How do you know something has become successful or is trending? Let me tell you, when you start finding it in things it wasn’t meant to be, or when you start shelling out money for things you know are overpriced, but you won’t even stop to consider your decision (even when you are not a shopaholic). Just recently my sister and I were out on a stroll and we ended up buying a bar of soap for 250 bucks. It’s even smaller than a dove, with no special ingredients either. And no we didn’t buy it from a mall or a high-end retail shop, no fancy label. The only USP (Unique Selling Property) of it is – Organic.
As we all know Organic food is the rage these days and has been gaining momentum for some time. It is quite the hip thing a luxurious trendy lifestyle afforded to a few. But the term first appeared in a book called ‘The Living Soil’ in 1943. It may interest you to find that we were doing organic farming way before that even though we weren’t aware of it per se.
So what is organic food, in layman terms we say – no chemicals. And we are correct. Organic food is the one that has been raised using traditional non-conventional methods of farming, without using man-made/synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, genetically modified organisms (GMO), antibiotics, or techniques like Irradiation (the process of preserving food from poisoning, spoilage and increasing shelf-life using radiation). This food category includes both plant-based and animal-based produce.
There is talk in the town that organic food is better in nutrient quality and even more delicious. However, it is yet to be proven beyond doubt. But yes we can surely say that this food will not lead you to consume harmful chemicals that remain in the produce (so it is safer that ways) and it is environmentally safe. It is cautious to not just create healthy food for you, but take care of the natural resources (land and water) and not corrupting them and create much needed ecological balance in our world. As you can imagine this means more labor, more effort, lesser produce quantity and the proper time for maturation, which leads to the higher prices that make it less attractive to masses as compared to the food raised using conventional methods. The idea behind applying modern techniques to the agriculture industry was to make the ends meet, but it didn’t just stay at that, which is why they have been misused and resultantly endangered many.
It may sound easy but the organic label has to be earned by meeting the requirements and standards set by the National Program for Organic Production.
In current day organic is coveted but sadly isn’t available. The organic farmers aren’t just farmers but they are the artisans of the agricultural industry. Which is why I think it needs to be promoted and applauded so that more measures can be taken to not have it as something trending but the stuff of commoners.