If you haven't been following the discussion under this post about Wal-Mart selling organic food, I recommend you catch up. It's quite insightful, with a range of views well-expressed.
One note of consensus seems to be this: "Organic," at least as denoted by the USDA label, falls well short of genuinely sustainable agriculture. Tom is better qualified than I to give a comprehensive description of the latter, but one important element is locality. Food that is grown, sold, and eaten within a single regional foodshed is closer to sustainable than organic mega-farms.
So, as a couple of people have suggested, perhaps one step in the right direction is a new label, to supplement "organic." This raises two questions:
- What label? What wording should be used?
- What standards? Food-miles traveled? Animal health? Soil regeneration? Something else? Opine in comments.
Peterson’s Waxman-Markey amendment: the nitty gritty and what it means
Comments
View as Flat
Ogranic George Posted 11:01 pm
15 May 2006
Bitchin is Easy
There seems to be a new cottage industry of people, who did participate or spend any time working over the past 20 years to develop the Organic standards, who are ready to chuck Organic for something better, as yet undefined.
First if you had taken the time to read the OFPA and the Organic rule you would know that the word Organic is a protected word so "Beyond Organic" cannot be on the table. You do your readers a disservice even suggesting it.
Local has always been a part of Organics, which is why the Organic Trade Association made sure there was a certification exemption for small market gardeners. We also worked to get federal certification cost assistance, up to $500.00, for small Organic farmers who needed certification. That program is now in jeopardy so you may want to turn you energies to restoring that funding.
I would love to have a reasonable conversation about Organics with you or anyone else, all I ask is that you know the Organic rule. Then you can speak with some authority as opposed to blowing off steam
Permalink
Kif Scheuer Posted 1:46 am
16 May 2006
A label is a label
I find the idea of creating a label to codify the benefits of "local" kind of ironic. for me some of the most important benefits of a local food systm are tied to it being place-based, where I can interact with the producer more directly.
A "local" label is one step in the chain of distancing that puts us back where we were. When you go to a farmers' market you don't need a label to know it's local, you ask the farmer right? If I go to Whole Foods and buy food labeled "local" what does that mean exactly? if local is more than just supporting the local economy how can a label advance those goals?
More importantly, If you're dissatisfied with what's happening with the organic label is that problem going to be solved by creating another label? Assume there's sufficient value to the local (or "wicked bitchin') label and the market grows, what's to prevent the same big players from entering the local market then? I think a proven label makes it more attractive for big business to enter the market.
Permalink
Tom Philpott Posted 2:41 am
16 May 2006
Who's this "we," Organic George?
Hey OG, your use of the first-person plural with regard to the Organic Trade Association makes me think you represent the group that is actively trying to weaken organic standards at the behest of such member corporations as Dean Foods, whose Horizon dairy arm carries the flag for the fake-organic movement.
You want us to believe that the "beyond organic" idea is the brainchild of "people, who did participate or spend any time working over the past 20 years to develop the Organic standards." But that's non-sense. I personally know at least a dozen old-school sustainable farmers who began growing in the '60s and early '70s who now more or less disdain USDA organic standards as too lax in the field and cumbersome with regard to paperwork. Some of them maintain the label anyway, some of them don't.
Below find a message from the pioneering Maine farmer Eliot Coleman, one of the most respected and successful old-school organic farmers working today. I find the word "authentic" too fraught; otherwise, Coleman seems on the mark to me--and to a growing number of growers and consumers:
Permalink
kmp Posted 3:30 am
16 May 2006
On labels
Again with the farmer's market. I love farmer's markets. Truly I do. I would love to get to know all of the people providing all of my food, to know how they grow it, raise it, process it, store it, ship it, etc. And someday maybe I'll be lucky enough to be able to quit my job and devote 50 hours a week towards grocery shopping.
I don't know about you all, but my weekends are pretty packed. One of the reasons that I care about the environment is because I like be outdoors - hiking, climbing, kayaking, biking.... in the words of Calvin & Hobbes "the days are just packed." My weekdays are similarly packed with, you know, working for a living, not to mention yoga, more climbing, soccer, dinner with friends, running... life, in general. I suspect I am like most people in that grocery shopping gets squeezed into all of that. While I am willing to work a little harder, travel a little further, and spend a bit more money on food that I believe is better for me, better for the Earth and better for my community - there is a limit.
Farmer's markets in my neck o' the woods are just starting to open (most open in June/July) and are open at less than optimal hours for a working girl; Tuesdays, 9:30-2:30pm, Saturdays, 10-2pm, and the like. Even my favorite market up in New Paltz I don't get to as often as I would like, because it is open from 9:30-5:30pm and we are often not down off the crags until dark (7 or 8pm).
My long-winded point is, if a store, like a Whole Foods, would just starting telling me where the food is from it would be wonderful. It doesn't have to be an "official" label even - a little dot on the map of the US, or "Tioga Valley, NY" or something. Without the information, it is very difficult for a consumer to make informed choices. Perhaps that little piece of information would prompt other consumers to start asking for "local" foods, or perhaps the store would then realize that putting up a "local" sign over the tomatoes from Long Island caused a marked increase in sales.
As for the organic label, it is what it is. You can say that the USDA stole it, perverted it, and it no longer retains the meaning it once had (and still has) for the pioneers of the organic movement. If that's what had to happen to move big Ag away from using chemical pesticides, I say so be it. Toss them the word and let's move on. So industrial organic is not what many of us think of when we think "organic;" - it is still a good thing that Earthbound Farms has kept a quarter of a million pounds of chemical fertilizer out of the soil. Do I think local, sustainable, organic (and tasty!) lettuce is better? Absolutely. Can I find it in the 45 minutes on a Tuesday night that I have to stock up on food for the next few days? Therein lies the rub.
Permalink
caniscandida Posted 8:28 am
16 May 2006
"the days are just packed"
Amen, Sister Kaela. You have given us another piece of your supremely sensible mind.
Here is something that appeared today by a journalist whom I greatly admire, Amanda Paulson, writing in the Christian Science Monitor, on the subject of "organic" standards being diluted:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0517/p13s01-lifo.html
Lest I contaminate the strict scientific standards of David's poll, I must say I am surprised that "Sustainable," as of this writing, is coming in first. At best that is mighty unclear, at worst hopelessly dorky. I mean, you and I know what it means, sure; but as a label, do you honestly think that will work?
I agree with Kaela that "local" should be indicated wherever whenever. But it strikes me that each region is going to have to accomplish that, at least at first; it is hard to see how the Feds could be so organized at this point. There should be in place, if there are not already, consortiums between growers and grocers within every marketing region.
FYI, I voted for "small farm," having perhaps an unforgivably naive belief that small farmers retain a sense of dedication and integrity, and honest pride in what they send to market.
As for "Wicked Bitchin'," I can only observe that the boys'-locker-room tone of much of the writing in Grist has been the subject of disapproving comment already, and deservedly so.
Permalink
John Fish Kurmann Posted 9:57 am
16 May 2006
None of the above
I don't like any of the poll suggestions offered. The best alternative I've seen is "Homegrown," now being used by the Montana Sustainable Growers Union. You can read more here.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
Permalink
John Fish Kurmann Posted 10:05 am
16 May 2006
"Sustainable" won't work
Though sustainability must be our goal, it has no validity as a label claim in my view. Why? Because it cannot be backed up with any substance. While it's pretty easy to point to many current civilizational activities and deem them credibly as unsustainable, the judgment of sustainable can only be rendered in hindsight. In other words, we cannot know if any actions we take will be sustainable. Only our descendants will be able to make that judgment. And they will be unable to say for sure if their own actions are sustainable, though, if you practice a lifestyle that's apparently worked for generations, you can begin to feel a certain level of confidence that what you're doing is likely sustainable.
Consequently, I cringe every time I see some variation on a claim of "sustainably grown" on a label. It simply won't stand up to scrutiny.
The world is sacred and I am sacred as part of it.
Permalink
kmp Posted 10:34 am
16 May 2006
The word doesn't matter...
the meaning of it does. While I would never claim that words have no power of their own, in this instance maybe it would be even easier to pick a totally nonsensical word, one that has no pre-defined meaning to anyone.
We could call the new label "Herbie" and then define what Herbie means to us (aside from a VW Beetle, of course). Perhaps part of the issue is that "small farm" and "sustainable" and "local" have different meanings for everyone. But if we simply pick a word, any word, that does not already have significant context in the world of food - we could make it mean exactly what we want it to mean. Now I wish I could change my vote to "wicked bitchin'" although growing up in my hometown, you never heard that particular phrase without it's F-word modifier in the middle, so....
I just finished the Omnivore's Dilemma and I was sitting there wishing that someone - Michael Pollan or Joel Salatin or Tom or someone who's food opinions I would trust (someone other than lazy old me, of course) would just come to my neck of the woods and do all the food research and tell me which farms were good and which farms were bad and which could be better with a little prompting.... and I realized that in a perfect foodie world, all of that could be accomplished with [wait for it].... a label.
Kaela
Permalink
Rdurazno Posted 12:58 pm
16 May 2006
Hello
Many people won't consider our produce or joining our CSA if they are not assured that we are "organic". I now think of the word as an equivilent to "hello" -we can't have a conversation about who we are, how we tend our farm, contribute to healthy people and community, etc without the greeting. If all that matters is the "organic" label, or "sustainable", "authentic" or otherwise, it's not much of a conversation, and does not lead a customer to care about the success of my farm, my working relationship with nature, nor I to care about them.
Permalink
atreyger Posted 1:40 pm
16 May 2006
Homegrown???
The only way it could be that is if you grew it at home... Sustainable? Even Big Ag's sustainable in the simple sense of the word. The only label that I would look for is: "Grown in ..., processed in ...", if it's a processed food.
But speaking of 'homegrown', what the hell happened to growing your own food? I'm not sure where our society went wrong, when we consider that to be a hassle and not a pleasure.
Peace
Permalink
mariposamaiden Posted 12:44 pm
16 Oct 2006
new name for beyond organic
Ethical Agriculture
Yes, some of us in Canada are beginning to feel that "organic" has lost its meaning and vision, and are looking for an alternative method to identify the process of producing high quality nutritious food in a nurturing, low energy, sustainable manner... :)
Permalink
bookerly Posted 7:30 pm
16 Oct 2006
Workers
Do any of these proposed new labels include any standards for the treatment of farm workers?
patrick
Permalink