Conventionally Grown

Conventionally grown is an agriculture term referring to a method of growing edible plants (such as fruit and vegetables) and other products. It is opposite to organic growing methods which attempt to produce without synthetic chemicals (fertilisers, pesticides, antibiotics, hormones) or genetically modified organisms. Conventionally grown products, meanwhile, often use fertilisers and pesticides which allow for higher yield, out of season growth, greater resistance, greater longevity and a generally greater mass.Conventionally grown fruit: PLU code consists of 4 numbers (e.g. 4012). Organically grown fruit: PLU code consists of 5 numbers and begins with 9 (e.g. 94012) Genetically engineered fruit: PLU code consists of 5 numbers and begins with 8 (e.g. 84012).

When one hears the word produce the main thought that comes across is, is organic better than Conventional produce. This debate has been confusing and expensive for the entire population. People want to make best choice, and when it comes to their body they want the best food for it. Well does good, healthy food have to cost more? Produce is grown, not made, no matter if it is organic or conventional and the only difference between the two is how they are grown. “Different crops are grown so that the farmer will get larger fruit or larger seeds. There is a lot of science in agriculture today. Growing a better grain, fruit or vegetable means that the farmer needs to know: 1. What kind of plant will grow well in their soil, 2. How to get the soil ready for planting, 3. How to grow, harvest and store the crop, 4. How to get rid of weeds and crop pests, and 5. How to sell it once it's been grown (Crop Farms, 2003).” Conventional crops “often use fertilizers and pesticides which allow for higher yield, out of season growth, greater resistance, greater longevity and a generally greater mass.(Wiki, 2011)” These crops are grown for us to eat, store, and to grow more crops, after all people have to eat. Since people need to eat to survive there have to be enough food produced to sustain all the people on this earth. There are 7,054,396,276 on this planet(Census Bureau, 2012). This means that there has to be enough to keep almost eight billion people alive for an average of eighty years. Since the population keeps growing that means more food will need to be produced to meet the growing demands. This is a problem since people need land to live on and the produce needs land too. That means we have a space problem. “As incomes rise across parts of the developing world, people are consuming more grain-intensive meat; as a result, food demand is actually outpacing population growth: Experts anticipate that in the next two decades, global food production will need to rise by roughly 50 percent. Meanwhile, shrinking amounts of arable land and extreme weather associated with climate change are poised to make agricultural yields plummet: Multiple studies suggest yields for various staple crops could plunge by 20 to 30 percent by mid-century (Montenegro, 2012)”. So how can we fix this problem? Since the early times when people started farming they have been manipulating plants to become how they needed. In the bible they grafted olive branches in order to make the olives tame and no longer wild. Now with science there is biotechnology and genetic engineering. In the article A Natural Obsession Ms. Montenegro gives an example of genetic engineering. “After working for three years at DuPont, the Iowa-born scientist moved to Mexico where he began crossing local wheat with Japanese dwarf varieties with support from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Mexican government. The “miracle seeds” he eventually derived responded better to irrigation and fertilizers: He had effectively up-regulated a gene that allowed the grains to utilize more nitrogen and in turn to bear more fruit. Borlaug’s seeds also grew into plants that were shorter and had stiffer stalks than traditional Mexican wheat, which meant that less precious energy was wasted on producing inedible shafts than on the edible starchy kernels. The sturdier stalks didn’t bend and break quite so easily either, making harvesting more efficient. (Montenegro, 2012)” With science we can help agriculture and the human race survive even as it increases, but it would not be organically grown since it yields less than conventional produce. A way to see the difference between two products is an experiment. “Researchers funded by Denmark’s International Center for Research in Organic Food Systems compared kale, peas, potatoes, and apples grown organically with those grown according to conventional guidelines. They also fed both organic and conventional produce to rats for two years. “Overall, there was no evident trend towards differences in element content of foodstuffs or diets due to the use of different cultivation systems,” they concluded in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. Neither the veggies, nor the rats nourished on them, turned out to be anything other than ordinary. (Montenegro, 2012)” This is a good example that there are no real differences between the nutrients in either food so why would one pay more for the same product that does the same thing. Why worry about the differences when there are none nutritionally speaking.

Reference Page: Montenegro. Maywa. (November, 2012). A Natural Obsession. Retrieved from: theseed.com United Sates Senses Bureau. (May, 2012). US and World Population Clock. Retrieved from: http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html Crop Farms. (2003). Crop Farms. Retrieved from: http://library.thinkquest.org/TQ0312380/crop.htm Wiki.(October, 2011). Conventionally Grown. Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conventionally_grown