To: "homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org" <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [Homestead] Organic foods--facts, stats and sensations
Date: Wed, 04 May 2005 09:11:01 -0700
The many meanings of 'organic'
# Demand for certified produce is up, but so is confusion over farming
standards. Here's a look at what it all means.
By Max Withers, Special to The Times
Shoppers swarm around the farmers market stall. After the rainy California
winter, strawberries, peas and fava beans, those heralds of spring, are hot
sellers. Some customers move in for the kill, brandishing their trophy
produce in one hand and exact change in the other. Others hold back, trying
to remember what looked good at the last stall. Weren't those favas a
little smaller? But these favas say "pesticide-free." And the guy at the
other end of the market might have organic ones. Are they any better?
More and more people seem to think so: One-quarter of all Americans now eat
fresh organic produce at least once a week, according to the Hartman Group,
a consumer research firm and the market continues to grow by 20% a year.
For many consumers, the "organic" label is a passport to a place where
safer food, better flavor and a healthier environment all intersect. By
buying from farms that have been certified organic, they imagine that
they're getting the best-tasting produce while helping the environment,
supporting small producers and safeguarding their health.
But it's not as simple as that. Some of the farmers most respected by chefs
for the quality of their produce are eschewing organic farming. At the same
time, mainstream supermarkets overflow with organic fruits and vegetables
from huge agribusiness conglomerates. And the jury is still out on whether
organic produce is healthier or tastier, although some studies point in
that direction.
So what does organic really mean? Government standards are arbitrary and
incomplete, critics say, and, ironically, the standards support big
producers over smaller ones. And higher prices charged for certified
organic produce don't guarantee that you're getting better food.
Nationwide, organic farming standards are set by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture. The USDA rules are administered through non-governmental
agencies certifiers who do annual inspections and charge a fee for the
process.
The cost of certification is surprisingly modest. California Certified
Organic Farmers, or CCOF, the largest of California's 11 certifiers,
charges fees on a sliding scale, and other certifiers are competitive. The
real hurdle for farmers, after they complete a three-year "transitional"
period during which they must farm organically, but aren't allowed to label
their produce "organic," is the paperwork.
"It's amazing how much paperwork we have to do. We have to keep track of
everything," says administrative director Matthew Logan of Fairview Gardens
in Santa Barbara, a chefs' favorite (they sell at the Wednesday Santa
Monica, several Santa Barbara and the San Francisco Ferry Building farmers
markets). Logan says Fairview's paperwork quadrupled when it started
certifying under the USDA's National Organic Program, or NOP, which was
instituted in 2002.
Santa Monica farmers markets manager Laura Avery estimates that as many as
100 farmers at her markets who are not certified do not spray pesticides.
For the most part, these farmers say that they have not sought organic
certification because they have no problem selling their produce without
going through that hassle.
Even if they don't seek certification, many of California's smaller
conventional farms employ a variety of organic practices, such as cover
cropping and composting. And not every conscientious farmer agrees that all
pesticide use is a bad idea.
Fitz Kelly, well known for the superb stone fruit he grows on 35 acres in
Reedley (Fitzgerald's Premium Ripe Tree Fruit is at the Wednesday Santa
Monica and the San Francisco Ferry Plaza farmers markets in season), says
that judicious use of synthetic pesticides means he can spray less than
organic farmers, who have to rely on a small list of approved substances.
And that, along with other careful farming practices, makes his farm
environmentally friendly.
"We've even had damage to the fruit from ladybugs, we have so many of
them," he says.
Demand for certified organic produce remains strong, and market managers
all over the state confirm the statistics showing growth in sales. But some
market managers think consumers are fixating too much on the label, at the
expense of small farmers who haven't certified. "As soon as you get a label
for something, people get stupid about it," Avery complained about the USDA
regulations. "They stop educating themselves."
Of course, without certification, you have to take the farmer's word for
it. Hand-lettered signs reading "no pesticides" are almost as common as
"certified organic" signs in some markets. Certified farmers are
understandably suspicious of their competitors' claims.
"When they walk into a farmers market, consumers assume all kinds of
things," says Warren Weber, who founded Star Route Farms in Bolinas,
California's oldest certified farm, in 1974, and sells at the Ferry Plaza
and Marin County farmers markets. "It's kind of medieval, like going to a
bazaar. You get the feeling that people say whatever to sell their product
sometimes. And that's unfortunate."
Organic goes big time
Farmers markets are no longer the only places where you'll find large
selections of organic produce and products. Mainstream supermarkets are
plentifully stocked with organic products from publicly traded behemoths
such as Dean Foods and General Mills.
Once seen as the province of wild-eyed hippies and dedicated idealists,
organic farming was domesticated in 2002 when the USDA began setting the
standards through the National Organic Program. With predictable rules and
regulations, organic farming was suddenly safe for big business.
But some organic activists have questioned whether the big boys are really
delivering the organic goods. Several news organizations reported in
February that a Wisconsin nonprofit, the Cornucopia Institute, complained
to the USDA that three certified organic dairies selling milk to Horizon
Organic were actually factory farms that violated NOP rules.
From the start, the USDA rules were controversial. Reviewing the NOP,
activist and former Columbia University nutrition professor Joan Dye Gussow
wrote in Organic Gardening magazine, "This isn't what we meant. When we
said organic, we meant local. We meant healthful. We meant being true to
the ecology of regions."
The USDA pays lip service to these ideas by defining organic farming as a
system designed to "foster cycling of resources, promote ecological
balance, and conserve biodiversity." But there is no enforcement mechanism
for these abstractions.
The regulations "focus too much on the materials and not on the biological
processes of farming," says UC Santa Cruz Community Studies professor Julie
Guthman, author of "Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in
California." For example, fallowing and on-farm composting, key components
of the theory of organic farming since J.I. Rodale started "Organic Farming
and Gardening" magazine in 1942, are not required by the USDA.
The heart of the USDA program is the "National List," a document developed
by the USDA after years of public comment and controversy about everything
from irradiation to chicken feed. It lists approved and forbidden
fertilizers, pesticides, soil amendments and other agricultural inputs.
These substances are judged not only by toxicity, but also by
"naturalness," a quality that is not easy to define.
Nor does the relative degree of "naturalness" necessarily correspond to a
product's effect on human and environmental health. For example, Chilean
nitrate is allowed (with restrictions) because it is mined from a natural
source, even though its environmental effects are similar to synthetic
fertilizers.
"And the definition of allowable materials is highly politicized," Guthman
says.
On Chilean nitrate and other points, the USDA differs from the European
standard. "Ninety-five percent of the time we agree, but then we get to a
single material" that causes problems, says Jake Lewin, director of
marketing and international programs at CCOF, which offers a different
certification for farmers who export to Europe.
Despite these limitations, the current guidelines at least prevent the use
of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides from the relatively benign
Roundup to Category I poisons such as methyl bromide on California's
170,000 acres of organic-certified land (around 1.5% of the state total).
For its defenders, numbers such as these outweigh the NOP's flaws. "USDA
has not watered down the standards," says department spokeswoman Joan Shaffer.
Jim Riddle has been an organic farmer in Minnesota for 25 years and a
certifier for 18. As the chairman of the National Organic Standards Board,
an advisory body with which the USDA consults, he's had some run-ins with
the USDA, but he vehemently defends the National Organic Program.
"It's one thing to make accusations, but I'd like to see proof. We do need
continual vigilance to protect the standards, but they're not weaker" than
before the USDA got involved.
"Organic has never been the whole answer to sustainability, but even at its
worst, it's a very important form of damage control," says Monica Moore of
the Pesticide Action Network, a nonprofit organization that tracks
pesticide use.
And there's no other government-sponsored program that assesses farmers'
practices to help consumers make informed decisions. Certification requires
annual third-party verification of compliance, with a clear standard. It's
not just a marketing ploy for vendors seeking to cash in on the latest
craze. With the three-year transition period and the paperwork and
inspection hurdles, it requires a serious commitment to earn that
"certified organic" label.
But all those standards, demanding as they are for farmers, have nothing to
say about the final product the food. Is it healthier? Does it taste
better? The USDA isn't making any such claims.
Although the National List prohibits the use of synthetic pesticides,
organic certifiers do not routinely test produce for pesticide residues. An
"organic" label does not mean that your produce is free of pesticides, only
that the farmer hasn't applied any. Residues from neighboring fields or
contaminants acquired between field and market are always possible. Even
though it was banned in 1973, DDT is still routinely detected in soil
samples. Still, scientific studies do show much lower levels of pesticide
residue on organic produce. (These same studies also show that pesticides
in conventional produce are within the EPA's maximum residue limits.)
"Health concerns" are the most important reason consumers say they buy
organic food, according to the Hartman Group. So if the health concern is
pesticide exposure, they're getting what they pay for. But many people also
think that organic produce has more vitamins and minerals than conventional
produce, and that is not true. Scientific studies consistently fail to find
any difference in the vitamin content of organic and conventional food.
In a well-designed study that has not yet been published, Dr. Alyson
Mitchell's UC Davis lab found higher concentrations of antioxidants in
organically grown tomatoes than in conventionally grown tomatoes. A French
study published last September found similar results in tomatoes. But the
link to better health was not clear: Study participants who ate the organic
tomatoes for three weeks had the same blood level of the antioxidant
lycopene as those who ate conventional tomatoes.
Overall, 13 of 15 studies recently reviewed by the Organic Center, a
nonprofit research institute, found higher levels of antioxidants in
organic produce, but none could explain why. "I don't think that research
is even in its infancy yet," says Bob Scowcroft of the Organic Farming
Research Foundation, a Santa Cruz nonprofit.
It comes down to flavor
What about flavor? Scientific tests so far cannot distinguish between the
flavors of organic and conventional food. But many chefs tout their use of
organic produce on menus and agree with Alice Waters, who says, "The finest
food is produced and grown in ways that are ecologically sound."
How produce is handled and marketed profoundly affects its flavor. Food
that suffers the indignities of the commodity supply chain on its way to
the supermarket is picked earlier, and processed more, than what farmers
can sell direct to the consumer. Farmers who sell direct also have the
freedom to experiment with varieties bred for flavor, instead of the
commercial cultivars developed to survive the journey to the supermarket.
"I'd rather buy the commercial broccoli grown down the street than the
organic that was shipped halfway around the world," says Michael Ableman.
It's a startling sentiment coming from a pioneering organic farmer (he's
Fairview Gardens' farm manager). "People are starting to get it," he says.
"They go down to the farmers market and the food just tastes different
it's fresher."
Nationwide, roughly 4% of certified organic produce is purchased directly
from farmers, at farm stands and farmers markets. That may not sound like
much, but the number for conventional produce is 0.4%, according to the
USDA's agricultural census. And the percentages are higher for California,
which grows 50% of the country's fruits and vegetables. Some of the flavor
edge people attribute to organic produce may simply be a result of freshness.
This is especially true at restaurants, many of which establish direct
relationships with local suppliers. For decades, Chez Panisse had a
dedicated forager, whose job was to track down produce that met the
restaurant's high standards. Today, the restaurant has so many sources of
consistently high-quality produce, the chefs do the foraging themselves.
Chef Cal Peternell says that part of his job is pretty easy these days. And
it's easier for the rest of us too.
"You might get lucky at the grocery store once in a while, but the farmers
market is the place where you're going to get the quality that we have," he
says.
"Freshness is really the key," agrees Jeff Jackson, executive chef of A.R.
Valentien at the Lodge at Torrey Pines in La Jolla. "Just because
something's organic doesn't necessarily mean it tastes great. Mother Nature
throws curveballs too."
But for the most part, Jackson loves the organic produce he gets from the
local and Santa Monica farmers markets, and he applauds the farmers who
grow it for him.
"It is really, really hard to grow food organically," says Jackson. "I
can't have enough respect for what these guys do."