anyone who opts for organic food wants to lead a healthier life but can bio be better with conventional farming taking place all around it it's a bit like with a smoker and a nonsmoker one person lights up while someone else is still eating and they suffer . the organic foods business is lucrative and fraudulent labeling is not uncommon. and test there's a lot of sense in having a test procedure to show that an egg really is a bio product is in fight. so wouldn't it be better to have only bio produce this could conifer newton free fruit doesn't exist it's merely a question of the dosage. butt. the situation has to change we have to act before we we have and this aster. in germany fennel is harvested in autumn stefan palmer has been growing it for many years for a baby. but the organic farmer has a problem the wind blows pesticides used in conventional farming on to his fields strict limits apply to baby food in fact the e.u. plans to introduce the stringent limits for all organic foods it would mean bio farmers like chef and palmer could no longer sell their produce as organic. and stronger to me where the use of environmental toxins and pesticides is concerned we totally approve of being told by brussels for instance that we need to meet lower limits we would like to do that but it's not our fault if our land is contaminated by all these chemicals with such limits in place we would be held responsible that really could put an end to eco farming and his record on policy grounds cloning. a baby food manufacturer found residues of a certain pesticide in fennel from stefan palmer. conventional farmers spray it in autumn as soon as they have sown their winter seed. in doing so they contaminate fields a long distance away. the active agent it seems can be carried by the wind for weeks now stephan palmer harvest his final earlier than he used to. but finding your mother said going on for a year now we've gone through the trouble of thrashing our family the ford has reached maturity that's why we have to spread it quickly and dry it in this moisture state as fast. as we can see the fennel gets warm within two hours in the past we used to let it dry normally like graeme and tip it into our normal drying plant the disadvantage of that process however is that it would take another three or four weeks and in that time the herbicide in the air would accumulate more and more in the fennel and make it a marketable. on. the chemical which wafts across the fields in autumn is called penn dimethyl in and it can travel for many kilometers stefan palmas farm lies in the middle of a huge organic farming community where no one as has been proved uses the herbicide rudolph burgle from brandenburg office for health and the environment is aware of the problem using cabbage leaf samples he wants to find out how long the agent can be detected in the environment isn't sure no means it's a phenomenon that didn't really attract too much attention in the past and it was the probably underestimated in recent years however we've received numerous indications countless new test results that call for an urgent reassessment of the way certain agents are permitted to in the middle to last song before the leash mahommed throughout the winter fergal examines cabbage leaves for pending methyl in contents we know very little about the ecological impact however the fact is that we still keep finding the agent in crop samples so naturally they can cause serious problems with regard to the high quality standards you know other words and the dietary stipulations that organic produce has to meet pesticides used in conventional farming spread and become a problem for the entire organic sector if the e.u. introduces stricter limits for residues this will prevent many products from being sold as organic and at higher prices even though they have. infomed organically this is why stephanie is calling for a general ban on certain pesticides yamazaki flush if you have or weeks ago we harvested part of our crop prematurely and the rest has been left standing so we'll have to see what the pesticide values look like. or does it sort of this is our problem we'll have to see how these agents can be kept out of the environment and prevented from accumulating because sales of pesticides are rising considerably year by year. and was asked our. environmental engineer frieda hoffman is a specialist in error analysis by examining residues in the bark of trees he can reconstruct the path taken by herbicides he has been commissioned by the state of brandenburg to carry out a study. for cost reasons the german government stopped the nationwide monitoring of volatilized pesticides back in two thousand and three. which. even we now want have no idea of the aerial distribution of herbicides and pesticides on a national level because we have however provided fairly clear answers on a regional basis we have shown that the spread of the herbicide penda methyl and is not restricted to the immediate area few hundred metres but it could be on a ten kilometer scale this also confirms published reports on the issue the question is can organic food still be produced anyway and germany evolved into action. hoffman has found eleven pesticides in the bark two of them in alarming concentrations. not only pending methyl in as expected but also a weed killer called pro salt carb conventional pesticides pose a real problem for bio farmers when i'm in them some rethinking has to be done even if it means some people suffering a bit financially but somehow we just have to face reality that really two things or within. each year conventional farmers spread around nine kilograms of pesticides protect their these weed and fungus killers make life easier for them without these chemical agents the argument goes the world's population could not be fed. in. the pesticide industry has a turnover of billions but at the expense of the general public the chemicals are not only found in food when it rains they seeped into the soil and end up in the groundwater you nationally are third from from it out here soil samples are being taken to a depth of fifteen meters thick in the past water companies focused primarily on nitrates occurring as a result of over fertilization. i think laughter is milliwatts nitrates are already a major problem and we now know that pesticides could also become one we're keeping a close watch on as we take regular samples to see whether levels are increasing from year to year americans across. the yard. the main problem is that many pesticides do not decompose once sprayed they remain in the environment for years this is legalised environmental pollution on a grand scale and it also threatens our drinking water filtering out pesticides is extremely time consuming and costly and this purification is paid for by everyone who uses water. again we do not assume that farmers are at fault when these agents appear in the groundwater farmers must be able to have confidence that highly effective active agents purchased at considerable expense will have the required protecting a fact in the topsoil but then break down and no longer appear in the groundwater as water suppliers we expect the chemical industry of the twenty first century to manufacture an active agents that have an excellent effect and are affordable but no longer appear in ground water because they've already decomposed it. like everywhere else in germany here at the weekly market in organic produce is in the minority only nine percent of germany's farmers grow bio produce their produce costs up to thirty percent more than the produce from conventional competitors the price difference can be a temptation to engage in fraudulent labeling me on shawmut the common we have already heard of conventional fun is selling their eggs as the organic produce customers have come to as one complained that the exit lacked the appropriate stance so go back and legs change them we say we reported that incident and it caused the real stone cases like that make me really angry because i always think that at some point people might stop believing. me in two thousand and fifteen the sales of organic foods in germany rose by eleven percent by one point three percent in austria and by five point two percent in switzerland now here is organic healthier. i think it is but i don't know. in my experience it is i've been buying by o'farrell over twenty years so i believe in it sometimes i also buy conventional products because you can't always get hold of bio projects but i noticed the difference at once well you ought me for your fun but it's not for me cost more in the end there's no difference because on the street and all conventional farmers like the whole can brings from the moon the region i doubt whether organic is always better. it's nearly off here i too would be delighted to know that one soul was particularly good and would enable me to lead a healthy life and live to a ripe old age isn't as i'd hear my twenty five years of professional experience tells me that both are good and that near. him does this as i mean by biden and the local farmer as a guarantor of quality many people regard locally grown produce and trust as more important than an organic label also because buyers cannot recognize the supposed benefits of organic farming on the actual product frick switzerland for more than forty years now scientists here at the research institute for organic farming have been analyzing the differences between ecological and conventional farming. today they advise the european union they also make recommendations regarding optimum organic farming. they were the first to prove that all gun equally grown apples contain more antioxidants than conventional apples and didn't boost our immune system. but the institute's director who is niggly warns against equating organic produce with a healthy diet. the sense of the cassini seem to be from a scientific point of view our diet is extremely important. opes a healthy diet contains a high proportion of fruits and vegetables a smaller proportion of meat and few fat and products that are rich in sugar and i think the us must use indian. naturally if we eat lots of fruits and vegetables the primary advantage of organic produce is that there are no pesticide residues and the proportion of the antioxidants is higher than even who. is niggly is not only interested in possible differences between individual products he sees the big advantage of the overall concept behind organic farming to be sustainability. of each organic farming is the type of agriculture we will have in one hundred years time organic farming has made tremendous progress in nature is a cornucopia of the possible solutions we can also apply in agro ecosystems course in research we also experiment with this cornucopia with which nature tackles problems and to toot loose woman not to do meat but we try to develop solutions in such a way that farmers can use them when sauce or to into the laundry and you've been knutson can. in order for sustainability to succeed persuasion is called for in vienna the. institute's austrian branch is working on winning over even more consumers to buy oil products. especially where meat and sausages are concerned consumers are still reluctant to purchase bio products because prices are much higher reinhard guess ill has invited consumers to one of his special organic excursions in an industrial area and dispels the illusion that organic means the same as rural times have changed in the past people were closely linked to fog everyone had someone in the family who run a farm and they could experience their health was produced today especially in cities like vienna where we are now people have no idea whatsoever about food production engine block. in austria black pudding is a popular speciality whether it has to be organic is a different matter the organic product is free of glutamate and contains other spices organic farming is extremely cost intensive meat and blood come from organic pigs which had more space to move around in were fed fewer antibiotics or not at all and was slaughtered under less stressful conditions. nick black pudding is prepared differently from conventional varieties vine had gasol uses the excursion into the meat processing section to explain and dispel prejudices organic production is a tough business and farmers are under great economic pressure. conventional farmers focus on big profits while organic farmers work in harmony with nature. so why can't the two systems benefit from each other. carlo life it from germany had an experimental farm run by newcastle university in britain he is looking for possible overlaps between conventional and ecological farming but it's a complex field and surprising results are not uncommon combining organic fertilizer with pesticides from conventional farming for example even increases the residue of the weed killers in field crops you can determine the interactions between mineral fertilizers and pesticides if you change to totally organic fertilizers but without abandoning pesticides a few interesting facts come to light for instances when an organic fertilizer is used the past aside content of the produce increases and so in order to enjoy all the benefits of a switch to work and that farming the change over has to be comprehensive in two thousand and nine the organic farming sector was shocked by a report from britain's food standards agency it found no relevant difference between organic and conventional products life it doubted this and reacted with a counter study. what my studies revealed has to be proven to others as well so the entire matter analysis had to be done all over again it on the news in the. it took some of my colleagues not me personally two years for me and they worked continuously on it for more than eight hours a day continue. in them to. life a team evaluated studies from all over the world. they found that organic fruit vegetables and cereals contain more antioxidants which boost the body's immune system and far fewer pesticides. conventional foods are more often contaminated with heavy metals. life that saw his findings confirmed. amende as a consumer i started buying organic produce because of my concern about pesticides and as an agronomist i have never found a past aside which was introduced at some time or other and did not arouse any health concerns ten years later of being good just imaged he said that was always one of the reasons why i spend more money on organic produce make it also give it simply contains fewer pesticides residues movie and distance it which tended to get . early in two thousand and sixteen life it published a second study it confirms the differences in quality between conventional and organic meat and dairy produce the eco products containing around fifty percent more on the good three fatty acids. to help the industry it depends mainly on what animals are fed organic standards stipulate that cattle pigs and so on must have a certain quantity of raw fodder in their diet and for ruminants that is very high to put it simply we know that a cow produces better milk when it is fed grass than when it is fed grain this has been apparent for a long time but it's in the best image as for monday minute applied and the swiss will tell you that if dairy cattle are not allowed to graze but instead are given concentrated feed their milk cannot be used for a hard cheese like a typical m. and tall and then kinds of diminish. and the same thing holds true for omega three fatty acids is just him for he only got the. three fatty acids a set to provide a protection against arteriosclerosis so organic meat is healthier than meat which is produced conventionally it is all the more important therefore for consumers to be certain that a product labeled organic actually is organic especially where meat products are concerned the well being of the animals is an important reason for consumers to buy organic produce but you can't tell just by looking at an egg whether or not the hand that made it was happy checks carried out by your can million dollar fund for eldin hands to ensuring that organic farm has a dia to bio guidelines. in order to check out all the documentation. controls will be needed long after i've retired simply because it's not only about the end product we monitor the entire process to make sure that everything takes place as stipulated in the regulations. keep him soon. the franken housing facility near castle is run according to organic guidelines folk elves and hans begins his inspection in the open air enclosure for seven hundred laying hens . it's nice to see all the hens looking spritely that's one reason why eco inspections are fun and. he's satisfied with the amount of space and the vegetation in the outside enclosure. in the shed elson hands relies on his experience and his senses. so he's from the group that smells fine as it is for your nose tells you of course where you are but it is definitely a good smell can you pick one up so i can take a look at it anyone will do. not even foca els in hands can tell if a hen is happy but he can judge whether farming conditions a causing the animals any suffering. and this not to mention that it's a bit dirty of course but i notice that when i press here the hen doesn't flinch if it hurt she'd be really annoyed that's always a sign that the litter is loose and not just today when these noises are not of thorns so the hens aren't walking in mush and that's important because. if. every organic farm has to be checked out at least once a year by an eco monitoring center the inspectors often turn up unannounced. is the amount of fodder adequate for the number of hens did any diseases occur if so where antibiotics dispensed. no end of compares receipts documentation and guidelines if everything tallies he's happy. lot of people if people only focus on the end product without realizing the social benefits of organic farming climate protection ground water protection nature protection and animal welfare there will of course be a problem named under such a show. on dry and windy midsummer days feels inches because stine are a hive of activity. martin not mesnick is harvesting his organic wheat. he manages the ritz at our state insurance because stein. home. it was purchased seventeen years ago by entrepreneur going to feel money and converted to biodynamic i recall to. driving over the field and knowing that something healthy is growing and it becomes more and more of a joy far better than holding a spray gun full of fungicide or pesticide and knowing that you're breathing in air that is unhealthy. yields on organic fields around twenty percent less than in conventional farming but can this difference be offset in other ways for his doctoral thesis laza be an artist comparing the greenhouse gases from organic and conventional farming sysadmins and i'm good with conventional pharma introduces nitrogen into the system in the form of mineral fertilizers especially after such fertilizing high emissions of nitric oxide can be recalled in organic farming where mineral fertilizers abandoned things are slightly different their peaks are not so pronounced auto juliet's and. the benefits of organic farming nitric oxide is a greenhouse gas and about three hundred times more harmful to the climate than carbon dioxide. it is also because of such aspects that the sector would one day like to have a system which would provide absolute proof that just food stuff really is organic or not. is a bit would be great to have such a method because customers in our farm store do ask questions and. they would love to have proof that our produce is by a little. a test which would prove that bread was baked with organic wheat a possibility or just an illusion. not for a laboratory in you leahy marcus bona searches for traces which the two types of farming leave an animal for the vegetables and grain one crucial difference is the use of fertilizer organic farming opts for organic plant remains in conventional farming the mineral fertilizer. mineral fertilizer consists of nitrogen which plants need but mineral fertilizer has a totally different isotopes signature from bio for allies or for instance if we can determine this with our measuring techniques and thus ascertain the origin of organic or conventional farming ultimately this bio product also goes into fodder so an egg from a hen that has been eco reared and given bio fodder must also reveal this nitrogen isotope as long as the nitrogen isotopes have not been broken down marcus bona is able to determine the origin escape little some products like milk pose a problem a cow is nothing other than a large bio reactor in other words we can no longer detect mineral fertiliser because the animal repeatedly changes these isotopes not these used to be malise. but with many other foodstuffs his method allows marcus boehner to determine what was used to fertilize livestock fodder all fruits and vegetables on its own though the choice of fertilizer says nothing about food quality. you can argue at length about quality but you must always remember that a bio product is a sustainable product in other words we no longer over exploit nature on the contrary the soils our products grow and will still be of use for the next fifty years seen in this light a bio product is most certainly a better product. the bio experimental farm belonging to kill university is on the baltic echo furder. the linhof is run like any ordinary farm it has to cover all its costs through the sale of its produce. bin lose is the farms manager along with eighty dairy cattle and seven south she also keeps one hundred friends in free range husbandry. okra was kinder to animals kept ecologically can only be fed bio fodder comprised entirely of bio constituents than mrs e. and movie furthermore they must always have outdoor access a lighting programs used in some conventional laying systems are inadmissible in my feelings as a woman's and they are designed to enhance performance and give the birds the impression that it is summer all the time and that it never gets dark and helpless as can see out of a beach and must have an outdoor area of four square metres and eighteen centimeters of perched base at its disposal so being a moose sells her eggs for forty cents each egg from conventional production cost only half as much. in our hens lay less not a lot less but that's fine because the price per egg is a lot higher and it is certainly exempt when you can market directly and keep all the profit moreover if you optimize your operations so that you don't work so much as in conventional farming of two it is most definitely a worthwhile business enormous pressure for such but the good price for bio eggs is also an inducement to cheat as i testify i think it would be sensible to have a testing procedure for a something to prove that an egg has been produced ecologically consumers in retail outlets could then be given verification and. now why they are paying. more. could appropriate farming methods and fodder really be proved. vaga named in the netherlands is home to one of europe's leading research facilities for food safety. in the laboratories of the recalled institute food chemist saskia van der sloot is working on methods of distinguishing organic foods from those produced conventionally. amos to make fraudulent labeling impossible. products for organic products and to protect the farmers that are involved in this organic business we have to make sure that practices and consumers are getting what i paid for so that's why we need matters that can authenticate whether a product is organic or not. saskia find root places have faith in statistics she has analyzed the average composition of the yolk of an organic egg and amassed a vast amount of data the theory is that everything which influences an egg is noticeable in the yolk in the form of an analytical fingerprint the analytical fingerprint often act when we would try to separate you from conventional x. is based on d.n.a. analysis of the yellow pigments and because we are looking at different pigments we call that an analytical fingerprint and together with statistics that calculation matters we try to discriminate between the group of the organic x. and the conventional x. because this pattern is fingerprint differs. maybe all the correct risk. van route team collect data to determine a product fingerprint when chocolate melts in our mouth additives are released which. give an initial indication of whether it contains conventional or organic cocoa. to you the deficiency and it may be different so also how an organic product it looks like. there's a lot of similarity it's also difficult to find for instance one markel one pound or one aspect in which they differ so often you need multiple markers and if you compared. me you also need satish sticks so that makes it fairly complex. no matter how great the differences between bio and conventional farming methods might be in the produce itself they are very small and not always to the advantage of the consumer the obligation to give laying hens nothing but organic fodder means that many bio egg producers have to buy in fodder yet only when food controls are carried out does it become apparent that a supplier has cheated. fred felt who's in heads the state office for food safety in mechlin board for common even if there has been no fodder scandal his inspectors nearly always find eggs containing substances which should not enter our diet. as a sawdust feared we combustion processes result in dioxins being released into the atmosphere when it rains these airborne chemicals are deposited on the earth's surface. depending on the location of dioxins can occur in certain quantities years and be consumed for instance by hands and that's passed on to the eggs people dioxins are soluble in fact so primarily they are present in the fatty components mainly in the european the in fact based on tire size and in my daughter's eyes. the quantities detected in controls and nearly always below the consumer protection limits set by the e.u. . nevertheless the animal welfare concept pursued by the bio sector often leads to a loss of quality in eggs in the form of increased dioxin. erin mclean book for a month we have discovered a slight difference between conventional and bio farmed eggs and the dioxin content of bio eggs is about thirty percent however it's not quite clear what we suspect it is because the hands which as intended spent more time outdoors under great the chance of ingesting food from contaminated sort i mean this contamination is then passed on to their eggs and that's one possible explanation. happy cattle on lush meadows island seems to be a paradise for livestock owners especially conventional farmers along with romania and the netherlands ireland is the e.u. nation with the smallest area of bio pastures. bill o'keefe too is an advocate of conventional farming. the people are very much have the best quality food so we think we can create a bit of any share in our and our clean green image and the clean green reality really you know it's not just an image it is reality if we're out here in march raising grass we're producing high quality milk and we think there's a huge benefit to people if they consume those products. and that you know. the advantage is that the cows eat grass which is important for milk quality they are outside for more than three hundred days a year to ensure that's enough for the gross bill o'keefe has to spread chemical fertilizer on his fields in spring and in autumn despite that he can venture. is not synonymous with factory farming. on average conventional irish milk contains more omega three fatty acids and antioxidants than old county milk in germany the reason is the fata morgana farms in germany are allowed to add concentrated feed in silence to enhance milk production with a detrimental effect on milk quality in other countries however like austria fixed standards already exist for hay milk and meadow graze milk they stipulates how much hay a cows over old fodder is allowed to contain an ideal situation organic production come not compete with it is a good job that. you would. really work for something that. would be a joy a walk in the middle of it in my neighborhood i enjoy doing it i would do it for the long hours of my. money it was but it isn't. everything is going to the winners what are good jobs. the carving season on bill o'keefe farm is from mid january to late february two hundred forty cows come at the same time they then return to the field and milk production if his vet advises it just like his father before him o'keefe gives all his cards antibiotics. we're happy with our system to. work on when life it doesn't cycle for silent the moment when we have no reason to know. we don't feel obliged to farm money differently and we feel we feel our system of family is good enough for farming. bill o'keefe plans to increase the size of his hood his milk is in demand and the quality is good without an organic seal. apples are usually grown as monoculture is funky and insects the real problem for fruit farm is. where pesticide contamination is concerned the apple scores badly copper a toxic heavy metal which stays in the source forever is the controversial remedy of the organic sector conventional farmers also use it in addition they turn to various other pesticides in line with the motto the more the better. in tandem with eleven swedish universities the sphere talks institute near stockholm is researching the risks from pesticides and other chemical compounds the findings are alarming. more and more substances are being identified as affecting our hormone system many of these endocrine disruptors as they are known come from agriculture. institute director aka bagman has been warning of these substances ever since two thousand and twelve e.u. has delayed the decisions very very much and we are in great need of having a number of chemicals regulate the air in relation to it and you can disrupting properties and of course we need to look into those many i just mentioned one thousand and. thirty eight chemicals that are potentially a disease. and take decisions on this are in really important that this gets in place and policymakers have a very important job to do initially aka bad months research team focused on plastic bottles foodstuffs and textile dyes but today they know that chemical active agents which affect our home and system are found not only in products but also in the air we breathe and controlling them is a problem only in dust we have measured around five hundred different chemicals and of course there is. a possibility there that some of these fits in to receptor or interacting in the hormone in some way and this is where we see an avalanche i would say of data on other chemicals and on other and point. endocrine disruptors are suspected of being responsible for a whole range of disorders including obesity infertility and even cancer and parkinson's disease the circulator system transports them to every organ in the body the picture trick land produces hormones for metabolism growth and the formation of semen or egg cells and they're crying just. raptors affect not only the gland but also the hormones themselves researchers believe that the chemical substances inhibit the flow of information in the brain that they block the sign ups and also kill individual information receivers in the nerve cells both disorders are symptoms of alzheimer's disease. is actually chemicals that can interfere with the hormone system in such a way that you you get their unwanted or negative effects hair and of course there's has to be on the whole animals or humans or wildlife so the experimental work is tremendously important in order to build a chain do we see a defect in the lab. do we see similar things in why like and can we see associations in humans between decease and the exposure scientists are called upon to act professor hartmann from the institute of organic farming in kiel is looking for ways to bring gauguin a can conventional farming closer together his studies have found approval throughout europe in his view the inconsiderate use of pesticides is out of kilter with the times s. and. we're talking about relics of the past we engaged in agricultural research and risk research back in one nine hundred seventy five and one nine hundred eighty but we simply had no idea of the dangers that lurk what this means that where pesticides are concerned today's generation of scientists and politicians must stringently apply the principle of preventive action why did you buy just one in a time for all the plenty by most to ensure that enough healthy food stuffs can be produced in an eco conscious and sustainable way then in the final analysis it will be the customer who decides it's a nice conventional farming is not result in poor quality it has been seen that animal welfare aspects also play a role as in direct quality characteristics for the consumer too and recommendations regarding animal welfare requirements in the conventional sector which are now also coming from various supermarket chains are moving ever closer to the standards that already exist in organic farming we must always focus on how optimum quality can be achieved in both systems where you teach you but when you see. for sarah willis playing the horn is a. joy in her journey as musical discovery my musical home the film morning in berlin one hundred one musicians own music lovers not professionals from thirty different countries formed a very special orchestra to be filled orchestra conducted by simon rattle. his tunas he took. every year in the spanish town three hundred twenty five milligrams changes comes. to me it's quick and easy move. the goods trucks from morocco. when it's a month. losing to the police and the local people. thirty minutes on t.w. . higher and higher further and further dirtier and dirtier. the high gloss world of professional sports behind the scenes bitter truth manipulation exploitation corruption mafia style of business worth billions but just how murky is the world of sports in reality. thirty starting june sixth on t w. i'm up to my. posts. this is d.w. news live from berlin it was on then off and now it's back on again u.s. president doll trump says the meeting with north korea's leader will take place on june twelfth as a originally planned that announcement comes after all high level north korean envoy met with trump at the white house the u.s. president says he believes the hermit kingdom could be transformed under kim jong il and. also coming up a corruption scandal claims spain's prime minister a lawmaker is our concern.