organic farming and organic products
What is organic farming?What are the organically produced foods?
Characteristics of organically produced foods
How to identify organic food?
What is organic farming?
Organic agriculture is holistic production management systems which promotes and enhances agro ecosystem health, including biodiversity, biological cycles, and soil biological activity. It emphasizes the use of management practices in preference to the use of off-farm inputs, taking into account that regional conditions require locally adapted systems. This is accomplished by using, where possible, cultural, biological and mechanical methods, as opposed to using synthetic materials.
n Codex Alimentarius Comission, FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation/Organização para a Nutrição e Agricultura) / WHO, 1999
Organic farming is a form of agriculture which avoids or largely excludes the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, plant growth regulators and livestock feed additives. As far as possible, organic farmers rely on crop rotation, crop residues, animal manures and mechanical cultivation to maintain soil productivity and tilth to supply plant nutrients, and to control weeds, insects and other pests.
According to the international organic farming organization IFOAM: "The role of organic agriculture, whether in farming, processing, distribution, or consumption, is to sustain and enhance the health of ecosystems and organisms from the smallest in the soil to human beings."
In Wikipedia
As a complement to the definition for Organic Farming in Codex Alimentarius and Wikipedia, we can say that it is a production method that respects the environment and its biodiversity.
Thus, in general, Organic Farming obliges:
• farms where the products have been harvested, had to be in minimum conversion period of 2 years before the annual crop or 3 years before the crop of fruits and other perennial crops (except for the pasture);
• the fertility and organic activity of the soils must be kept and improved by:
•appropriate crops and suitable rotation systems;
• suitable organic matter incorporated in the soils;
• the fight against parasites, plagues and other infestations must be carried out through:
• choice of suitable species and varieties;
• crops rotation programmes;
• crops mechanical processes;
• protection of the natural plant parasites;
• fight of the infestations with fire;
• animals must preferably be chosen amongst the local breeds or breeds that are particularly adapted to the local conditions and the ones which have not been born in farms that adopted the organic production concept must submit to a conversion period specific to each breed. Every animal from the same production unit must be bread according to this production concept. It is strictly forbidden to keep animals moored;
• this production concept is an activity bound to earth, and that is why animals must have a free range to move along, with a limited number of animals per area available in order to ensure an integrated management of the animal and vegetable production in the production unit, thus minimizing all forms of pollution, namely soil, superficial waters and water tables. The importance of the effective must be strictly related to the available areas, in order to avoid erosion problems and an excessive wear out of the vegetation and allowing the spread of the animal manure, avoiding the environmental losses;
• the prevention of diseases is based on the following principles:
a. selection of the animal breeds and lineage that suitable;
b. application of practices of animal production adequate to the demands of each species, instigating high resistance to diseases and prevention of infections;
c. the use of good quality food, along with regular exercise with access to the pasture, stimulating the natural immunologic defences of the animal;
d. ensuring an adequate population control, avoiding animal excess with the health problems that are associated with this practice.
e. nevertheless, sick and hurt animals, must be properly taken care of;
• the veterinary medicines and fitotherapeutical and homeopathic must be preferably used instead of the veterinary chemical allopathic medicines or antibiotics, since the therapeutically effects are efficient for the animal breed and for the problem to which the treatment is used for.
• For the fertilization and soil correction.
In the European regulation it is clearly referenced the products that can, exceptionally, be used:
• to fight plagues and diseases;
• as additives and technologic auxiliaries, in the transformation of products from the organic production concept;
• as food for animals, raw materials for animal feeding, food compounds for animals and additives for animal feeding;
• as products for cleaning and disinfection in the livestock installations;
• as products to fight plagues or diseases in the livestock installations.
Such products can only be used if its use is authorized by each Member State, in the agriculture or generally in the food.
Nevertheless, operators in Organic Farming are obliged to the fulfilment of legislation in general, namely in what concerns vegetable and animal health.
In site IDRHA – Ministério da Agricultura
back what are the organically produced foods?
According to the European legislation, Organic Products are vegetable products (edible or non edible, such as flowers, cotton fibres, hemp or linen, herbs used with therapeutically aims, cork, etc) and the products for human nourishment made out by one or more ingredients of vegetable origin, obtained according to precise production rules.
From the 24th August 2000, livestock and animal products (beef meats, lamb, goat, pork, poultry and eggs, milk, honey and other products from beekeeping) have been included in the Organic Farming scope as well as transformed products of an animal origin, aimed at human nourishment.
From the 6th August 2003 the food products, compound products for animals and raw materials are also included for animal feeding.
Not yet covered are game products, fish and aquaculture products, aromatic essences, salt, wine, wine vinegar and wine brandies.
backorganic farming products characteristics
Food grown in the organic farming concept is characterized for having an aroma and flavours that are more intense with higher nutritional value – due to the higher concentration in dry matter and nutrients – and for being safe.
Organic food also promotes a good health and well being, preventing and avoiding diseases.
The reasons are essentially the fact that they supply us the nutrients we need without products that are considered as harmful for our health such as chemicals applied in the conventional agriculture products (herbicides, pesticides, antibiotics, preservatives, etc.) and most of the times can be found in the ready to consume products. They also give more and better resources for our organism to defend against diseases.
Vegetable products are the best source of anti-oxidant – important in human nourishment as they capture the free radicals, molecules that destroy our tissues, leading to degenerative diseases.
The most common anti-oxidants are beta carotene (found in higher quantities in pumpkins, carrots, sweet potatoes, mango, spinach, apricots, red peppers, broccoli and green leaves and some seaweeds, just to name some), vitamin C (found in higher quantities in papayas, guavas, oranges and other citrus, kiwis, mango fruit, broccoli, peppers, cabbages and strawberries), the flavoides (found in higher quantities in onions, parsley, rhubarb, grapefruit, oranges, apples, apricots, pears, peaches, tomatoes, cherries, grenadine, grapes, plums, raspberries, strawberries, leguminous plants, sage, green tea and red wine), the licopen (found in higher quantities in tomatoes, carrots, green peppers, apricots, grapefruit and melon) and the lutein (found in higher quantities in oily plant seeds, first cold pressing oils and cereal germen; the process of refining and frying of the oils destroy vitamin E).
The higher efficiency of the organic food products when compared to the ones produced in the conventional agriculture is a result of the quantity and quality of those anti-oxidants, but also of its combination with other substances (natural antibiotics and essential oils, for instance) with which synergies are generated resulting globally in clear advantages for the fecundity and for the reinforcement of the immuniser defences of the human beings that consume the organic products.
Wikipedia
The principle of organic production is the establishment of the environment balance using natural methods for fertilizing and plague controlling.
The philosophy of the organic food products is not limited to the agriculture production, but also extends to livestock (in which cattle must be bread without chemicals or hormones), and the processing of related products: organic industrialized food must also be produced without artificial chemicals, such as artificial colouring and aromatics. We can almost resume all the philosophic essence as an absolute despise for every substance with an origin in the chemical industry. All the remaining industries: mechanical, energetical, logistic, are accepted regarding that they are not proeminent.
The culture of organic products is not limited to food products. There is a growing trend in the non food organic products, such as organic cotton fibres (to be used in the production of clothing). The proponents of the organic fibres say that the use of pesticides in exceptionally high levels, along with other chemical substances, in the conventional production of fibres represents an environmental abuse from the conventional agriculture.
The pedology has limited over decades to the study of the soil physic and chemical structure. Today the agronomy is suffering from its ignorance of the microfauna and micro flora and its ecology. It is estimated that 95% of the micro organisms that live in the soil are unknown to science.
Organic products usually mean being more expensive than the conventional ones, be it because of the higher cost in the production, or for its marketing (that explores the image to the ecological appeal).
Many States in the United States are now offering a certification for their farmers. For a production system to be certified as organic, the soil must be used only with organic production methods during a certain period of years before certification. There are only certain chemical substances derived from natural products (such as insecticides from tobacco) that can be used in the vegetable and/or animal production.
In the United Kingdom, organic certification is performed through some organizations, from which Soil Association and the Organic Farmers and Growers are the bigger. All certifying organisms are subject to the United Kingdom Register of Organic Food Standards regulations, in liaison with the European Union legislation. In Sweden, organic certification is done through Krav. In Switzerland, control is done through the Biodynamic Institute.
backHow to identify organic food?
In 1991 the first regulation (EEC) - 2092/91 – came up, and others have followed later, concerning the production, labelling and inspection. To be an organic producer, one has to register with a competent organism within the country of origin and submit to a control that starts in the production, goes through the storage and transformation and ends up with the storage, packaging and distribution.
The exploitations are inspected at least once a year, with visits without prior notice. The failure to comply with the regulations means that the reference of the organic production system has to be dropped for the product in question.
Thus, products that comply with all the defined criteria and rules can exhibit the organic logo, created in 2000 by the European Comission and that can be voluntarily used by producers whose systems have been declared, after the required inspections, complying with the European Union regulations.
The designation of the products is naturally different from country to country. Following some designations used to go with the logo, according to the country of origin, in the European Community:
- Spain“Agricultura Ecológica”;
- United Kingdom“Organic Farming”;
- France “Agriculture Biologique”;
- Italy“Agricoltura Biológica”;
- Germany“Biologische Landwirtschaft” ou “Ökologischer Landbau”.
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