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It doesn't follow that increased popularity of organic food would necessarily lead to price increases in non-organic food. That's the great thing about having a
by dejb 17y ago
It doesn't follow that increased popularity of organic food would necessarily lead to price increases in non-organic food. That's the great thing about having a free economy - you can chose to believe organic isn't worth the extra cost (as I currently do by the way). Furthermore you can continue to evaluate the evidence and at any point you can decide alter your behaviour based on a new cost benefit analyses.
The only likely way it would increase the cost non-organic is if governments started to force farmers to pay for the 'externalities' (i.e. environmental cost) of their farming methods. But we wouldn't be 'all losers' in this either. It would simply be transfer of costs from people who are essentially mooching off the system (i.e. me by using cheap non-organic food) to the beneficiaries of a cleaner environment (all of us).
- cwan 17y agoThe issues with respect to externalities with respect to farming organic or otherwise are not as clear as you might think: http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/the-great-organic-myths-why-organic-foods-are-an-indulgence-the-world-cant-afford-818585.html http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/the-gr... Adding arbitrary production constraints tend to add costs - and in the case of "organic". From what I've been reading, organics cost more to control - so either you need more land or you need more inputs - labor or additives. If you go the land route, more limited land drives up cost of the cost of the underlying capital required for everyone - given that land is also an important input at the moment for general farming. Of course, I think consumers would be best served whether buying organic or regular if the governments of the world would abandon farming subsidies that greatly distort markets - but dare to dream.
- dejb 17y agoJust like a nice recursive call, the article you link to relies on a lot of information from the Soil Association which the parent article is refuting. I agree that organic is not the same as 'low externalities'. Pricing in all the externalities would be the best thing. As for the 'non-externality' costs the may be some extra demand for land but for that happen the demand for non-organic would have fallen significantly - most likely faster than supply. So in the short and medium term the prices of non -organic would actually fall.