The Pros And Cons Of Organic Corn

You find them in the special aisle of the grocery store. With their lack of plastic bags and high price tags, surrounded by the twenty-somethings and those in hemp material. The organic aisle to the everyday consumer may seem a bit scary, but plays a key part in a sustainable future. A conventional crop is known to be farmed by methods discovered during the Green Revolution. Using chemical fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, these crops, are consider the normative way of farming in the western world. Organic crops, are grown sometimes using the same mechanical techniques of conventional crops, but lack the use of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, making them seem more ‘natural’ (Monsanto, n.d., para. 3). How corn, a main cereal crop,

Canada is the eleventh top producer of corn in the world, with the United States being the first, making it the third most valuable crop in Canada. Whether this corn is grown organically or conventionally plays an ample role, as in 2011 corn made up 1.63 million hectares of Canada’s 347 million hectares (Canada, 2015, para. 4). Organic corn provides the benefits of their environment by eliminating the unnecessary need of fertilizer, their yields are not that much lower than conventional crops, yet are at a disadvantage based on how the market is set up.
Corn relies heavily on the element nitrogen in order to grow, as for 150 bushels of corn requires 135lbs of nitrogen (Kuepper, 2002, para. 4). Convectional farming uses synthetic fertilizers to obtain their nitrogen, which can cause damages to the environment. Events like groundwater pollution, eutrophication, soil acidification and more that can severally damage the environment (Department of Primary industries, 1970, para. 5). This fertilizer for some may seem necessary, along with pesticides and herbicides, and yet are not, as there are many natural ways to increase nutrient levels in the soil. For nitrogen, there are legumes, which are part of the