Buying Organic? Definitely Strawberries

I don’t buy much organic food however I make an exception for strawberries. This is because they are ground-level feeders and most vulnerable to chemical absorption, but organically-certified strawberries taste a lot better anyway and they last longer. Here is a list of produce with the highest and lowest pesticide levels.

The use of pesticides and fumigants on so many California crops is something of a disgrace, since they affect the health of farmworkers, they ravage the environment and they end up in the food supply. There is plenty of evidence nowadays to demonstrate that organic farming practices can flourish (this story for example). There are higher costs from having to rotate crops and do manual weeding and pest control, but a premium price can be charged at retail too, so it evens out.

Unfortunately organic strawberries are only about 4% of the market, yet there are promising signs that farmers are aware of the problems with industrial-scale agriculture and younger farmers increasingly are switching to organic. The current fight is over the replacement of ozone-depleting methyl bromide by carcinogenic methyl iodide. While the science is disputed and policy debates are raging, I know what I am buying.

As an aside, one of the most interesting things I learned from the article linked to above: rotating strawberries in the garden with broccoli and cauliflowers balances soil nutrition. I may try that.