Why do we have to call our carrots “organic carrots”, whilst carrots grown with chemicals get to be called “carrots”. We have two organic certification inspections every year to prove that we are doing what we say we are doing.
We must pay for the privilege to demonstrate we are doing the right thing. When you think about it, it doesn’t seem right. And yet as aside it is the world we live in. If you do not know your food producer, then to be sure that your food is chemical free, organic certification is the only way to get food you can trust.
But why is it that chemical usage on our food is the norm and we need to demonstrate we are different because we don’t use chemicals?
I want to call our carrots, just carrots. It changes the narrative, it makes you stop and think, we are farming without chemicals and yet we must prove that we are not using chemicals.How would our mindset change, if when we picked up a pack of carrots in a supermarket they were labelled “chemical carrots”. Well, I would hazard a guess that fewer packs of these carrots would be picked up and more organic carrots would.
Fresh produce did not used to be differentiated, there was just carrots. But the organic label was coined to give people a choice to opt for not consuming toxic chemicals with their food. This only really became an issue as the prevalence of synthetic chemicals in our food chain grew. I am taking here about the generation of pesticides that were developed from the 1960s on and created a whole new multibillion dollar industry built on agrichemical control of our food. Modern synthetic fungicides, pesticides and herbicides are in and on our food, some are systemic in nature, others damage the soil, biodiversity and of course our health.
Although recently things have improved in the conventional world of food production and IPM (integrated pest management) is being used. But chemicals are still the easiest solution, they are less work, and they are still used intensively both here in Ireland and abroad. In 2015, the last date there is reliable data for pesticide use in Ireland by crop, 660 Ha of carrots were grown and they received, 2,856 kilogrammes of pesticides, that is 1.73kg per acre, that is quite a lot of chemicals.
Common chemicals that are used in conventional carrot production are shown below and so if we were to list the chemicals on the produce label, it might look something like this:
Chemical Carrots (may contain/grown with: Lambda-cyhalothrin, Linuron, Metribuzin, Azoxystrobin, Difenoconazole, Pendimethalin, Prothioconazole, Boscalid, Pyraclostrobin, Tebuconazole)
Or you can choose organic carrots which would state:
Carrots (may contain: carrots)
I know which one I would choose.
As always thanks for your support. Kenneth
PS check out the little video I made out in our field of kale flowers that are buzzing with bees and insects, it is a haven for biodiversity, it is amazing and beautiful and reminds us that we may be doing something right. This is one of the reasons we do not use chemicals on our food and farm.