permaculture

["georg parlow" <georg@websuxxess.com>]

> I have no idea what any of those big organizational certifications
> *really* mean in practice.  I do know that the bigger they get the more
> they seem to become a tool of agribusiness, which is interested in
> profiting from the organic food fad but not really intereseted in truly
> sustainable agriculture.

servas mitranaund!

here in austria, eu, the organic farming and certification movement ist
propably one of the strongest in the world. 25% of our farmers are organic
(amounting to only 10% of the acreage though). nearly every big supermarket
chain (except wallmart and 1 or 2 other lowest budget-lowest quality food
marts) have their own organic line, etc. - in the biggest chain there are
organic everything spread throughout the market, no more "organic corner",
bread and grain products, meat, dairy, eggs, veggies and fruit in season,
frozen veggies, even including all organic frozen pizza and all sorts of
processed foods. 2 months ago they started campaigning for organic dog and
cat food (with huge billboards, tv-spots and all).

but:

organic agriculture is quite different from sustainable agriculture, and
that this is becoming evermore apparent is due to the certification and
mainstreaming of the organic growing. we are now having (a tiny few by now,
but most likely more to come) organic farms, that do a lot of vegetables
along with gains and pulses, that have more than 100 hectares, and are
operated by a minumum permanent staff (one of more than 150 ha is run by 3
(three) people, one of them never leaving the office). ok, in peaktimes they
do hire a flock of cheap labor (from cech republic or hungary) for a few
days, but they do not provide employment, and they operate with machinery
with wheels bigger than me standing upright. yes, they stick to all the
allowed procedures when it comes to spraying and fertilizing, but they run
on oil and labour exploitation, compress and degrade the structure of the
soil big time.

and:

this puts price pressure an the small organic farmer, who cannot make his
own prices anyways if he is member of one of the big certification orgs,
they do it for him, and they sure are 1. removed from the souil and actual
work, and 2. under pressure from the big foodchain buyers, whos only
interest ist to buy as low as possible. and since the organic producers are
not producing for consumers anymore, but again for the middleman, they more
and more choose varieties of veggies and fruit, that have great shelflife
but taste like ... er.. well, sorta emty, ya know? still tastes better than
the same variety grown conventional, but biodiversity is down the drain here
too.

so is nive for austrian consumers to habe organic food in acceptable quality
at socalled affordable prices (my question is if we can afford it to not pay
a decent price?). but if you throw agobiz out the window, it seems to come
back through the door with a pitchfork ;o)
a few years back it was a real alternative for farmers to go organic. if
they did take this risk (in the eyes of the conventional neighbour) they
were rewarded with a decent income. here in austria we have reached the
point, where being a normal organic farmer is not enough to survive. you
need to either get bigger and faster and more efficient etc, (you know the
growth-debt-crap), or they get smart and find themselves a niche, open up a
directmarketing line or sum such.

keep growing,
georg