What is organic farming and “organic food”?
In the EU in many stores, particularly in Germany, there are shelves with the label “organic food”. To my surprise they cost almost double or one and half times the “normal food”.
Perhaps farmers in India or Japan or Europe some 1,000 years ago were doing the same: organic farming.
At the most this “organic food” could be food produced without inorganic fertilizers, without insecticidal spray with the help of organic fertilizers.
All food itself is organic, made from inorganic molecules by the plants, that is how the autotrophic nature of plants is defined.
At most, organic fertilizers help to stabilize stratum for plant growth and help plants in nutrient uptake. Except Urea, where plants can utilize ammonium ions , nitrogen is absorbed at nitrate ions from inorganic nitrogen sources.
However, bacterial organisms can thrive well on organic nitrogen and obtain their energy by degradation of macromolecules or alternatively fix atmospheric nitrogen in nitrates.
Plants require water, soil as substratum and support system and air for survival. Historically, Justus von Liebig (12 May 1803 – 18 April 1873) was a German chemist who made major contributions to agricultural and biological chemistry, and worked on the organization of organic chemistry. As a professor, he devised the modern laboratory-oriented teaching method, and for such innovations, he is regarded as one of the greatest chemistry teachers of all time.
He is known as the "father of the fertilizer industry" for his discovery of nitrogen as an essential plant nutrient, and his formulation of the Law of the Minimum which described the effect of individual nutrients on crops. World famous Justus von Liebig Univesitat and its Institut fur Pflanzenernaehrung der Justus von Liebig Universitat, currently housed in IFZ, was founded in Giessen, Germany.
It still has his lab preserved and experiments replicated. Professors like Herrn Professor Dr Linser, Professor Dr Kuhn, Professor Dr Mengel, Professor Dr Karl Hermann Neumann and Professor Dr Hoffman Headed this Institute in the last 50 years. An eminent and renowned Professor Dr Sven Schubert currently heads this Institute as its Director who has done extensive researches on plant nutrition, mineral uptake and utilization. Professor Karl Hermann Muehling at Kiel is also engaged in researches on plant nutrition and stress resistance.
Famous Professors like Marshner as well as Mengel and Kirkby have given excellent accounts of the mineral nutrition of plants in their books and publications on plant nutrition.
It is difficult to refer to all eminent Professors conducting researches on plant nutrition but those interested can find details in their publications.
I had a chance to be associated with this famous Institute with an award of Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship 1977 to work with Professor Karl Hermann Neumann who introduced studies using cell and tissue culture systems to study nutrient uptake and biosynthesis. I worked on enzyme systems and carbon fixation in cultured plant cells and established that cultured cells lack photosynthetic ability and require organic nutrients (like amino acids, vitamins, growth regulators and sugars) for their normal growth, but can be developed into autotrophic systems providing proper nutrients and growth regulators.
If plants have to be supplied organic nutrients for their growth they will have to be called as heterotrophs and not autotrophs. Our one of the earlier contributions at Photosynthesis Congress at Reading in 1977 was on the role of PEP carboxylase in callus cultures derived from C3 plants like Carrot and Peanut ( Kumar, Bender and Neumann 1977). Subsequently Professor Dr Neumann ( Neumann et al 1981) made the complete pathway of carbon fixation in cultured plants cells in Japan. Several eminent research groups in Germany (Professor Reinhard), Japan (Professor Yamada ) and USA ( Professor Jack Widholm) carried out intensive researches on cell and culture during that period and presented accounts of autotrophic cultures raised from plants.
To cut the story short ,plants are autotrophs and synthesize their food from Carbon dioxide, water, and mineral nutrients and air in presence of chlorophyll organized into complex photosynthetic systems, which can capture and convert light energy into chemical energy.
What is organic in "organic" farming and "organic" food?
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