The obtained results indicate that ORG- and CONV-produced beetroots and fermented beetroot juices have different chemical properties and different impacts on cancer cells. It is necessary to continue research on this topic in order to confirm and understand the achieved results.
The interest of organic farmers in adopting conservation agriculture principles, including minimal soil disturbance, permanent soil cover and crop rotation has been growing since the early 2000s. However, currently there is no network for organic farmers practicing conservation agriculture, and a lack of knowledge on how organic farmers implement conservation agriculture in practice. Consequently, few technical references are available for organic farmers when they start applying conservation agriculture practices, in particular on controlling weeds without the use of herbicides. The main objectives of this study were: (1) to explore the diversity of conservation agriculture techniques (i.e., reduced tillage, no-tillage and green manures) practiced among European farmers, and (2) to identify farmers’ main strategies for implementing conservation agriculture and the agronomic and environmental factors that determine these strategies. Strategies were identified by analyzing survey results on: (1) the type and degree of use of conservation agriculture practices by farmers, and (2) the effects it produces in terms of soil disturbance and soil cover (low, medium and high). We carried out a survey of 159 European organic farmers and collected 125 data sets on management of winter-sown crops. Among the conservation agriculture practices, reduced tillage was used by 89%, no-tillage by 27% and green manure by 74% of the 159 interviewed farmers. Green manures were more frequently used in northern Europe than in the south (below 45°N). Most of the farmers used crop rotations, with a mean duration of 6 years. A wide diversity of conservation agriculture practices were used, with farmers rarely using all three techniques (no-till, reduced till and green manures) within one system. The range of practices was grouped into five strategies ranging from intensive non-inversion tillage without soil cover to very innovative techniques with no-tillage and intercrops. The five strategies for conservation agriculture could be grouped into two larger categories based on weed control approach: (1) intensification of the mechanical work without soil inversion or (2) biological regulation of weeds with cover crops. The diversity of strategies identified in this study shows that organic farmers use innovative approaches to implement conservation agriculture without herbicides. This study's findings will help organic farmers to experiment with innovative practices based on conservation agriculture principles and also benefit conventional farmers who use conservation agriculture practices and would like to reduce or eliminate the use of herbicides
White cabbage is one of the most important vegetables grown both in Poland and worldwide. Cabbage contains considerable amounts of bioactive compounds such as glucosinolates, vitamin C, carotenoids, and polyphenols. Some experiments indicate that vegetables from organic production contain more bioactive compounds than those from conventional production, however, only a few studies have been conducted on cruciferous plants. The presented study has proved that organic fresh cabbage, compared to the conventional one, contained significantly less total flavonoids in both years of experiments (3.95 ± 0.21 mg/100 g FW and 3.71 ± 0.33 mg/100 g FW), several flavonoid compounds, total chlorophylls (1.51 ± 0.17 mg/100 g FW and 1.30 ± 0.22 mg/100 g FW) carotenoids, nitrites (0.55 ± 0.04 mg/kg FW and 0.45 ± 0.02 mg/kg FW), and nitrates (0.50 ± 0.13 g/kg FW and 0.47 ± 0.11 g/kg FW). The organic sauerkraut juice, compared to the conventional one, contained significantly more total polyphenols (5.39 ± 0.22 mg/100 g FW and 9.05 ± 1.10 mg/100 g FW) as well as several flavonoids. Only CONV sauerkraut juice produced with the highest N level of fertilization induced a statistical significant increase of the level of necrosis of human stomach gastric adenocarcinoma cell line AGS.
Organic production and consumption provide a delineated food system that can be explored for its potential contribution to sustainable diets. While organic agriculture improves the sustainability performance on the production side, critical reflections are made on how organic consumption patterns, understood as the practice of people consuming significant amounts of organic produce, may also be taken as an example for sustainable food consumption. The consumption patterns of regular organic consumers seem to be close to the sustainable diet concept of FAO. Certain organic-related measures might therefore be useful in the sustainability assessment of diets, e.g., organic production and organic consumption. Since diets play a central role in shaping food systems and food systems shape diets, the role of organic consumption emerges as an essential topic to be addressed. This role may be based on four important organic achievements: organic agriculture and food production has a definition, well-established principles, public standards, and useful metrics. By 2015, data for organic production and consumption are recorded annually from more than 160 countries, and regulations are in force in more than 80 countries or regions. The organic food system puts the land (agri-cultura) back into the diet; it is the land from which the diet in toto is shaped. Therefore, the organic food system provides essential components of a sustainable diet.
In 2007 EU Regulation (EC) 834/2007 introduced principles and criteria for organic food processing. These regulations have been analysed and discussed in several scientific publications and research project reports. Recently, organic food quality was described by principles, aspects and criteria. These principles from organic agriculture were verified and adapted for organic food processing. Different levels for evaluation were suggested. In another document, underlying paradigms and consumer perception of organic food were reviewed against functional food, resulting in identifying integral product identity as the underlying paradigm and a holistic quality view connected to naturalness as consumers' perception of organic food quality. In a European study, the quality concept was applied to the organic food chain, resulting in a problem, namely that clear principles and related criteria were missing to evaluate processing methods. Therefore the goal of this paper is to describe and discuss the topic of organic food processing to make it operational. A conceptual background for organic food processing is given by verifying the underlying paradigms and principles of organic farming and organic food as well as on organic processing. The proposed definition connects organic processing to related systems such as minimal, sustainable and careful, gentle processing, and describes clear principles and related criteria. Based on food examples, such as milk with different heat treatments, the concept and definitions were verified. Organic processing can be defined by clear paradigms and principles and evaluated according criteria from a multidimensional approach. Further work has to be done on developing indicators and parameters for assessment of organic food quality.
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