Organic or Not

Ed Biel

Ed Biel has been farming conventionally for 24 years but in the past decade took up Integrated Pest Management, which reduces pesticide use. He runs a farmer's market in Western Sydney's Warwick Farm where he demands stallholders be farmers and spot audit them to ensure they're sticking to the rules.

Chris Mirams

Chris Mirams manages 10.000 sheep and 100 cattle at Woomargama Station in southern central NSW. He is the Chair of Holbrook Landcare and Evergraze, a research and development project that designs farming systems which consider ecological and environmental factors. Chris says Australia's traditional agricultural industry is founded on evidence-based decision making while organic farming is not. He says the conventional agricutural industry is capable of ensuring food security but not organic farming.

Andre Leu

Andre Leu is Chair of Organic Federation of Australia. He has worked in the organic industry for over thirty years. He says there is plenty of evidence that organic food is better for our health and the planet.

Bill Gennimatas

Bill Gennimatas has used organic farming practices since his childhood in Greece. He owns and operates Sunzest Organic Juice. His oranges are certified by the Organic Food Chain but his juice is not.

Liza Oates

Liza Oates is currently doing her PHD and teaching at RMIT. She is doing some of the first trials to find out if an adult who eats conventional food has more pesticides in their body than those who eat organic foods.

Richard Roush

Professor Richar Rouch is the Dean of Land and Environment at Melbourne University. He has researched extensively Agricultural methods in Australia and internationally. He points out that many of the methods organic farmers use to control weeds and pest could also been seen to bad for the environment and the health of land workers. He says that without the creation of synthetic nitrogen the world would never have reached a population of nearly 7 billion.