A Major Reason Why Organic Food is Better: Healthy Soils & Animals Mean a Healthy Diet

The Guardian (London) February 14, 2006

Healthy soil means a healthy diet

For a full crop of good food farmers need more than 'eroded geology'

By Robin Maynard

Felicity Lawrence's important report exposed the lack of joined-up
thinking from government and many nutritionists when it comes to
policy and advice on healthy diets (Mineral levels in meat and milk
plummet over 60 years, February 2) Food is seen as something entirely
separate from its means and source of production - so long as people
follow a "balanced diet" reflecting a nutritionist's chart of
proteins, carbohydrates and their daily fruit and veg official
thinking is that all will be well. Little consideration is given to
whether the nutritional quality of our food is affected by the manner
the crops and animals from which it is derived are raised; and
virtually no thought is given to the vitality of the soil.

Farming has gone through huge changes over the past 60 years and
Lawrence noted a crucial development linked to the decline in mineral
levels in food - the use of chemical fertilisers to maximise crop
yields, so replacing traditional methods for building soil fertility,
such as rotations of different crops and livestock.

Artificial fertilisers derive from the reductionist science of the
19th-century chemist Liebig, who identified the basic minerals needed
by plants by incinerating them and analysing the remaining ash.
Liebig believed that by adding these back to the soil after cropping,
fertility could be maintained indefinitely. The modern "'magic mix"
of nitrogen, phosphate and potassium boosted crop yields beyond
farmers' wildest dreams.

Certainly, the resulting crops looked bigger but, as research showed,
they were not necessarily better. A healthy soil is made up of more
than eroded geology - a spoonful can contain more bacteria, fungi,
protozoa, nematodes and other species than there are people on the
planet. Artificial fertilisers and pesticides significantly reduce
the numbers of these microscopic soil inhabitants. A 21-year field
trial in Switzerland comparing organic and non-organic farming showed
dramatic differences in soil microbiology, with populations 85%
higher in the organically managed field than in that treated with
artificial chemicals.

Maintaining the populations of these myriad micro-organisms is
fundamental to organic farming: the benefits for consumers of food
raised from this "living soil" have been confirmed in an extensive
study in 2001 which found that, on average, organic food contained
higher levels of vitamin C and essential minerals than conventional
produce. Just last year, research by the University of Newcastle
confirmed that organic cows produced milk 50% higher in vitamin E,
75% higher in beta carotene (vitamin A) and two to three times higher
in antioxidants, as well as having higher levels of omega-3 essential
fatty acids.

The foundations for a healthy diet are laid back at the farm: in the
health of the crops and livestock and, fundamentally, in the health
of the soil upon which they are raised.

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