Organic farming is not just about growing tomatoes or other crops without dangerous chemical pesticides. It can also mean raising livestock for meat, milk or eggs without antibiotics and without artificial growth hormones. There are a number of rules that have to be adhered to and varying levels of certifications that can be attained. You can’t just grow a few thins without chemicals and slap an organic label on them. Those are just some of the things that you have to stop and consider when weight the organic farming pros and cons and they may be just the tip of the iceberg.

A farm typically does not start off as organic. It may have been used as a family or commercial farm for years before making the decision to go organic is made. However, before the farm can sell products that are technically considered to be organic, the grounds has to be pesticide and herbicide free for a set period of years. That can make organic farming a very time consuming process overall and that is one of the biggest cons on the list. It may also take a much longer time for the crops to be profitable because it takes so much more effort to grow them.

The reason that some farmers get such bountiful crops is not because of the beautiful sunlight or the special, sparkling clear water that is used to irrigate them. Those stacks of beautiful fruits and vegetables are most likely the result of a variety of pesticides, herbicides and in some cases, growth simulators. Farmers use them to get more crops out of a single plant and more plants per growing cycle.

They may use hormones and other chemicals for their livestock, giving them certain things in their feed and water. The debate then is whether these hormones, steroids and antibiotics are found in the milk or meat of animals fed this way. Organic farming does not allow for any of these artificial compounds so that can typically mean far less fruits and vegetables, less milk produced or smaller animals at slaughter.

Remember the neighborhood pear tree from your youth? You would go there and gather the gorgeous pears, sometimes battling the bees for the right to have your own little nibble of heaven. That is the prime example of organic- there were never any pesticides there, no herbicides. Nature was the only boost that those pears ever got and they were delicious. They never were picture perfect like the pears that you got in the store but taste for taste, they were so much better, you didn’t care what they looked like.

Organic farming earns both the pro and the con here: the foods are not attractive in most cases, blemished sometimes oddly shaped but they get high marks for the incredible flavor.