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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@gilanet.com>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] AUTHENTIC FOOD - AUTHENTIC FARMING
  • Date: Mon, 05 Jul 2004 03:49:41 -0600

http://www.fourseasonfarm.com/main/authentic/authentic.html
AUTHENTIC FOOD - AUTHENTIC FARMING

By Eliot Coleman, printed in Mother Earth News

The label "organic" has lost the fluidity it used to hold for the growers
more concerned with quality than the bottom line, and consumers more
concerned with nutrition than a static set of standards for labeling.
"Authentic" is meant to be the flexible term "organic" once was. It
identifies fresh foods produced by local growers who want to focus on what
they are doing, instead of what they aren't doing. (The word authentic
derives from the Greek authentes: one who does things for him or herself.)
The standards for a term like this shouldn't be set in stone, but here are
the ones I like to focus on:

All foods are produced by the growers who sell them.

Fresh fruits and vegetables, milk, eggs and meat products are produced
within a 50-mile radius of their place of their final sale.

The seed and storage crops (grains, beans, nuts, potatoes, etc.) are
produced within a 300-mile radius of their final sale.

Only traditional processed foods such as cheese, wine, bread and
lactofermented products may claim, "Made with Authentic ingredients."

The growers' fields, barns and greenhouses are open for inspection at any
time, so customers, themselves, can be the certifiers of their food.

All agricultural practices used on farms selling under the "Authentic"
label are chosen to produce foods of the highest nutritional quality.

Soils are nourished, as in the natural world, with farm-derived organic
matter and mineral particles from ground rock.

Green manures and cover crops are included within broadly based crop
rotations to maintain biological diversity.

A "plant positive" rather than "pest negative" philosophy is followed
focusing on correcting the caused of problems rather than treating
symptoms.

Livestock are raised outdoors on grass-based pasture systems to the fullest
extent possible.

The goal is vigorous, healthy crops and livestock endowed with their
inherent powers of vitality and resistance.

"Authentic" growers are committed to supplying food that is fresh, ripe,
clean, safe and nourishing. "Authentic" farms are genetically modified
organism-free zones. I encourage all small growers with local markets who
believe in exceptional food to use the word "Authentic" to mean "Beyond
Organic." With a definition that stresses local, seller-grown and fresh,
there is little likelihood that large-scale marketers can steal this
concept.

http://www.fourseasonfarm.com/main/authentic/beyond.html
BEYOND ORGANIC

By Eliot Coleman, printed in Mother Earth News

New ideas, especially those that directly challenge an established
orthodoxy, follow a familiar path. First, the orthodoxy says the new idea
is rubbish. Then the orthodoxy attempts to minimize the new idea's growing
appeal. Finally, when the new idea proves unstoppable, the orthodoxy tries
to claim the idea as its own. This is precisely the path organic food
production has followed.

First, organic pioneers were ridiculed. Then, as evidence of the benefits
of organic farming became more obvious to more people, mainstream chemical
agriculture actively condemned organic ideas as unfeasible. Now that the
food-buying public has become enthusiastic about organically grown foods,
the food industry wants to take over. Toward that end the USDA-controlled
national definition of "organic" is tailored to meet the marketing needs of
organizations that have no connection to the agricultural integrity
"organic" once represented. We now need to ask whether we want to be
content with an "organic" food option that places the marketing concerns of
corporate America ahead of nutrition, flavor and social benefits to
consumers.

When I stated as an organic grower 35 years ago, it was a simpler world.
Organic was a way of thinking rather than a "profit center." The decision
to farm organically was a statement of faith in the wisdom of the natural
world, to the quality of the crops and livestock, and to the nutritional
benefits of properly cultivated food. It was obvious that good farming and
exceptional food only resulted from the care and nurturing practiced by the
good farmer.

The initial development of organic farming during the first half of the
20th century arose from the gut feelings of farmers who were trying to
reconcile the biological truths they saw in their own fields with the
chemical dogma the agricultural science-of-the-moment was teaching. The
farmers came to very different conclusions from those of the academic
agronomists. The farmers worked on developing agricultural practices that
harmonized with the direction in which their "unscientific" conclusions
were leading them. Their goals were to grow the most nutritious food
possible, while protecting the soil for future generations.

The development and refinement of those biologically-based agricultural
practices continues today. It's what makes this farming adventure so
compelling. Each year I hope to do things better than I did last year
because I will know Nature's systems better. But my delight in the
intricacies of the natural world -- my adventure into an ever deeper
appreciation of the soil-plant-animal nutrition cycle and how to optimize
it -- is not acceptable to the homogenized mentality of mass marketing. The
food giants that are taking over "organic" want a simplistic list of
ingredients so they can do organic-by-the-numbers. They are derisive about
what they label "belief systems," and they are loath to acknowledge that
more farmer commitment is involved in producing real food than any number
of approved inputs can encompass.

The transition of "organic" from small farm to big time is now upon us.
Although getting toxic chemicals out of agriculture is an improvement we
can all applaud, it only removes the negatives. The positive focus,
enhancing the biological quality of the food produced, is nowhere to be
seen. The new standards are based on what not to do rather than what to do.
They will be administered through the USDA, whose director said recently,
"Organic food does not mean it is superior, safer, or more healthy than
conventional food." Well, I still agree with the old time organic pioneers.
I believe that properly grown food is superior, safer and healthier. I also
believe national certification bureaucracies are only necessary when food
is grown by strangers in far away places rather than by neighbors whom you
know. I further believe good, fresh food, grown locally by committed
growers is the very best to be found.

"Organic" is now dead as a meaningful synonym for the highest quality food.
Responsible growers need to identify not only that our food is grown to
higher, more considered standards, but also that it is much fresher because
it is grown right where it is sold. Therefore, we have come up with a new
term, one we define to mean locally grown and unprocessed, in addition to
exceptional quality. It's a term we hope will be used, as "organic" was
used when we began, by those local growers who accept that if you care
first about the quality of what you produce, a market will always be there.
We now sell our produce as "Authentic Food." We invite other serious
growers to join us.





  • [Livingontheland] AUTHENTIC FOOD - AUTHENTIC FARMING, Tradingpost, 07/05/2004

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