Today, many governments are promoting organic or natural farming methods (1) _______ avoid the use of pesticides and other artificial products. The aim is to show that they (2) _______ about the environment and about people's health. But is this the right approach? Europe is now the biggest (3) _______ for organic food in the world, expanding by 25 percent a year over the past 10 years. Eating organic is (4) _______ way of defining oneself as natural, good, caring different from the ...

Today, many governments are promoting organic or natural farming methods (1) _______ avoid the use of pesticides and other artificial products. The aim is to show that they (2) _______ about the environment and about people's health. But is this the right approach?

Europe is now the biggest (3) _______ for organic food in the world, expanding by 25 percent a year over the past 10 years. Eating organic is (4) _______ way of defining oneself as natural, good, caring different from the junk-food-scoffing masses. As a journalist puts it: "It feels closer to the source, the beginning, the start of things”.

The organic approach means farming with natural, rather than man-made. Techniques such as crop rotation improve soil quality and help organic farmers compensate for the absence of man-made chemicals. (5) _______, for its ineffective use of land and labour, there are severe limits to how much food can be produced.