Organic food is a funny one...I don't buy it, unless it's on offer, as it's generally just much too expensive. The only good argument in favour of it that I can see is a purely environmental one, in that it doesn't involve drenching the landscape in pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. Aside from that, there have been studies that show that its nutritional value is little better or the same as non-organic food, I'm pretty sure I can't taste any difference and as I can generally spare the few seconds it takes to wash fruit and veg before eating it, I'm not too worried about actually ingesting any of the chemicals that are used in their production.
Apparently the 'biggest study yet' into organic food has found that it is significantly better for you.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article2753446.ece
Re: expense. Unless you are literally on the breadline/on benefits, 'expense' for most of us in the developed world largely a matter of what you are prepared to pay for something, which is a psychological issue, not a directly economic one. Our expectations of what food 'should' cost have become lower and lower in real terms over the past 30 years or so, most people's food bills do not account for a significant proportion of their expenditure (we spend something like 10% of our income on food now on average, as opposed to a third in the 70s - no time to look for exact figures but you can look them up). This is the result of the cheap food boom, as well as rising incomes. We could afford to pay a lot more if we prioritised food above other things like entertainment and new clothes. And I would argue that we should.
Yep, the environmental arguments are persuasive, but nothing is 'purely' environmental - in the sense that anything that causes significant environmental degradation sooner or later has a human cost. How would you think about compensating the fisheries that have been ruined by agricultural runoff due to 'conventional' food production (only 'conventional' in the last 60 years, I should remind you)? Should the cost of this destruction (in lost current and future revenues) not be factored into the up-front cost of the food? It isn't at the moment, and this is why conventional food is so cheap: the costs of environmental cleanup are borne by governments here and abroad, funded by taxpayers. We are effectively subsidising the food industry. If these 'external' costs were factored into food prices, organic food wouldn't seem like such an expensive option in comparison. And agricultural runoff is just one example. What about the costs to the taxpayer incurred by the BSE crisis, which was directly brought about by cost-cutting farming practices not tolerated in organic farming (BSE was never found in any organic herd?) My point is you have to see the bigger picture before concluding that organic food is ' too expensive'.
Setting aside these indirect effects, there are obvious, direct human costs associated with agrochemical use. Non-organic farming causes tens of thousands of deaths a year (the WHO says 220,000) from pesticide and herbicide poisoning, mainly in developing countries where regulations are laxer, so therefore we don't hear about them. Should these deaths be factored into the cost of food too?
Whether you can 'taste the difference' is perhaps, in view of this, not important. Although I certainly can.
