Organic vs Conventional Lettuce: Impacts in Thailand

Abstract: The contamination of toxic in agricultural food and environment are the concerned issue in Thailand because it could damage the agricultural land and health of people in the long time and it also take many time to recover. This study were studied the environmental impact of organic lettuce (Grand rapids) compared with the conventional lettuce. The study consider 8 impact categories: (1) Climate change, (2) Human toxicity, (3) Terrestrial ecotoxicity, (4) Freshwater ecotoxicity, (5) Water depletion, (6) Fossil depletion, (7) Freshwater eutrophication and (8) Marine eutrophication. The scope considers the material input production, transportation and emission from the farm. The result of this study shown that organic lettuce were lower impact than conventional lettuce in all impact categories especially the three toxicity issue. Therefore, the organic lettuce could be the solution way to mitigation the environmental impact from the conventional lettuce in Thailand.

Reference: Wongwai, C., et al. (2014). Environmental mitigation possibility via organic farming: lettuce case study. International Journal of Environmental Science and Development 5(5): 426-430.