Is Agribusiness Making Food Less Nutritious?
(Page 2 of 6)
June/July 2004
By Cheryl Long and Lynn Keiley
Recently, we contacted Johnson again, to find out whether there had been any new developments on the matter. Her office referred us back to the 1999 letter and told us Johnson had no additional comment on the subject.
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WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY
Many things can impact the nutrient content of a vegetable or fruit. Variety type, soil quality, fertilizers, crop rotations, maturity at harvest time and the distance from farm to table all play a role in determining the vitamins and minerals in our food. We asked sustainable agriculture expert Charles Benbrook, Ph.D., if reliance on chemical fertilizers and emphasis on high yields might reduce the nutrients in fruits and vegetables. Benbrook has been studying the pros and cons of conventional and organic agriculture for more than 15 years. He explained factors that make organic foods rich in nutrients:
Fertilizers. Non-organic farmers use highly soluble nitrogen fertilizers, and keeping this nutrient in their soils is difficult. To be sure they get high yields, they often apply more nitrogen than the crops actually need.
This dependence upon chemical nitrogen fertilizers means we're getting less for our money, says Benbrook. Numerous studies have demonstrated that high levels of nitrogen stimulate quick growth and increase crop yields because the fruits and vegetables take up more water. In effect, this means consumers pay more for produce diluted with water. "High nitrogen levels make plants grow fast and bulk up with carbohydrates and water. While the fruits these plants produce may be big, they suffer in nutritional quality," Benbrook says, "whereas organic production systems [which use slow-release forms of nitrogen] produce foods that usually yield denser concentrations of nutrients and deliver consumers a better nutritional bargain per calorie consumed."
Benbrook says the USDA has a tacit policy to avoid discussions of differences in food quality and safety that may be a function of how food is grown and processed. "The Department made a political decision when they finalized the national organic rule; they declared that "organic" food was not nutritionally superior or safer than conventional food, even though there is solid evidence suggesting otherwise." This would certainly explain the response we got from Johnson's office.
What it all comes down to, Benbrook says, is that you can't buy soil quality in a bag any more than you can buy good nutrition in a pill. Organic farmers work to support the complex natural relationships between crop roots, soil microbes and minerals, but "scientists only understand a few of those relationships. Unless we understand much more fully what the critical balances are, it's very difficult to import them to the farm in a bag or a bottle."
Vitamin C. High nitrogen levels reduce the concentrations of vitamin C in crops such as lettuce, beets, endive, kale and Brussels sprouts. Similar effects have been detected on fruits such as apples, oranges, lemons and cantaloupe. Swiss studies have shown similar impacts on potatoes and tomatoes, as well as citrus fruits — which are major sources of this important vitamin.
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