The issues surrounding conventional versus organic farming are many and complex, encompassing environmental protection and biodiversity, animal welfare, sustainable development in poorer countries, and the avoidance of risks to human health such as those presented by antibiotic resistance.
Each of these questions has both scientific and political dimensions, and all of them are areas of incomplete knowledge and ongoing debate and research.
In an ideal world, we could pick and choose the properties of our food. But at the supermarket checkout the choice is cruder: to accept the status quo of conventionally produced food, in which many people perceive ruthless price competition to be driving standards down to the minimum permitted by (often inadequately enforced) regulations, or to buy food produced in a way that seeks to address some of the problems mentioned above. Right now, in practice, that generally means picking up the bag of apples or the [package] ...
