The Soil Association has highlighted the findings of a BBC radio programme aired this week, which concluded that basic foods from modern crops contained considerably less vital nutrients.
Radio 4’s Costing the Earth – The Great Mineral Heist said that there had been an “obsession with high yield crops” leading to a decline in food nutrition.
The Soil Association stated that the programme weakened the conclusion by the Food Standards Agency that higher levels of nutrients in organic food were “not important”.
The Association’s policy director, Peter Melchett, commented: “It is timely that the importance of mineral levels in food is being recognised in this new programme. Organic farming offers a clear way to improve the mineral uptake of plants by encouraging plants to effectively utilise naturally occurring minerals in soil.”
