Why is organic food expensive?

There is lot of heartburn among many people about Organic food being expensive compared to the normal chemical-based farm products. In general it seems true that there is no reason for it to be expensive. Rather, it should be cheaper! But looking deep into both of them and having experienced both kind of farming, here are my thoughts on the same:

1) Foremost thing is that as per economics, mass market leads to less expensive products. Get more people to buy organic and you will see the prices come down over time!

2) We hardly have any "ogranic"soil left. Most of it is already contaminated with chemicals. This means that it needs to be "converted" back to organic, which is a long, slow process taking 3 to 5 years. During the conversion process the plants go through a "confused" state wherein their response in unpredictable. Most of the farmers take a hit in the productivity/output during this period. However this is inevitable for the long term sustainability cause. Additionally, if we look for organic certification, it is an expensive process.

3) We have lost most of the organic practices and need to reinvent the wheel. We need to experiment, discuss with knowledgeable people, visit the practitioners' farms, read books, etc. - each of which is an investment and time-consuming.

4) Regular chemical-farming has something called "Package of Practices(PoP)", which, if followed religiously, can ensure a minimum yield unless in case of natural disasters. This more or less works independent of the soil, climate, etc. And the products (like fertilizers, pesticides, etc), are available off-the-shelf. In case of organic farming, there is no PoP. Even if there is some information similar to this is available, it needs to be tailored to suit the soil and climate elsewhere. Not many organic input  products are not available off-the-shelf although more such products have started cropping up of late, which is a good sign. So we need to either prepare the input material in-house or buy and experiment with those available in the market. Even these materials are not available everywhere and therefore many times they involve long travel and transportation cost, which itself is against sustainability. Preparing in-house means more labor which is always in shortage.

5) Organic crops are more pest-prone whereas the organic pesticides are not as deadly as the chemical pesticides. This means that it is not easy to kill the pests organically, resulting in more crop-loss. Case in point is mangoes. We have already experienced that the organic mangoes will get more worm-attacks leading to spoilt fruits.

6) Cows are an integral part of organic farming. Maintaining cows and cowsheds has become an expensive proposition over the years.

7) New entry to the list: When you are the only organic farm around and everybody else surrounding your farm is into conventional/chemical farming. it means that your farm can become a safe heaven/asylum for pests/insects.

Given these issues, I think it is justified to pay more for organic products. But beware of fakes! As long as you know your farmer and the source of your purchase, it is worth the extra money.