Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Greg and April" <gregandapril@earthlink.net>]

Like I said before, it has the potential for allot of good or ill depending 
on how it's handled.

I hope it is for the good.

Greg H.




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, July 07, 2006 8:57
Subject: [Livingontheland] Demand for Organic Food Outstrips Supply


> Any comments or criticisms on this? Before  I jump in ...
> -------------
>
> Demand for Organic Food Outstrips Supply
> By LIBBY QUAID AP Food and Farm Writer
> http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/nationworld/ats-ap_top14jul06,0,1484613
> .story?coll=scn-newsnation-headlines
> Published July 6 2006, 8:16 PM EDT
>
> WASHINGTON -- America's appetite for organic food is so strong that supply
> just can't keep up with demand. Organic products still have only a tiny
> slice, about 2.5 percent, of the nation's food market. But the slice is
> expanding at a feverish pace.
>
> Growth in sales of organic food has been 15 percent to 21 percent each
> year, compared with 2 percent to 4 percent for total food sales.
>
>
> Organic means food is grown without bug killer, fertilizer, hormones,
> antibiotics or biotechnology.
>
> Mainstream supermarkets, eyeing the success of organic retailers such as
> Whole Foods, have rushed to meet demand. The Kroger Co., Safeway Inc. and
> SuperValu Inc., which owns Albertson's LLC, are among those selling their
> own organic brands. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said earlier this year it would
> double its organic offerings.
>
> The number of organic farms -- an estimated 10,000 -- is also increasing,
> but not fast enough. As a result, organic manufacturers are looking for
> ingredients outside the United States in places like Europe, Bolivia,
> Venezuela and South Africa.
>
> That is no surprise, said Barbara Robinson, head of the Agriculture
> Department's National Organic Program. The program provides the round,
> green "USDA Organic" seal for certified products.
>
> Her agency is just now starting to track organic data, but Robinson
> believes the United States is importing far more organic food than it
> exports. That's true of conventional food, too.
>
> "That is how you stimulate growth, is imports generally," she said. "Your
> own industry says we're tired of importing this; why should I pay for
> imports when I could start producing myself?"
>
> "We're doing a lot of scrambling," said Sheryl O'Loughlin, CEO of Clif Bar
> Inc. "We have gotten to the point now where we know we can get a call for
> any ingredient."
>
> The makers of the high-energy, eat-and-run Clif Bar needed 85,000 pounds 
> of
> almonds, and they had to be organic. But the nation's organic almond crop
> was spoken for. Eventually, Clif Bar found the almonds -- in Spain. But
> more shortages have popped up: apricots and blueberries, cashews and
> hazelnuts, brown rice syrup and oats.
>
> Even Stonyfield Farm, an organic pioneer in the United States, is pursuing
> a foreign supplier; Stonyfield is working on a deal to import milk powder
> from New Zealand.
>
> "I'm not suggesting we would be importing from all these places," said 
> Gary
> Hirshberg, president and CEO of Stonyfield Farm Inc. "But for transition
> purposes, to help organic supply to keep up with the nation's growing
> hunger, these countries have to be considered."
>
> The dilemma of how to fill the gap between organic supply and demand is
> part of a long-running debate within America's booming organic industry.
> For many enthusiasts, organic is about more than the food on their plates;
> it's a way to improve the environment where they live and help keep
> small-scale farmers in business.
>
> "If organic is something created in the image of sustainable agriculture,
> we certainly haven't accomplished that yet," said Urvashi Rangan, a
> scientist for Consumers Union. "What people do have to understand is if
> that stuff comes in from overseas, and it's got an organic label on it, it
> had to meet USDA standards in order to get here."
>
> The issue causes mixed feelings for Travis Forgues, an organic dairy 
> farmer
> in Vermont.
>
> "I don't like the idea of it coming in from out of this country, but I
> don't want them to stop growing organic because of that," Forgues said. "I
> want people to say, `Let's do that here, give a farmer another avenue to
> make a livable wage.'"
>
> A member of the farmer-owned Organic Valley cooperative, Forgues got his
> dairy farm certified nearly 10 years ago. Organic Valley supplies milk to
> Stonyfield.
>
> Switching to organic is a difficult proposition. Vegetable grower Scott
> Woodard is learning through trial and error on his Putnam Valley, N.Y.,
> farm. One costly mistake: Conventional farmers can plant seeds when they
> want and use pesticides to kill hungry insect larvae. If Woodard had 
> waited
> three weeks to plant, the bugs that ate his seeds would have hatched and
> left. Organic seeds can be double the price of conventional.
>
> "There's not a lot of information out there," Woodard said. "We try to do
> the best we can. Sometimes it's too late, but then we learn for next 
> time."
>
> Stonyfield and Organic Valley are working to increase the number of 
> organic
> farms, paying farmers to help them switch or boost production. Stonyfield,
> together with farmer-owned cooperative Organic Valley, expects to spend
> around $2 million on incentives and technical help in 2006, Hirshberg 
> said.
>
> Other companies offer similar help. And the industry's Organic Trade
> Association is trying to become more of a resource for individual farmers.
>
> Caren Wilcox, the group's executive director, described how an Illinois
> farmer showed up in May at an industry show in Chicago.
>
> "He said, `I want to get certified. Help me,'" Wilcox said. "It was a 
> smart
> thing to do, but the fact that he had to get into his car and go down to
> McCormick Center says something about the availability of information."
>
> In the meantime, manufacturers like Clif Bar and Stonyfield still prefer 
> to
> buy organic ingredients, wherever they come from, instead of conventional
> crops in the U.S.
>
> "Anybody who's helping to take toxins out of the biosphere and use less
> poisonous chemicals in agriculture is a hero of mine," Hirshberg said.
> "There's enormous opportunity here for everybody to win, large and small."
>
> * __
>
> On the Net:
>
> Organic Trade Association: http://www.ota.com
>
> National Organic Program: http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/indexIE.htm
>
>
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