It is surprising that the Food Standards Agency chose to focus their recent report purely on the comparitive nutritional value of organic versus conventionally grown food – and generate high profile media reporting to the effect that there is no difference between the foods – when at the very least the wider health impacts of the two approaches should have been considered beyond looking at relative calorific values or nutrient content.

The absence of pesticides in organic food was not considered and the potential health impacts that derive from long term ingestion of these substances. This on the same day as the media reported a land-mark court ruling that children with birth defects in Corby were entitled to compensation as a result of their mothers breathing toxins resulting from the demolition of the old steel works in the town. So foreign substances in the environment do cause harm and the root causes remain to be investigated and eradicated wherever possible.

Organic production subscribes to the Precautionary Principle that, while links have not yet been publicly proven between current use of pesticides and human health impacts, the fact that such substances are not present in organic food ensures a degree of health and safety that conventionally grown crops cannot.

Additionally, the impacts of chemical fertilizers on the land have direct impacts on soil quality, biodiversity and environmental health. Eradicating the use of manmade nitrogen soil substitutes is another way of ensuring a healthy environment and healthy food.

There are many more factors that need to be considered in the debate between organic and conventional food – not least the ability of organic production methods to yield sufficient food crops to feed the world’s growing population,  and some astute academics (such as Dr. Einir Young at Bangor University’s Welsh Institute for Natural Resources) have pointed out that organic food will not be able to do that – so the argument is not absolutely clear-cut.

However, on the basis of generating media headlines on the ‘nutritional value’ of food, it is a disappointment and typical of the ‘silo’ approach, that the FSA chose to look in such a narrow context without recognising the other health assurances that organic production brings.