[ConservativeInPA]

I’m just a backyard gardener, certainly no farmer. So I have to wonder why organic fruits and veggies are more expensive since they don’t have to spend money on expensive petroleum based fertilizers and pesticides? Isn’t manure and compost free, except for the little extra labor? Does the lack of pesticides and fertilizers reduce yields that much? I always chalked up that organic fruits and veggies were more expensive because that is what the market will bear. People are willing to pay higher prices.

[Varda]

“Does the lack of pesticides and fertilizers reduce yields that much?”

I wasn’t an organic farmer but my neighbor was. The answer is yes. Yield is reduced and crop damage is much higher. Production per acre is much lower therefore price is much higher.

Modern methods mean we can feed billions of people while farming less land and starvation is a product of wars not crop failures. I guess modern people got tired of the lack of famines.

[Parmy]

Speaking as one who was in the fruit business. Retired now. Farming organic doesn't mean no pesticides and no spraying. It means more spraying with authorized compounds that are supposed to be more environmentally friendly because the efficacy of the compound is so limited.

The spray manual for organic producers us twice as thick as the one for conventional producers.

[desertfreedom765]

Isn’t organic really just a marketing term?

You would have to monitor the food production all the way from planting to harvesting. Who is going to do that.