Good

While there are certainly many good things about organic farming, it also has its downsides as well and it is very obvious in the disadvantages of organic farming. These disadvantages can be classified into two different but related categories: consumers and producers. These are the main reasons why organic farming hasn’t been adopted by majority of farmers, even if it is so good, as claimed by its proponents. Here are several disadvantages of organic farming that is worth knowing.

One of the disadvantages of organic farming is the lower production yields of the methods that are utilized in this form of agriculture. Organic farmers avoid the use of machinery, artificial fertilizers, and chemicals in this type of agriculture. As a result, it takes more time and effort to plant these organic crops. Not using pesticides mean that organic farmers must also tolerate a level of pest damage on their crops. The soil cultivation method that are used by farmers are also vulnerable to wind and water erosion. And because they utilize crop diversity as a method of organic farming, the land is not capitalized for a single crop alone. In other words, inefficiency in the production process is one of the major disadvantages of organic farming.

There are also a few disadvantages of organic farming on the consumers’ side as well. One that is quite obvious is that organic foods are very costly. Products of organic farming are often 50 to 100% more than the price traditional food. Supporters of organic farming assert that this is the price that you pay for the crop failure that comes with this method of farming, and also of the health benefits that you gain from these products. Unfortunately, not all people have the purchasing power to spend on these expensive food. Organic products also have the tendency to become easily spoiled because of their lack of preservatives. Lastly, there is still no scientific consensus regarding the health benefits of organic products.Finally, there is still no clear scientific consensus about the nutritional value of these organic foods.

However, while these disadvantages of organic farming are very pertinent concerns, they are still not adequate to just write off the potentials of this farming method.