It is customary to hear some critics of the agriculture and livestock biological noted with disdain that organic foods are more expensive than conventional ones. Indeed, today organic foods are generally a 20/25% ore expensive than conventional ones. What difference will answer that? Who is to blame? Neither producers nor consumers are responsible. The system is the problem.

Economy and Environment

This is not really correct to say that organic food is more expensive. What happens is that there are conventional foods that the market prices burst. One of the main reasons is that this has to do with the environmental costs of conventional production. Indeed, the global economy and its conventional products not internalize environmental costs or environmental. Speaking of silver, what does this mean? Means that the environmental damage and public health which involves the massive use of pesticides on crops, chemical fertilizers, industrial monocultures, antibiotics and hormones in cattle, inhumane conditions of confinement, additives and coloring ... do not meet the producers. Today, we know that some of the very high cancer rates that exist in our society have to do with the use of herbicides and pesticides in conventional agriculture, they reach the consumer through food of all kinds. These biocidal chemicals also pollute the water and enters the food chain of indirect ways, exacerbating public health problems. Various studies relate the toxicity of various pesticides in widespread use in agriculture and industrial diseases, allergies, vulnerability of the immune system, infertility ... Furthermore, the use of these synthetic chemicals also affect the fauna and flora of agro-ecosystems . The damage caused by the use of these products are satisfied by the public purse: that is, for all of us. Non-compliance with the requirement that "... the polluter pays principle, the Administration is subsidizing the production and solving global problems with the money of all consumers, even with those who do not consume products. Whoever comes benefited mainly large companies are pesticides.

A circumstantial case

Another key reason for the organic products are more expensive something is the law of supply and demand. The mass production of manufactured foods which carry out the conventional food industry allow them to reduce costs in production and distribution. The organic producers have a small clientele and the market is still designed for the global economy was not created to benefit small farmers, herders, artisans ... The absence of a mass market food "organic" in our country increases the cost of all those formulas whose production still moves within a sector or semi craft.

in further processed products, the process is similar. For those responsible for the company madrileña Panata which distributes bread yeast biological mother throughout Spain, if the price of organic bread is more expensive than white bread and/or conventional integral is for structural reasons: "Although increasing, consumption of bread is still very small in Spain. This means that the mills are small and expensive, and the manufacture and distribution. In addition, if the bread is made with yeast as a single mother ferment, get a bread quality nutritionally far superior to conventional white or integral, but the design becomes a high degree of complexity, which makes the product. The development of this product is handmade. "

The outlets of these organic foods are also still very limited, and the consumer must have real consumer desire to move away from even his home to locate them. This indicates that if the number of outlets increases, consumption also increased and therefore the costs of distribution down to impact directly on the lower prices of final product.

Superior quality

In general, many of the low prices of conventional products in the conventional market are very low quality, both in terms of fresh and processed products. This affects the poor nutritional content. Unlike the use of products, organic foods have less water and more dry, more vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients. A comparative study in Denmark concluded that organic food is 10 to 50 times more phytonutrients. Another study by researcher Virginia Worthington argues that organic products are more presence of magnesium, vitamin C, iron and phosphorus.

Returning to the example of bread, Diego Rivera, an expert in organic food production, says that "organic flour is sold complete. Ie including flour, bran and germ. It is a high quality product very different from conventional industry. Flour power also derived from crops with pesticides, does not include wheat germ. It is therefore logical that there is a difference, especially for the high price of wheat germ the market. " The difference in quality of biological products to the conventional high. The difference in prices is also a difference in the health consumer. What a save by buying cheap products were then spent in medical or nutritional supplements.

"PAC" who

Most farmers involved in agroecology have small farms or small-medium, especially compared to the farms of big landowners of the agriculture industry. The CAP (Common Agricultural Policy) subsidies, especially for large firms and large single and not family farms. As reported Jerónimo Aguado, president of Rural Platform, "4% of recipients of aid from the PAC receive 40% of them, representing a whopping
360,000 million pesetas a year old." This benefits employers as the Duchess of Alba, whose coffers are going to stop the funds would be distributed among more family farms, organic and local. For Aguado, "the CAP is a link in the chain that allows the control of the international food system by a handful of multinational industries.

The price

Not in all cases, of course, but in general, we can certify that the companies (whether agricultural, farming or manufacturing) devoted to organic production ... also perform a social task. Foster, in large measure the local economy (it should be recalled here that the current agricultural model that encourages large monocultures in the hands of large multinational companies, is leading in Europe every minute closing a farm family), cultures native and an equitable redistribution of resources. Either case is emblematic of the organic products industry trade fair. Or agricultural enterprises "bio" whose financial system is in the hands of the banking ethics, emerging in our country. These employers are asking their credit and deposit their savings in banks whose funds they are never used to fund projects that are not environmentally and socially ethical.

Therefore, when one has really made aware of its importance as a consumer to swing the balance towards either side to pollution or to the regeneration, 20% in solidarity with our planet not much. To begin to change the world towards a decent future for generations to come, it is likely that this percentage is too demanding. Or, perhaps, is that we are not willing to almost anything ...

Angeles Parra. Director Bioculture

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WHAT IS A BIOLOGICAL FOOD? Without pesticides, without fertilizer and GM should be recalled that in the price of an organic product, there is an added value of character, let us say, moral ... The biological agriculture and livestock produce healthy food, rich in nutrients and delicious; protected health of farmers and consumers, preserve the local economy, ensure food sovereignty, fertilize the soil and slow desertification, protect the environment locally and globally, promote water retention and does not contaminate aquifers; encourage biodiversity, maintain the habitats of wildlife, no wasted energy and, therefore, are great aids to stop climate change and possible responses to questions posed by the need for a sustainable future. Do you see little? Who gives more for less?