Farmer insists health benefits of organic food production are clear
Filed under Environmental News
UK Times Online
Valerie Elliott
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Rob Wallrond, who runs Glebe Farm, a 40-hectare (100-acre) estate in Pitney, near Taunton, Somerset, switched to organic farming eight years ago.
He keeps Saddleworth pigs, Dorset sheep, Black Rock hens and Angus and Hereford-cross cattle, and grows 80 different vegetables, all to organic standards. While he never expected to be creating “a superfood” he is convinced there are benefits for anyone eating organic meat, milk and eggs.
“There are obvious health benefits to our diets if livestock are fed on grass and forage. There are higher levels of omega-3 and beneficial fatty acids in milk, meat and eggs. We don’t use pesticides but I am convinced their use could be storing up trouble for the future. I don’t think we as a society really yet know the long-term effects of pesticide residues.”
Despite his belief in the nutritional benefits of the food he produces, he was not angry about the findings from the Food Standards Agency as the watchdog has never endorsed the health benefits of organic over conventional food. His main worry was that some people might be put off eating organic food.
“I think the timing is insensitive when we have got this recession and it is hard for us to maintain our premiums. But on the plus side for us, people who buy organic don’t just do it for nutritional content. They buy it because of the care in which the food is produced, the stricter welfare rules, the environment and wildlife.
“We’ve noticed an increase in farmland birds here such as skylarks. We have more birds of prey, lots of voles and butterflies and we are even getting orchids on our grassland because we don’t use fertiliser and graze fewer animals. I wish more people did take an interest in food production and what they put in their bodies and maybe we would sell even more, but sadly we are a fast, cheap-food nation. I’m not sure what the FSA says will make a difference.”
Related posts:
Organic foods preserves natural environments and protects the growers.
be selfless and not selfish front line growers using pesticides are the victims
My shop is 100% certified organic because I believe what I say is mindful
we must show some respect and care for those who grow our foods and make our clothes and protect our environments, who don’t put profit before animal care
and who protect the rights of small farmers.
That is indeed health I don’t need some white coat to talk about vitamins
and the difference between spraying poisons over the land into the air we breathe and into our water that we drink compared to growing naturally.
The white coats study detail
And miss the wider world
Bogged down in unimportant things
Under coconut shells, lay curled
Take out organic farmers
And our future, who would dare
Predict, as Corporations
Move in, are we aware?
Of their control of Grain supplies
Genetically oh! dear
Cides remember KILL things
that much now seems clear
Damaging organics
Is a crazy thing to do
So think before you go along
With what may just affect YOU
and your kids
Hear, hear! I believe the recent articles stating that organic food is no more nutritious than conventional food, are completely biased. And that in some way the “researchers” have ties to chemicals companies and “Big Agri”.
I’ve studied anatomy, physiology and massage therapy extensively and truly believe that you really are what you eat. I believe that food has different resonances when it has been grown organically (looked after with love and care), compared with it’s counterpart that is mass produced mostly by machinery (and toxic chemicals) and by people that have no attachment to the process of growing and harvesting food.
You’ve hit the nail on the head…it is all about mindfulness.