Change the system

Buying organic food is a luxury few of us can afford. As a student my wallet feels the burden of organic products. I prioritise eco and sustainability but it simply isn't possible to only buy organic in our society, or at least most people aren't willing to make the sacrifice and neither am I. I want to have some money left for shopping, travelling, going out with friends, to simply have fun!

Jeffrey Hollender presents an idea "How to make Organic Food Cheap", now this is not a new idea and quite obvious really but I think it needs to be emphasised. This is a quote from the interview you can find at Bigthink.com:

How I think that if you’re going to do bad stuff, if you’re going to be a farmer and use pesticides that pollute the groundwater, you should have to pay for all of those negative impacts.  And if that was the case—if traditional growers of food paid the full cost of soil erosion, water pollution, adverse health affects on their farm workers because of exposure to pesticides—something quite amazing would happen; organic food would cost half the price of what traditional food would cost.  And we wouldn’t ask consumers to make a very difficult decision, which is do the right thing, make the right choice, buy the sustainable product, but don’t get any financial benefit for making that choice

As consumers we can only do so much, it is also up to the government and companies to make choices that promote a sustainable future. I don't want pesticides in everything I eat and I think the producers should have to pay for the costs on society and inhabitants.