden over only a few growing seasons. Hopefully as the oil costs soar and cheap food gets less cheap, the locally grown food can help to fill the void. I do believe that locally grown is even more important than the "organic" sticker.