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Why do healthy organic products cost so much, when there are no pesticide, herbicide, or fungicide chemical costs?
By Pamela Rochelle Woodworth from Sun Lakes, AZ
Pamela,
Pesticides, herbicides and fungacides are used to keep pests, fungus, and weeds from destroying crops. Natural treatments are more expensive and take more work (pulling those weeds) than the chemicals that are bad for our bodies and environments.
For example, my parents have an apple tree in their yard. If they treat it with $2 in pesticide they might yield 100 apples and lose 5%. If they don't treat the tree at all, they lose at least 75% of the apples to birds and pests (worms!). If they were selling those apples, they'd have to charge more per untreated apple to get the same profit. Natural treatments are more expensive so you may save your crop but you will still have to pass along the cost making the naturally treated product more expensive.
Here is an example, organic potatoes spoil faster than potatoes sprayed with fungicides so they can't be kept in storage long periods of time like non organic potatoes. Produce treated with insecticides is not distroyed by insects like organic produce which is not.
