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A visit to a North American grocery store or farmers' market reveals an increasing presence of organic food products. Organic foods are generally defined as those grown, raised, and processed without the use of synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, and without the use of growth hormones and genetic engineering (GE). What differentiates these products from their conventional counterparts, and whether organics are superior in providing health and environmental benefits, are important questions to consumers.
The environment, human health, food safety, and agriculture are inextricably linked. For example, pesticides used in food production are a concern for both human health and environmental quality ([43] World Health Organization, 2002; [9] Bro-Rasmussen, 1996), and animal manures are recognized as a food safety and environmental threat because they harbour harmful pathogens that can enter the food supply and water resources ([16] Guan and Holley, 2003; [18] Horrigan et al. , 2002). Increasing environmental awareness has helped draw attention to the issues concerning food production and has strengthened the environmental lobby, especially those groups that favour organic agriculture ([2] Anderson and Nielsen, 2000). Media coverage of organic agriculture and food has been shown to correlate positively with coverage of other agricultural issues including the use of pesticides and GE. [32] Reisner (2003) reported that environmental coverage in the media that stemmed from the environmental movement in the 1960s may have influenced newspaper coverage of related issues including agriculture. Food safety and environmental impact continue to be the leading concerns with GE, which may have escalated with the publication of the "Transgenic pollen harms monarch larvae" study in 1999 ([22] Losey et al. , 1999). [25] Marks et al. (2003) proposed that both food safety (GE potatoes fed to lab rats) and environmental events (monarch butterfly, GE seed contamination of conventional seed stocks) significantly impacted the amount of environmental coverage in the newspapers they studied.
Media coverage has influenced consumer perceptions and spending on organic foods and other "green" products ([21] Lockie et al. , 2002; [26] McEachern and McClean, 2002; [34] Sloan, 2002). In a study of Australian consumers by [21] Lockie et al. (2002), criticism of organic farming was similar to some negative comments about organic methods highlighted in the media. [34] Sloan (2002) acknowledged that media coverage of...