Eating organic food is one of the most important contributions we can make to benefit our health and to protect the planet.

10 Reasons you should buy organic

1. Protect future generations throughout the world
2. Pay the real cost of real food
3. Have an independent guarantee with organic certification
4. Protect water quality
5. Enjoy great flavour and nutrition
6. Keep chemicals off your plate and out of your body
7. Reduce global warming and save energy
8. Prevent soil erosion
9. Help small farmers
10. Help restore and maintain biodiversity

Over 3000 tons of pesticides, including insectisides herbicides and fungicides are used in New Zealand every year. More than half of these are known to cause cancer and birth defects. Somehow we have allowed ourselves to be convinced that food can be exposed to such poisons without absorbing them - this has been proven to be wrong!

In 1998, government tests showed detectable residues in all types of fruit, and in 87% of the types of vegetables that they sampled.

Buying organic food is the best way to encourage farmers to farm organically and stop the spread of poison in the land, the water supply and our food.

The term organic is protected by EC law. It means that the product has been inspected from the farm to the shop by an independent control body, such as BioGro New Zealand in NZ and the Pacific or by an equivalent organization abroad.

Organic food may seem to cost more in the short term. However, the long-term cost of non-organic agriculture, both to ourselves and the environment, is incalculable. Apart from leaving chemical residues in the water and land, and poisoning wildlife, conventional farming uses more crude oil than any other industry, in the manufacture of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides. Million of tons of topsoil are washed into the seas because soil structure is broken down by chemical fertilisers.

Although organic food is more widely available now than ever before, it is still necessary to encourage your local shop or supermarket to stock organic food by buying regularly. Potatoes, carrots and onions are a fairly cheap and good way to test how much better organic food tastes. More than that, a fresh vegetable grown as nature intended, produces a depth and quality of flavour that is all too easily lost in factory farming.