From 71042.2023@compuserve.comSun Feb 11 15:18:41 1996 Date: 11 Feb 96 10:54:51 EST From: Bill Duesing <71042.2023@compuserve.com> To: Almanac Information Server Subject: Re: Is Organic Enough? The following article first appeared in the Winter 1995-96 issue of The Natural Farmer, the quarterly newspaper of The Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA). It might stimulate some interesting discussion on sanet-mg. Feedback from NOFA members has been positive. The Natural Farmer is available with membership in NOFA, or for $10 per year from TNF, NOFA, 411 Sheldon Rd., Barre, MA 01005.(jackkitt@aol.com) Is Organic Enough? by Bill Duesing, C 1995, Bill Duesing, Solar Farm Education, 71042.2023@compuserve.com NOFA and its members have spent over two decades promoting organic agriculture, and learning how to practice it in this region. We have seen organic agriculture grow from being ridiculed by the agricultural and food establishment to being nearly mainstream. We know that a shift to organic agriculture is essential for the long term health of people, the soil and the Earth. But is organic, even certified organic, enough? In the early days of NOFA, before organic agriculture was codified in certification standards and widely recognized, the idea of "Organic Farming" meant many different things to different people. Its lack of specific definition allowed many of us to associate it with certain important characteristics of scale, locality, control, knowledge, nutrition, social justice, participation, grower/eater relationships and the connections with schools and communities. Anyone who attends a few workshops at almost any NOFA conference understands these characteristics. The "implied or hidden curriculum" of small scale, local eating, good nutrition, connection to community and consistency with social and environmental justice has been and still is very evident. Proper soil care and avoidence of toxic and synthetic chemicals are just part of what NOFA has seemed to represent for over 20 years. These desirable food system characteristics seem threatened as the definition of organic farming and food is narrowed to a set of standards which deal with growing and processing methods exclusively, and is acceptable to the food industry and government. It seems that in many ways organic food is slipping right into some of the most destructive patterns of the conventional, globally-destructive food system. The new giant, energy-intensive supermarket in a wealthy suburb nearby recently had a full page ad for organic produce in its weekly flyer. It prominately featured organic seedless grapes, which are currently in great excess in California. The peppermint tea sold at the NOFA Summer Conference was certified organic and imported from Chile. Peppermint! A recent issue of Organic Food Business News (OFBN) reported that representatives of Dole, a multinational food corporation which has caused much political, social and environmental damage in Central America and elsewhere, brought growers from Argentina to this country so they could learn organic techniques and grow certified organic garlic and other vegetables in Argentina for export to the U.S. Other corporate food giants are buying into the organic food business. Pepperidge Farm Bakery in Connecticut called to see about certification. General Mills is milling organic grains. And of course, because the USDA is getting increasingly involved, there will be higher fees for organic certification. Meanwhile, the conventional farmers just go about their thing, moving smoothly to the marketplace, especially if they are very large. Farms, input suppliers, distributors and retailers all are becoming larger with more concentrated control. OFBN and The New York Times have carried stories about pesticide contamination of organic food -bananas from Central America, for example. It seems either nearly impossible, and/or very expensive, to assure freedom from chemical contamination, especially when there are thousands of miles between the grower and the eater, and while the world is still flooded with toxic pesticides and other detrimental substances. The transportation itself contaminates the produce and the rest of the world. While this expense may seem a pittance for well-to-do folks who spend only a small percentage of their income on food, it is significant for the growing number of people, especially in the cities, who are struggling to obtain the necessities of life. It is also expensive taxpayers who pay for school lunches and food stamps. Some local organic growers make up for any energy savings in transportation from distant farms by using lots of plastic and energy intensive greenhouses, irrigation and indoor growing systems. In some cases the "plastic to produce" ratio is very high. John Jeavons says that many of the large organic farms in his part of northern California are even less sustainable than some conventional farms. These energy -intensive organic growers fertilize their crops with manure from very large dairy operations in southern California* which feed their cows grain grown in the midwest. If the produce is then shipped to the east coast, it's not hard to imagine that, looking at energy use and its polluting effects, one could conclude that those same vegetables, grown locally with conventional fertilizer might be better for the planet. Since food is energy - our energy source - energy considerations are very important in any evaluation of the long term sustainability of our food system. To power a human being for twenty four hours takes the energy equivilent of about a cup of gasoline. The amount of fossil and nuclear energy it takes to deliver that food energy in the current system is enormous, often the equivalent of two gallons of gasoline are used to provide a cupful's worth of food energy. The global food system is rapidly increasing its energy use through such practices as building four new McDonalds every day for years at a time, selling Coke, Pepsi, Budweiser, Miller et al in aluminum cans in India, Mexico,Vietnam and China, genetically engineering a new strain of seeds for each year's crop and by erecting new, enormous, capital-and energy-intensive animal factories and food processing facilities. For our long term survival, it is important to measure efficiency according to the second law of thermodynamics (which describes energy's one-way flow toward uselessness). By this important standard, the food we grow in gardens and local small farms, especially if hand tended, is nearly infinitely more efficient than that delivered by the conventional food system. The rapidly-evolving corporate food system will probably be glad to deliver organic food to upscale consumers. And why not? The higher prices will mean higher profits. The energy-intensive, distant, large scale, corporate-controlled global food distribution system doesn't provide decent work, good nutrition, wholesome flavor, or knowledge. It will be happy to offer organic as an option, and will keep working to increase its share of our food dollars. ( Currently 78 cents of each dollar spent on food in the U. S. is taken by those who buy from the growers and sell to the eaters. And, the middlemen's take is increasing steadily.) For sure, in the short run, our nutrient and energy needs can be met with food from far away, but what about our other needs. For most of human history, gathering, growing, preparing and eating food has been an important and central activity. It provided useful work for the majority of people, a context for relating to ecosystems, and education in the processes of nature. If the organic food system falls into the same patterns of scale, distance and control as the conventional food system, human beings will have very little work to do as the scale of operations in increased, and as production is moved to regions with the lowest labor, land and energy costs. We will lose our connection to the natural processes and knowledge upon which we depend for our survival. With genetically engineered plants, animals and hormones we've seen that the larger the entity that produces or markets our food is, the less democratic control we have over its actions or products. It is clear to me, that if we are to have any hope of creating an ecological food system, with anything like democratic control, that food system has to be local and organic. We vote for the food system of the future with our actions and our money. If we understand what is really important about it, we will grow and eat more of our own and give less money to those who profit from economies of scale and by distancing us from our most important connection to the envrionment-the food we eat. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------- *Organic farms are being targeted as the disposal sites for otherwise unwanted manure from conventional farms. I've had quite a few calls from Texas and other far-away places offering "organic fertilizer" - really composted steer manure - to NOFA farmers. A letter from Brazil asked if we were interested in worm compost produce by small-scale enterprises there. Just this week I got a letter from the Philipines offering cocopeat, made from coconut hulls, and tauted as a mulch, soil conditioner and a subsitute for peat moss. A second-law efficiency check on any of these, shows a very inefficient system.