So I'm reading about fertilizers on wikipedia today and I come across this statement in the section about inorganic fertilizers:
"a recent review of 55 scientific studies concluded "there is no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs" [9] Conversely, a major long-term study funded by the European Union[10][11][12] found that organically-produced milk and produce were significantly higher in antioxidants (such as carotenoids and alpha-linoleic acids) than their conventionally grown counterparts."
Now I hope that for all of you this statement would pique your interest enough to look into both sides in a bit more detail. I decided to look up both of the studies being referred to. The first one can be found here.
The study did detect higher nitrogen levels in conventional crops and higher phosphorous and titratable activity. Nonetheless, "analysis of the more limited database on livestock products found no evidence of a difference in nutrient content between organically and conventionally produced livestock products." They concluded, "On the basis of a systematic review of studies of satisfactory quality, there is no evidence of a difference in nutrient quality between organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs. The small differences in nutrient content detected are biologically plausible and mostly relate to differences in production methods."
The second study is given as source [11] and can be found here.
Remember this is the study that apparently found,"organically-produced milk and produce were significantly higher in antioxidants". Reading the study on the other hand we discover that the study found organic and inorganic agriculture with similar amounts of inputs yielded similar results, with the exception that, "milk from non-organic cows being higher in antioxidants, and conjugated linoleic acid". Yes, the actual study found the exact opposite of what was being claimed, yet how did wikipedia get this so thoroughly wrong? Source [10] happens to be a BBC article claiming just the opposite of what source [11] claims (Source [12] is something on potatoes strangely enough. Somehow the pro-organic statement got written based upon a poorly researched news article, and then vaguely similar studies seem to have been tacked on later, which clearly show the exact opposite of what the media is attempting to claim. This just goes to show, when you read about a surprising scientific study in the media, always go to look up the original source instead of just taking the media report at face value.
