An approach to farming and ranching that avoids the use of herbicides, pesticides, growth hormones, and other similar synthetic inputs. An excellent summary by the Soil Association UK concludes that ‘collectively, the evidence supports the hypothesis that organically grown crops are significantly different in terms of food safety, nutritional content, and nutritional value from those produced by non-organic farming’ and that ‘feeding trials have shown significant improvements in the growth, reproductive health, and recovery from illness of animals fed organically produced feed’. Furthermore ‘a small body of observational and clinical evidence supports the hypothesis that consumption of organically produced food is beneficial to human health’. But J. Guthman (2004) argues that, at least in California, organic farming has replicated what it set out to oppose.

http://www.soilassociation.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=cY8kfP3Q%2BgA%3D&tabid=388 A pdf of Organic farming, food quality and human health: A review of the evidence, by the Soil Association.