Make 2015 an Organic Year

2014 was the year of science supporting the benefits of organic food and farming: for human health, pollinator health, and the health of the environment.

To help you ring in the new year and truly turn over a new healthy leaf, The Organic Center has transformed the top ten studies of 2014 into New Year's resolutions that show how to improve the state of your diet and the state of our planet by choosing organic.

1. Be Health-Minded,  Eat Organic

A review of the latest research on the effects of organic agriculture and crops on public health found a clear health advantage in consuming organically produced food instead of conventionally produced. Published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, the findings concluded the lower pesticide residue levels in organic produce were a significant factor in helping account for these benefits.

2. Get Pesticides Out of Your Life

Pesticides, linked to numerous health problems, are still found on conventional produce in the grocery store. A study showed that eating an organic diet for just seven days can significantly reduce your exposure to pesticides. The research found pesticide metabolite levels in a group of individuals who ate a diet of at least 80 percent organic for a week were cut by up to 96 percent.

3. Load Up on Antioxidant-Rich Foods

A key study of 2014 showed organic fruits and vegetables have higher levels of antioxidants.  Researchers found that if you choose organic rather than conventional fruits and vegetables, you can get an average of 20-40 percent increase in antioxidants!  Antioxidants protect our cells against the effects of free radicals, which can damage cells in the body and trigger disease.

4. Bee Concerned

Commercial beekeepers are losing an average of 30 percent of their colonies each winter. This is  a problem for bee-pollinated crops such as almonds, apples, cucumbers, avocados, oranges, and berries. One of the major contributors to bee deaths is exposure to pesticides, particularly neonicotinoids. In 2014, a study published by Harvard researchers supported and strengthened research in 2012 that found a link between neonicotinoid use and colony collapse disorder.

5. Save Organic Citrus

A disease called citrus greening has devastated thousands of acres of citrus trees in the United States, and may even cause domestic citrus to disappear altogether. Research on controlling this disease focuses on toxic pesticide sprays and the development of GMO citrus varieties. The Organic Center has teamed up with professors at universities, industry members, and organic growers to launch a large-scale study looking at organic solutions to citrus greening. Visit the Organic Center Citrus Greening page.

6. Do Your Part. Help Slow Down Climate Change

Research shows good news for climate change mitigation: organically managed soils could reverse the trend of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere! Conducted by the Rodale Institute, the research looks in-depth at how farming systems affect greenhouse gas emission, and illustrates the ability of soil to mitigate climate change when managed organically.

7. The More the Merrier! Support Biodiversity

A study in the Journal of Applied Ecology found that organic farms support more species than conventional farms. On average, organic farms support 34 percent more plant, insect, and animal species than conventional farms. When the researchers looked at pollinators such as bees individually, they found that organic farms had 50 percent higher species diversity.

8. Focus on Soil Health

A study on healthy soil biodiversity published in Agronomy for Sustainable Development found that conservation and organic farming techniques boost the number of soil organisms when compared to conventional farming. The researchers measured soil life over a period of 14 years and found that versus conventional systems, organic and conservation agriculture systems had more earthworms in the soil, 30 -70% more microorganisms, and improved bacterial pathways.

9. Listen to the Birds

Research shows that organic farming is healthier for birds. Songbirds are especially sensitive, because conventional farms can reduce food supplies for young songbirds unable to leave their nests. An article in the journal Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment compared availability of "nestling" food on organic and conventional farms. Because organic farming does not use synthetic pesticides and has longer, more diverse crop rotations, organic farms were found to provide more available nestling food than conventional farms.

10. Keep Away From Toxins

Avoiding pesticides is even more important than previously thought. A study led by Organic Center Science Advisory Board member Professor Gilles-Eric Séralini showed that major pesticides are more toxic to humans than suggested by their active ingredients. Pesticides contain a mix of "inert" ingredients. These "inerts" are not taken into account in safety test trials, and the active ingredients are tested in isolation. This research looked at the toxicity of herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides when all ingredients were included, and found that eight out of nine pesticide formulations were up to one thousand times more toxic than their active ingredients.

Bonus: Spread the Word

Help make 2015 an organic year for your friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues. Sign up for The Organic Center newsletter, and follow them on Facebook for the latest research on the science behind the benefits of organic year round. Stay informed…and pass your knowledge on!

[via The Organic Center]

5 Studies That Link Science Behind the Benefits of Organic

Benefits to Public Health

A new study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health concluded that eating an organic diet can contribute to human well-being. The research was led by Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences-based Dr. Jan Johansson, who reviewed current research on the effect of organic agriculture and crops on public health.

Finding a clear health advantage of consuming organic, her team states that "both animal studies and in vitro studies clearly indicate the benefits of consumption of organically produced food instead of that conventionally produced."

The increased phenolic compounds and lower pesticide residues found in organic produce could partially account for these benefits, but the study also points out that the significant advantages of organic cannot be explained by these variables alone. Researchers suggest that synergistic effects between various constituents within organic food are likely to be part of the reason it's more beneficial to public health than conventional products.

Reduced Pesticide Exposure

A new study published in the journal Environmental Research found that eating an organic diet for a week can reduce a person's pesticide exposure. The research was led by Dr. Liza Oates, who examined pesticide metabolites in the urine of 13 individuals who consumed a diet of at least 80 percent organic over seven days, and conventional food for seven days.

Dr. Oates’ team found that the total pesticide metabolite levels were reduced by as much as 96 percent by eating organic, with an average reduction of 50 percent. This study shows that eating an organic diet can reduce exposure to chemicals that have been associated with health risks. As stated by Dr. Oates, “Recent studies have raised concerns for the health effects of these chemicals even at relatively low levels.”

It’s nice to see a study showing that choosing organic can make a significant difference in your exposure levels.

Nutritional Benefits

A new study published in the British Journal of Nutrition shows conclusive evidence that organic crops, and the food made from them, are healthier than their conventional counterparts. In this study, researchers conducted a meta-analysis on 342 peer-reviewed publications looking at the health benefits of organic agriculture and found that organic crops have higher antioxidant levels, lower cadmium levels and less pesticide residues than non-organic crops. They found that organic crops had significantly higher levels of antioxidants that have been linked to decreases in chronic disease risks such as cardiovascular disease, neurodegenerative diseases and certain cancers.

The study also found fewer pesticide residues and lower toxic metal levels in organic versus conventional food, and organic crops had on average 48 percent lower cadmium levels than conventional crops. Cadmium is a highly toxic metal that can cause kidney failure, bone softening and liver damage. It can accumulate in the body, so even at low levels chronic exposure is dangerous. The findings of this study strongly support the health benefits of organic food.

Neonicotinoid Pesticides Linked to Honeybee Die-Off

A new study published in the Bulletin of Insectology by Harvard researchers found further evidence of the link between neonicotinoid use and Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), in which bees abandon their hives over the winter and eventually die.

This study was led by Professor Chensheng (Alex) Lu, an advisory board member for The Organic Center and associate professor of Environmental Exposure Biology at the Harvard School of Public Health. It supports his previous research, which found that 94 percent of hives exposed to low levels of the neonicotinoid imidacloprid died within 23 weeks of exposure. The new study added a second neonicotinoid called clothianidin to their observations. The researchers found that the same negative effects were associated with bee exposure to clothianidin as with imidacloprid. “We demonstrated again in this study that neonicotinoids are highly likely to be responsible for triggering CCD in honeybee hives that were healthy prior to the arrival of winter,” said Dr. Lu.

Organically Managed Soils Could Reverse Effects of Climate Change

The Rodale Institute has done some amazing science supporting the benefits of organic agriculture, and its new report, entitled “Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change,” maintains this high quality of investigation. The report takes an in-depth look at how farming systems affect greenhouse gas emission and illustrates the benefits that organic agriculture can have on climate change. Specifically, the publication focuses on the ability of soil to mitigate climate change when managed organically.

Findings include a decrease of annual greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent if management of all current cropland transitioned to regenerative organic agriculture. Transitioning global pasture would add to carbon sequestration by 71 percent. “We could sequester more than 100 percent of current annual CO2 emissions with a switch to widely available and inexpensive organic management practices,” the report states.

[via newhope 360]

Superlettuce!

Extreme weather calls for extreme crops.

It’s hot. By 9 a.m., a dusty desert film radiates hazy stillness over thirsty fields of produce. The air is dry as static, and temperatures are well on their way to a blistering peak of 103 degrees in the desert town of El Centro, California, 13 miles from the Mexican border. But Beiquan Mou, a research geneticist with the U.S Department of Agriculture, is buoyant, because his acre-wide field of green and purple lettuce is thriving in these oven-like conditions.

Lettuce is a delicate mistress; it must be coddled and kept below 85 degrees or it will struggle — bad news for America’s salads, as scientists claim climate change is poised to turn central California, home to the nation’s “salad bowl,” into a dust bowl by the end of the century. Most of the year, 60 percent of all the lettuce Americans consume grows in the Salinas Valley, 500 miles from here, cooled by the Pacific breeze. Temperatures there hover at an average of 68 degrees. In El Centro, highs of 106 are not unusual. And that is why Mou is here. Someday, much of America’s prime agricultural land will be subject to the same weather conditions that conspired to make 2012 the hottest year on record in the continental U.S. Over the course of this century, North America will see longer periods of extreme heat. Farmers could see annual losses of $5 billion or more.

Meet the Superlettuce

Mou, tall and serious in a round straw hat, armed with clipboard and pen, is picking thick, green heads of iceberg and juicy-looking romaine in leaf-wilting heat. “The Margarita looks good,” he says, touching a tender butterhead cultivar, blooming in the cracked roseate sand.

Since 2010, Mou has been on an epic quest for the world’s most heat-tolerant lettuces. Backed by a three-year federal grant, part of a $38 million effort to cope with climate change, he has growtested more than 3,500 varieties of lettuce and spinach in a heat chamber laboratory, exposing them to scorching temperatures and recording the results. The goal: Identify the hardiest species, and isolate their survival genes.

Someday, hopefully, the winners of this gladiatorial death match will wind up on salad plates. The lettuce of the future may look and taste the same, but thanks to the research Mou has begun, its DNA will contain a heat-resistant gene to help farmers cultivate it pretty much anywhere — even the desert.

By late May, Mou’s 84 finalists — 28 icebergs, 28 romaines and 28 butterheads — are ready to be picked and analyzed. They even have superhero names like Gladiator, Jericho, Sniper and Invader. Crouching in pristine, button-down ensembles, Mou and his assistant pile lettuce heads into containers and carry them back to their shade tent. They weigh them, test their firmness, split them open and measure their cores, taking note of tip burn and leaf stress.

Many of Mou’s plants have grown into mutant parodies of supermarket lettuce. Some green-leaf varieties are more than a foot wide with heads bigger than wedding bouquets. Others have cooked in the sun so long they look like burnt marshmallows.

The weirdest-looking lettuces have shot their stems 2ó feet into the air, growing leaves in the shape of Christmas trees. Called “bolting,” this is a survival tactic in which lettuce under heat stress tries to flower quickly in an attempt to reproduce.

But Mou’s lettuce has to do more than look good. He bites into a tasty-looking iceberg cultivar called Glacier and makes a face. It is piercingly bitter. “In the Salinas Valley, that one tastes just fine,” he says, shaking his head. He uses his knife to slit open a neighboring iceberg. He nods in approval. It’s sweet. It will take trial and error to produce a lettuce that is both hardy and tasty.

Global warming will dictate the world’s salad bar selection in the not-so-distant future, and Mou isn’t the only one rushing to condition our unprepared produce.

One of the USDA’s top objectives in coming years is to identify crop varieties with the most resilient all-weather genes. In addition to Mou’s work, USDA plant physiologists in North Carolina are looking for soybean cultivars that can tolerate elevated ozone and carbon dioxide levels. In Wisconsin, scientists are adapting cranberries to unexpected frost snaps — another regional effect of climate change. In Maryland, researchers are studying crops that deliver better yields with higher levels of carbon dioxide.

Mou won’t have results until 2014. But finding the world’s first superlettuce is only half the challenge. It will take time — and money — to find a way to crossbreed the lettuce genotypes with other existing strains. Charles Walthall, acting deputy administrator of the USDA’s Natural Resources and Sustainable Agriculture Systems program, says industry leaders like Monsanto are already focused on similar research. Syngenta, for example, has taken an interest in Mou’s study, and sent representatives to one of his lettuce fields.

If all goes well, our lettuce may be more primed than we are to survive the hot, dry times ahead.

“You think this is hot?” laughs Mou, sweating.

“Maybe every day in the future will be this hot.”

[via: Modern Farmer | Image credit: Julia Scott]