Alberto Caccini – 1B Scientifico

Ted Talk
What’s wrong with our food system?

What are some of the harmful side effects of using pesticides and herbicides in farming?
What are some of the reasons why Birke encourages us to eat organically grown food?
How do you think eating organically grown food from local farms will impact
your community? The country? The world?

Over this Ted Talk the 11 years old Birke Baehr talks about the negative and invisible aspects
of our food system.

Many farmers use pesticides and herbicides on their crops, fruits and vegetables are
sprayed with these chemicals and are toxic to our health. In fact, these chemicals travel all
the way to our supermarkets, and we then eat food that is contaminated. It has been
observed in laboratories that rats eating corns developed kidney toxicity; corn is something
that we can find almost in every food we eat, it is a fact that should alarm us.

The young Birke would like to encourage us to eat organically grown food and to start a
movement for a better life. The reason behind is to preserve and protect our health:
chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides put our health in danger. We should opt for
organic farmers that do not use all these chemicals, even if organic food may be more
expensive. Birke underlines that it is better to spend something more on organic food,
rather than spending in hospitals.

I think eating organically grown food from local farms may have a strong positive impact on
everyone, starting from our community, our country and then the world.
The first impact will be on our health, that will benefit from the freshness of food without
chemicals. Not only, I think that the freshness of the food will also affect the final taste of
things we eat.
Also, there will be economic advantages to local economies, by preferring to choose local
farmers and their activities over big supermarket chains.
The world and the nature will benefit since the environment will not be impacted by
chemicals when eating organic food. Chemical fertilizers made from fossil fuels are mainly
used to make plants grow, and plants are exploited; without chemicals the environment and
soils may “breathe” without being over-exploited.
Hence, as Birke said, at the grocery store we should all think local and choose organic.