THURSDAY, June 8 (HealthDay News) -- Your local grocer remodels the store, and one of the big changes takes place in the produce department.

Like many other markets, he has decided to expand the organic produce section. Now, if you want, you can buy organically grown apples, bananas, carrots, kiwis and other fruits and vegetables.

But you must also answer the question: Is it worth paying more for the advertised advantages of organic foods?

If you're like a growing number of Americans, you just may say "yes."

The organic food industry in the United States surpassed $10 billion in consumer sales in 2003, according to the Organic Trade Association (OTA), which is based in Greenfield, Mass. The market has grown from between 17 percent to 21 percent each year since 1997, according to OTA estimates.

In a survey done by Ohio State University Extension, researchers interviewed 2,000 Ohio residents in 2004 and found that 40 percent "often" or "occasionally" buy organic foods. Thirty-two percent of the respondents said they would pay 10 percent more for organic foods; six percent said they'd pay 25 percent more for organics, and one percent said they'd be willing to pay 50 percent more.

While prices fluctuate, organic dairy products typically cost about 15 percent to 20 percent more than conventional products, and organic meats can cost two to three times more than traditional meats, according to the OTA.

"Meats and milk are where you will see a greater difference in price," said Barbara Haumann, a spokeswoman for the OTA, while the differences are usually less for fruits and vegetables.

"For instance, you can buy organic bananas in New England this week for 79 cents a pound," Haumann said recently, "and conventional are 59 cents a pound."

The OTA doesn't conduct price surveys, Haumann said, but meats probably show the largest variation between organic and conventional products. "I actually found a farmer in Iowa who sold tenderloin for $16.99 a pound. That's close to conventional prices. But organic beef can be as expensive as $55 a pound for filet mignon," she said.

Why are organic foods more expensive? Higher operating costs, among other factors, Haumann said. "It takes three years to get the land ready," she said. "[Organic farmers'] yields go down while they are transitioning" from conventional to organic production.

"They also face higher costs in growing crops," she said of organic farmers. "They don't use herbicides and fungicides so it is more labor intensive."

In exchange for the higher cost at the market, consumers can be assured that organic means the products have met certain standards set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. If meat, poultry, eggs or dairy foods are labeled "organic," they must come from animals given no antibiotics or growth hormones. And organic produce is made without using most conventional pesticides.

But a critic of the organic movement, Alex Avery, director of research for the Hudson Institute's Center for Global Food Issues, a Washington, D.C. think tank, said organic farmers use pesticides, too. Instead of calling them pesticides, however, organic farmers are likely to call them "botanical products." For example: some organic farmers use pyrethrum, which is a derivative of the chrysanthemum plant.

That's a fact organic farmers don't dispute.

As for organic food advocates' claim that non-organic foods contain too many pesticides, Avery said: "You are talking about residues at the part per billion level."

More markets are expanding their organic offerings not to boost consumer health, Avery said, but their own bottom line.

"Retailers are realizing there can be good profits in this," he said. "To date, nobody has shown any meaningful difference in the quality of food produced."

More information

To learn more about organic foods, visit the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

SOURCES: Alex Avery, director, research, Hudson Institute's Center for Global Food Issues, Washington, D.C.; Barbara Haumann, spokeswoman, Organic Trade Association, Greenfield, Mass.

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