Organic vegetables cost more and are no more nutritious than non-organic equivalents. So why are we buying more of them?

THESE SHOULD BE hard times for growers and sellers of organic food. Not only are they trying to sell premium-priced products in a recession, they also have to contend with increasingly downbeat scientific assessments of the nutritional benefits of the food they are coaxing people to buy.

The latest study to cast doubt on the benefits of eating organically was published this week by scientists at the University of Copenhagen. After a two-year experiment comparing the health-giving properties of organic vegetables with those of conventionally grown ones, the scientists declared the contest to be more or less a heat.

They reported that polyphenols, the chemical compounds in potatoes, carrots and onions that are said to fight cancer, heart disease and dementia, were present in the same amounts in organic and non-organic carrots and onions, though they found a slightly higher level in organic potatoes.

It is by no means the first report to cast doubts on the nutritional claims for organic food. Last year researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine reviewed 162 scientific papers that had assessed the relative wholesomeness of organic versus non-organic food. It found no significant difference.

“A small number of differences in nutrient content were found to exist between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs, but these are unlikely to be of any public health relevance,” the report said.

“Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced foods on the basis of nutritional superiority.”

But there are hefty differences in price. A kilo of conventional potatoes can cost less than €1, for example; organic spuds will likely set you back more than €1.40. A regular chicken can cost €2.60 in supermarkets; an organic one costs at least fives times as much.

So is organic food an overpriced fad that is hard to swallow now times are tough? Absolutely not, say advocates. The price gaps have narrowed and the scientific reports are missing the point entirely.

Too many of the studies take a narrow view and forget the big picture, says Darren Grant, who opened the Organic Supermarket in Blackrock, Co Dublin, in July 2008. He lifted the shutters on his organic enterprise “on the day the recession was announced” and was warned that his business was doomed.

But “business is up 35 per cent on 2009”, he says. He believes that many of his customers are “going out less and are concentrating on cooking at home, and they want to use good-quality ingredients”.

He has dropped his prices over the past year; his vegetables now cost between 10 and 15 per cent more than conventionally produced food in traditional supermarkets.

“What people are getting for paying that bit more is pesticide-free food,” he says. “All these scientific studies focus on the nutritional quality of food, but they never discuss the ethos behind organic farming or look at the bigger picture. They never highlight the danger of monocultural farming or mention the pesticides. Non-organic food is being doused in ever-increasing amounts of poisons, and animals are being fed huge amounts of antibiotics and hormones to boost their growth.”

Orla Hyland has been delivering organic vegetables around Dublin for six years and she says that business has been steady despite the downturn. “When I heard about this week’s report I did roll my eyes and think, Not again,” she says. “The study missed out on the level of pesticides and synthetic fertilisers used in non-organic farming. I am dismayed by it . . . Even if my current client base is unaffected, my future client base might be.”

Surprising as it may sound, the higher cost of eating organically has not deterred many Irish consumers recently. When Bord Bia surveyed shoppers recently, it found that 33 per cent of them had bought an organic product in the previous week, up 2 per cent on 2008. And 30 per cent of people who had bought organic were buying more than last year.

Seventy-nine per cent said they bought organic food as they believed it was healthier, with 73 per cent saying they bought it because it was free from chemicals and pesticides, and consequently better for them.