By Josh Sonnabend

 Organic Farming: USDA Consumer Brochure-Food that is produced without using conventional pesticides, fertilizers, or bioengineering $2.6 billion to $26.7 billion increase in sales since 1997 This is unlikely to continue in the long term due to a variety of factors including: Economics Inconsistency in health benefit data The major growth in the world population

 Organic production yields 25% less on average ◦ Producers must receive a high premium on products  Generally higher premiums around population centers

 Although it is widely believed that organic food is healthier/safer, data is not supportive of this claim ◦ Indian Journal of Medical Research: “What is clear from our analysis, however, is that there is currently no evidence of major differences in nutritional content between production regimens and from a public health perspective, the differences that we did identify are not important in the context of a normal healthy diet”

 Currently, the world population sits just under 7 billion ◦ Expected to reach 9 billion by 2050  2 billion person increase needs to be fed on a virtually fixed amount of land

 The world trend is an increase in the amount of meat in our diets ◦ Requires more grain to feed livestock  Cattle feed conversion ratio ◦ 6:1calories  Hog feed conversion ratio ◦ :1calories

 Organic agriculture, while possibly having its place as a niche market, will not become the major practice in the United States due to: Reduced yields leading to a less competitive economic ability for producers The inability to find data supporting organic food’s perceived health benefits The rapidly growing world population The increase in meat consumption per capita worldwide

 Reubold, Todd. " releases/2012/UR_CONTENT_ html.". University of Minnesota, 26 Apr Web. 8 Apr  Dena M. Bravata, et al. "Are Organic Foods Safer Or Healthier Than Conventional Alternatives?." Annals Of Internal Medicine (2012): Academic Search Premier. Web. 8 Apr  Ricardo Uauy, et al. "Nutritional composition & health benefits of organic foods -- using systematic reviews to question the available evidence." Indian Journal of Medical Research Apr. 2010: Academic Search Premier. Web. 8 Apr  Goodman, Ryan. " feed-efficiency/.". Agriculture Proud, 6 Feb Web. 8 Apr  Losinger, William. United States. Department of Agriculture.Feed-conversion ratio of finisher pigs in the USA. Fort Collins, CO:, Print.