http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_19566.cfm

The best part of being a monopoly power like Deans and United Natural Foods is that you can just blame problems on someone else. It’s not deception it’s just business.

“Dean did not change the product’s identifying bar code or package design, nor did it significantly alter the price – moves that would have triggered scrutiny by store owners, some of whom now feel duped. A number of other Silk products were similarly changed from organic without a new bar code, Dean confirmed.”

“Dean says it gave advance notice to its distributors and blamed them for not following through with independent grocers like Sunflower. It released to the Star-Telegram a form letter that distributors were supposed to send to retailers explaining that the nonorganic soy milk would carry the organic product’s bar code. National distributors Tree of Life and UNFI did not respond to repeated requests for comment.Specialty food markets contacted in California, Delaware and Texas said they did not discover the switch for six to nine months.

or the company website if you prefer:
http://www.organicgrown.com/

First, I think your idea of “backwards adapting” is a very good image. We do not want farmers to be able to just cut out certain antibiotics and get a nice stamp on their eggs that people pay more for. A good certification must exist though, or else the market cannot support better than minimum quality/minimum price “food commodities”.

A good standard for production does create an industry. It’s then an alternative market, with alternative prices and alternative costs. And must be treated as such: markets must grow.

Then the challenge for us visionaries and entrepreneurs who care about organic is how to scale growth without sacrificing the health, beauty, and permanence of the land (the three beautiful organic ideals) and hopefully benefit smaller formerly-disenfranchised farmers.

Cooperatives, local markets, and fair trade are good.

But ultimately if we want this to be more than a niche in 10 years, it needs to have the scale and distribution mechanisms of a wide-scale solution. New food supply chains will make sure this is also more equal.

One solution: enter direct trade.
http://combover.bullvision.com/?p=603

an interesting campaign for US transition farmers:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/transitions/

-Eddie
BU ’10
eddiemill@gmail.com

Once again, thanks so much for following our blog and posting your comments. I completely agree that organic is about balance; balance between agricultural production and human development on the one side and environmental stewardship and sustainability on the other. I think the modern “organic movement” should aim to restore that balance in a food system whose priorities have become grossly skewed toward production of “cheap” food; without regard to the detrimental affect on our environment. Here are my thoughts on organic consolidation.

I think it’s a common misperception on the part of consumers and producers to imagine “organic” as a new concept or a developing industry, or an industry at all. Organic is not new, neither in concept nor in practice; in many ways, organic is a return to pre-industrial methods of food production. Small farmers around the world have been growing food, building civilizations and cultures, and managing eco-systems for thousands of years, in ways that have not led to wide-spread desertification, global warming, holes in the ozone, mass animal extinctions, and under-nourished/over-fed, cancer-ridden populations.

The application of industrial production methods and modern science to agricultural has destroyed many of the traditional agricultural techniques and acquired knowledge of local production; it has created a “race to the bottom” in food production that values profit over nourishment, and marketability (shiny red apples, chemical preservatives, irradiation…) over sustainability. This lowest-common denominator approach to food production has had a disastrous affect on producers, consumers and the environment.

Along the way, industrial agriculture has forced small farmers to adopt modern “techniques” to survive; families who have farmed their land for centuries have been forced to choose between bankruptcy, (and the loss of their homes and land), and chemical fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, and genetically-modified seeds. It is for those farmers, who truly understand the land and production, consider themselves “stewards of the land”, and value healthy food, that organic exists.

In that sense, I think of organic as very similar to what Fair Trade premiums are to farmers; access to markets dominated by corporations and agro-industrial methods of production that are environmentally and socially damaging; (like you say, “organic farming is fundamentally better for farmers and the environment”) and “fair prices” that the reflect the true cost of agricultural production in a way that does not destroy the environment, the producers and consumers.

You ask if the USDA is “pretty good”? USDA regulations are the only “organic standards” in the country. They have taken a traditional and holistic approach to agriculture and eco-system management, and turned it into a laundry list of prohibited pesticides and herbicides. In one sense, decreasing the use of those chemicals is certainly a righteous effort, but it has lost the core values of organic production. The only producers who are “backwards-adapting” to meet the organic certification requirements are multinational corporations who are maintaining enormous tracts of mono-crop, agro-industrial plantations, but simply cutting out the pesticides on the list, replacing them with “organic” versions, or compensating by diverting more water for irrigation, and erroneously marking up the costs to consumers. Small farmers, who should be reaping the rewards of organic, are still competing with corporations and large-scale production within the same markets and metrics.

The corporate domination and consolidation of the organic industry is a decelerated continuation of the corporate consolidation of the food industry; which has been consuming family farms, destroying the environment, and poisoning consumers for the better part of the last century. It provides a slightly healthier and less destructive option for consumers, while distracting them from viable alternatives like small farmer fair trade or local production. The minimalist approach to certification has created an entire “industry” of healthier but still unhealthy, processed foods: organic soda, organic fruit snacks, organic frozen pizza; certainly not the product of a socially and environmentally healthy and balanced food system.

The fact remains that organic farming is fundamentally better for farmers and the environment. We can only expect business to be business if there are loopholes in the allowances.

It seems to be following all the signs of a developing industry. The demand growth is phenomenal, and that’s what’s ultimately going to drive an honest organic produce section to reality.

-Eddie Miller
BU ’10
eddiemill@gmail.com

Organic agriculture and global development