Organic Food - The Healthy Option

The twin concepts of organic farming and organic food were conceptualized and became popular worldwide during the twentieth century. Presently, there is a significant demand from consumers for organic food, but this is mostly in developed countries. There is sustained increase in consumption of organic food in India in last few years. It is expected that organic food would see a steady growth in near future in India.

But what is organic food? It is possible to understand organic food only after one is clear of what constitutes organic farming. Organic food is an output of organic farming and organic processing methods and hence there is a need to understand fundamentals of organic farming before one can appreciate the meaning and dimensions of organic food.

The Past

Farming as an activity succeeded hunting and gathering as a source of food in the history of human civilization. Farming is known to have been done since more than ten thousand years and during all those years, food crops have been grown with no reliance of fossil fuels, chemical fertilizers and chemical pesticides for protecting crop plants from pests and diseases.

In those years, farmers grew food-crops by use of either locally available or naturally occurring resources. The human population too was at levels that did not necessitate cultivation of large areas. Crop cultivation could be sustained by use of locally available resources such as animal manures for crop nutrition. The fertility of soils being brought under crop cultivation would have sufficed to meet plant nutritional requirements without addition of external sources of nutrients. Pest and disease control might not have been serious concerns due to prevalence of a natural balance between pests and their natural controls (parasites, predators and pathogens).

Human population grew as human civilization expanded to cover more areas of earth and the growing population required more food. One method for increasing food grown without increasing area under cultivation was by use of chemicals that could replace soil nutrients removed by crops and also by reducing losses from pests and diseases through use of chemical pesticides.

Industrial Revolution