Is organic agriculture a potential public health indicator? Evidence from literature

Abstract

Organic agriculture is a system of production whose principles are health, ecology, fairness, and care. Bearing in mind the principle of health and its links to agriculture and human health, the main goal of this work is to suggest the inclusion of organic agriculture as a public health indicator. For this purpose, four scientific online databases such as b-on, PubMed®, Scielo, and ScienceDirect were used for searching the research publications relating organic agriculture (and organic farming) with human health. However, no study suggesting organic agriculture as a public health indicator has been found. For this reason, a pictorial conceptual model that advocates the inclusion of organic agriculture as an indicator of public health was developed for the first time. This proposal intends to provide a tool that can be used by organizations and public health institutions when revising and updating their health indicators.

Keywords

• organic farming
• human health
• sustainability
• ecological systems
• health indicator