Meaning of organic farming

In the recent years, many citizens have concerned about healthy life, more and more people have great interests in "organic farming", "organic vegetable", "permaculture" etc. Healthy food, natural health product and healthy lifestyle are needed in order to prolong their life span, as well as prevent chronic disease like heart disease, cancer, diabetes etc
 
What is organic farming? In simple definition, it is living origin. We are going to use technology that mimic our ecosystem, which include using environmental friendly way to cultivate our land. It practiced for few centuries. Some ancient people comment this is "good husbandry to the health of the land"

Is there any organic standard around the worldwide?
Different countries have different standard. There is an organization called IFOAM (International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movement) represent the worldwide body of organic farming activities, provide a platform for global exchange of information and co-operation.

 

Organic movement just concern about growing food?
In my opinion, organic farming activities not only ensure safety, tasty food. It can be a way of life, imagine you farming with your friends, wife, parents, relatives or other people, this is a joyful sport activity that similar to bowling, tennis, swimming etc. In the later part of my book, you will know all my experience towards this activity. If you only want to try organic food, just go to some licensed organic farm and purchase the vegetable, but you will lost the chance to have experience in production of food.

The relationship between socioeconomic status and organic farming
According to the price of organic vegetables, people with low socioeconomic status are less likely to buy organic food. Currently, most of the customer who buy organic food are high socioeconomic, because they have high occupation and high income to compensate the price.

This situation occur because only low toxicity chemical are allowed during organic farming process, which only inhibit the pest rather than cure them (More detail will be elaborated on Pesticide for pest) , vegetable will have a higher rate of failure and need  more intensive care than traditional farming. Also, the concentration of potassium, nitrogen and phosphate in organic fertilizer such as manure are not enough to supply plant growth while chemical fertilizer can boost up the growth of vegetable rapidly with sufficient amount of NPK.

Do we need to meet any standards to become organic style?
Different situation have different standards for the definition of organic. For people who start their own gardening in home or join Leisure and Cultural Services Department "

Community Garden Program" in Hong Kong or backyard gardening for fun, they do not need to follow any standard, plant it easy. For people who join any organic farm renting program in Hong Kong, they need to follow those strict commercial standards like using the seeds, fertilizer etc provided by the farm. Because those organic farm are licensed which similar to GMP, if you use anything not approved by the farm, AFCD (Agriculture Fisheries and Conservation Department) or Hong Kong Organic Resource Centre Certification Company Ltd, they will issue warning to those farm, even result cancellation of the license. In Australia, many commercial organic farm used seeds treated with fungicide to maximize the seedling development for success growth of their cash crop.

However, we should concern the water source or the raw material source before we make fertilizer. We must sure the source are not contaminate with chemical or other pathogen. If both source are contaminated, those drug or bacteria will integrate with food cycle, chemical will be absorbed by plant or pathogen consist with soil, it will cause disease to us if we ingest those crops.

For example, there is Campylobacter infection in Japan, which cause food poisoning.

This occurs because there is no proper treatment to the feces of chicken before disposing to the river, which causes the water source contaminated. This bacteria even cause Guillain Barre syndrome, because the bacterial antigens are similar to the one in neuron, which cause the immune system secrete antibody attack it mistakenly. Finally cause the nerve have inflammation and paralyzed the body which may lead to respiratory failure.