Environment and Animal Welfare
Organic and the environment - nature's way
Eating food grown without unnecessary chemicals is both good for you and the countryside.
Organic farmers work with nature. Trees, hedges, and wide un-farmed field edges are important on organic farms. These provide habitats for natural predators such as beetles, spiders and birds which control pests.
Farmland birds have declined by up to 95% since the introduction of pesticides into farming. Organic farming offers a real alternative and buying organic food supports a living countryside.
Organic farms have:
- 44 per cent more birds in fields
- More than five times as many wild plants
Organic farming bans artificial fertilisers which pollute our waters. Organic farmers fertilise their fields by rotating their crops, using composted manure, and planting crops which naturally feed nitrogen to the soil.
Organic and animal welfare
Comfortable, contented cows live longer, healthier lives and are the aim of every organic farmer.
Feeding
Organic cows are not fed and managed in ways that attempt to push them into production levels beyond their natural capacity. Organic farmers believe that the stress imposed on animals by unnatural and intensive regimes such as feeding high levels of inappropriate protein to stimulate rapid growth or milk production, intensive housing or the routine use of antibiotics and other drugs can all cause health problems. No GM, urea, solvent or animal derived foods are permitted. BSE is thought to have resulted from the feeding of animal products. There has never been a case of BSE in an organic born and raised dairy cow.
Housing
Organic cows are outside in the natural light as much as possible but most dairy herds are brought in during the winter when the grass stops growing and the weather becomes cold and wet. The cows are housed in covered yards or cubicles, and are given comfortable bedding. Some non-organic cows are forced to lie on bare concrete, or with a very sparse level of bedding, which can cause sores and lesions on the cows' legs. Some cows find this so uncomfortable that they prefer to lie in dung passages instead.
Calves naturally seek to groom one another so on organic farms calves must be kept together in social groups. On non-organic farms calves may be kept in single pens which is unnatural and restricts their development.
Managing Disease
Unlike non-organic farmers, organic farmers use homeopathic and herbal medicines successfully in the treatment of disease, only resorting to vaccines and antibiotics when the situation demands and not as a matter of course. Growth hormones, used in some countries (but illegal in the UK), to make animals grow faster, are not given to organically-reared animals.
On a non-organic farm, mastitis (an udder infection) is prevented by the routine use of antibiotics. Organic farmers prevent this disease more naturally by using measures such as cutting down feed to encourage the milk supply to dry up naturally and removing visual stimulants by keeping the cow out of sight of the milking parlour.
A typical non-organic herd uses seven times as many antibiotics as an organic one. Despite this, organic cows have no greater incidence of mastitis than those on a non-organic farm.
Information taken from www.whyorganic.org
