Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 5.2
Percentages of produce found with pesticide residue
Conventional
Organic
Pears
95
25
Peaches
93
50
Strawberries
91
25
Spinach
84
47
All fruit
82
23
Grapes
78
25
Bell pepper
69
9
All vegetables
65
23
Lettuce
50
33
Source:
consumer reports.org, 2002. consumerreports.org/main/content/aboutus
.jsp?FOLDER%3C%3Efolder.
grown in soil previously used for conventional agriculture that had not
yet been completely cleaned of pesticides, which takes a few years.
Perhaps the pesticides drifted in from a neighboring fi eld where crops
using pesticides were being grown. Perhaps the contamination was
obtained in trucks or warehouses during transportation or storage.
Although organic produce is not 100 percent free of pesticides it is nev-
ertheless much better in this regard than crops grown in the conventional
manner. Lesser amounts of poison no doubt translate into safer eating.
Opponents of organic farming methods cite the ever-present hunger
and starvation that plagued humanity throughout history—maladies
they say are being ended by today's industrial farming methods. They
believe that without the multitude of artifi cial chemical fertilizers and
pesticides produced by industrial chemists, people would once again be
undernourished. They believe that organic farming is synonymous with
starvation. This is clearly untrue. The hunger that most of the world
suffered from until the twentieth century, and that 840 million people
still do, resulted from the same causes as hunger in Third World coun-
tries today: inequitable distribution of land, people too poor to purchase
food, lack of support by their government, and armed confl ict.
In any event, organic farming is not a return to farming the way our
grandfathers did it. It is a sophisticated combination of old wisdom and
modern ecological understanding and innovations that help harness the
yield-boosting effects of nutrient cycles, benefi cial insects, and crop syn-
ergies. It is heavily dependent on technology, but not necessarily the
technology that comes from a chemical factory. The federal government
