EDUCATION: WHY IS ORGANIC MORE EXPENSIVE?

Conventional farming is cheaper than organic farming. Sweat Shop Labor is cheaper than fair trade labor. And until recently, no one understood how damaging these practices are. Finally, social and environmental responsibility is getting serious attention. For more information, we invite you to log on to the Organic Trade Association, www.ota.com.  OTA and the other non-profits listed below provide an enormous amount of free information but you could also join for a nominal amount. Here are some facts to get you started:

1. Did you know that 8% of agriculture in the whole world is conventional cotton farming? Yet cotton farming accounts for 25% of all insecticides and 10% of pesticides used in all farming in the world? Indeed, cotton crops are the largest crop in terms of pesticide and insecticide use? www.ota.com;

2. Did you know that it takes 1/3 pound of pesticides to produce just enough cotton to make ONE 100% conventional cotton T-Shirt? www.ota.com; http://www.aboutorganiccotton.org/

3. When you put on a 100% cotton T-shirt, did you know only about 72% of the shirt is cotton? The rest of your shirt is a mixture of pesticide residues, insecticide residues, layers of silicone and other sizing chemicals wrapped around each individual threat, formaldehyde residues from coloring and various other toxic fillers. Yuck! Organic cotton, on the other hand, is grown in soil that has been pesticide free for at least 3 years, without application of insecticides and colored with earth-friendly dies that will not harm your skin or the earth.www.ota.com; www.panna.org; http://www.aboutorganiccotton.org/

4. And what happens to conventional dyes? They get washed into the soil, bring toxic residue into our earth. www.ota.com;

5. We’ve all heard about sweat shop manufacturing. Sweat Shops sounded to us like something “other people” do. Yet we have had great difficulty finding manufacturers that truly adhere to fair trade labor practices, ensuring a living wage, health care and other basic benefits to their workers. We don’t want even one drop of child sweat in our products. One lovely aspect of green manufacturing is the requirement of fair trade labor practices.www.fairfederation.org, www.ota.com,

Most of us can not replace our clothing, bedding, blankets, etc. But we would like to encourage you to start with one piece. Perhaps a gift for a baby, a bamboo towel, or a set of organic bedding would be a good first step. You’ll feel the difference immediately. May be you’ll love them so much you’ll grow the green in your home, one piece at a time. And may be if more of us take that one step, together we can make a difference.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

We are committed to our Company’s organic lifestyle and fair trade mission. We carefully research our vendors in all of these aspects before we bring their product into our boutique or online listing. We do not make compromises. This year, we completed the Co-Op America Screening Process. And in May 07, we were approved as a socially and environmentally responsible business in the National Green Pages.