Why Are Organic Seeds So Expensive?

As your organic foods aren’t made with anything synthetic :

• Time Requirements. Much of organic pricing can be attributed to time issues. …
• Organic Certification. Organic certification, as noted above, is time …
• Special Facilities. From growers to processors, most organic certified …
• Education. When it comes to organic skills, most business owners spend a …
• Small Operations. A majority of organic farms are smaller than their …
• Small-Scale Marketing. With few exceptions, marketing a business effectively …
• Cheap Synthetics. Organic food producers don’t use the same readily …
• Unfair Subsidies. Food prices are often influenced by subsidies, and …
• Supply and Demand. Economies of scale in consumer terms means the more …
• The Missing Story. At first glance, organic food appears to be more expensive …

Post-harvest handling of relatively small quantities of organic foods results in higher costs because of the mandatory segregation of organic and conventional produce, especially for processing and transportation;

“Quality standards for some organic seed, especially biennial seed such as onion, carrot and cabbage, has been reduced. ” One of the most common reasons for buying organic seed is that gardeners, and I quote, “don’t want no stinking GMO seed”.

Organic Seeds Are More Robust. Seeds of Change, a pro-organic group, claims “Organically grown seed produces hearty, robust plants already adapted to organic growing conditions” (ref 1). That’s a silly statement. Seeds and plants do not know they are being grown organically.

Seeds are not ‘adapted’ to organic conditions. The genetics of the seed does not change after growing plants organically for a few years. Good quality seeds from organic farms or conventional farms will grow equally well in your soil. Are organic seeds more hearty, or more robust?

Why is organic price so high?

Much of organic pricing can be attributed to time issues. Time is money after all, and organic growers spend a lot more time on their crops than conventional growers . The Organic Farming Research Foundation notes that: “The organic price tag more closely reflects the true cost of growing the food [including] substituting labor and intensive management for chemicals, growing, harvesting, transportation, and storage.”

If more consumers bought organics, there would be more demand, enabling organic operations to scale up. That, in turn, would lower costs. But when consumers flock to cheap, toxic food, that’s what companies want to produce. You can see the impact that consumers have had over organic food, even in just the last decade.

Organic land costs much more than conventional farmland because there’s a long list of qualities that organic land must possess. This applies to organic land used for crops or livestock.

Since conventional food gets the bulk of subsidies, organic prices seem higher than they are because conventional food prices are way lower than they should be.

Not only are first-time certification costs steep, averaging around $700 to $1,200 per operation, but there are other certification costs involved as well.

Economies of scale in consumer terms means the more you buy, the more a company will produce, and the more you produce, the lower prices will fall. Supply and demand is a huge issue. Though organics are gaining popularity each year, organic food sales are nowhere near conventional food sales. If more consumers bought organics, there would be more …

Organic food producers don’t use the same readily available cheap additives, flavors, and preservatives as conventional food producers do. There’s a long list of known harmful ingredients not allowed in organic food.