What Is “Organic”?
By Shain Saberon, EverGreen Farm
Does Wal-Mart’s announcement that it will offer organic foods at only ten-percent above the cost of conventionally grown produce foreshadow the end of the original organic movement? While the reduction in worldwide use of agricultural chemicals is an obvious benefit of industrialized organics, many other questions are raised. The following are just a few critical considerations: Is shipping produce from China to The United States "organic," or does “organic” mean local? Is the practice of illegal immigrants being paid slave wages by big organic producers with little or no benefits humane or “organic?” And finally, are super-sized factory farms “organic”? My answer is NO! Following are my thoughts on what this word means:
#1. More than all other considerations I define organic as food secured from healthy, natural living soils and clean water. This requires that the farmer continually consider nature and attempts to work with it through practices like crop rotation, cover cropping, applying animal manures, low tillage, and rest. At its core this belief rejects the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, GMO’s, and fungicides.
#2. Organic also means we produce our food in an ecologically friendly and ethical manner. I believe in providing nourishment to others that does not pollute our world. In fact, I want our farm to enhance the environmental quality of our community and planet. This requires, for example, that we reduce the use of all petrochemical and electrical inputs at our farm. Next, food that is ethically produced requires labor that is humanely rewarded. The price of food is, therefore, neither expensive nor cheap. Instead it is reasonable. This demands honesty from the farmer and trust from the patron.
#3. Organic products must be local because fresher foods are better for us. Several nutritional studies concluded that as produce respires (a phenomenon that occurs to foods at an incremental rate from the time of harvest) it loses more of its innate flavor and vitality. Unless you can justify the consequences from the expenditure of jet fuels necessary to fly foods around the world only days from being processed, food cannot be harvested and delivered in one or two days. Consequently organic means fresh, delicious, healthy, local foods!
#4. Organic foods from animals can only come from creatures that live, or lived, as conceivably happy as possible. This requires that all farmed animals have ample open space, an abundance of fresh air, clean water, and access to good pasture. I believe that without these conditions animals become stressed. Under such stress creatures become proportionately toxic. Toxic food products are neither healthy nor “organic.”
#5. Organic farms necessarily encourage community building by sustaining stronger local economies. Communities are built when farmers purchase local inputs, employ local people, and line local pockets whenever possible!
#6. Organic means democratic. Thomas Jefferson once stated, “ . . . cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens . . . they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds.” Family farmers cannot exist without local control. If we are not allowed to determine our food safety standards, organic principles will erode. As recently as 2006, a rider sponsored by a lobbyist for Kraft Foods on federal legislation was attached to NOP (National Organic Practice) standards. This rider allowed for the application of certain synthetic substances, post-harvest, for food preservation. The fascist sin of allowing corporations to determine food standards is neither democratic nor “organic.”
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