Going Beyond Organic

BY EVAN FOLDS

What started in the early parts of the 20th century as an agricultural movement to "feed the soil" in response to the artificial practices of conventional farming, has today turned into an almost $50 billion food industry that is growing twice as fast as conventional. "Organic" has hit the mainstream.

Organic food is now found in almost all grocery stores, and the amount of certified organic acreage is increasing in every state. But despite all of the advances, organic still has a long way to go. Farmland that is certified organic represents less than 1% of all agricultural land in the US, and organic food makes up only 14.6% of all produce sold, according to 2016 numbers.

Still, the organic industry is growing rapidly. Driven mostly by health concerns, retail sales of organic foods more than doubled from 1994 to 2014. According to a Pew Research study, of those who bought organic foods in the past month, 76% say a reason was to get healthier foods. The public is waking up to the problems with our food supply and taking action with their food dollars.

While this sounds like positive news, it is essential to recognise that it was not until we messed up farming that we were compelled to fix it. Rather than follow the "precautionary principle" - which states that a new product or process whose ultimate effects are disputed or unknown should be resisted - we do the opposite, routinely approving chemicals for crop production that are dangerous to living systems and public health. The result is dead soil that is incapable of holding fertility, water, carbon, or life, and we are paying for it in so many ways.

If we fix the soil, we fix ourselves. The question becomes, does "organic" fix farming?

In a word, no. However, it is a step in the right direction.

The term "organic" can be broadly described as farming and food that is not genetically engineered and grown without the assistance of toxic, synthetic chemicals. This is important because according to the Environmental Working Group, a full 70% of all fresh produce sold in the US contain synthetic pesticide residues, and many of them are directly linked to the detriment of environmental and human health.

Many of us are not aware that the origin of artificial pesticides and fertilisers came from the World Wars. The same factories that were built to make nitrogen and munitions in World War II are today used to make fertiliser, and pesticides were simply pointed towards crop fields instead of jungles. The notorious chemical DDT was discovered in 1939 and used extensively by the US military as an insecticide to protect troops in the field before it was ever used on food crops. Its production subsequently showed chemists the way to develop other toxic pesticides and herbicides like 2,4-D.

As the wars ended, the new chemical age of agriculture began, and we went all in. By 1952, there were over 10,000 new and unique pesticides registered with the USDA. We did not understand the danger of them until after they were in use. There are currently at least 72 pesticides approved for outdoor agricultural applications in the US that are banned or in the process of a complete phase-out in the EU, Brazil, and China.

So, despite the emergence of organic methods, our agricultural system is still toxic. And because of this, so is our food supply. Consumers are responding to the toxicity of the food system by using buying power to vote for more organic food, which is a strong incentive for farmers to begin growing more organic food. The problem is that these market forces are far more enticing and lucrative to global food corporations.

The result of this burgeoning market incentive is lobbying by Big Ag to dilute the organic standards to allow their ways and to fit the mega-farm scale of production, but also through massive consolidation where Big Ag purchases small organic food companies. Do an internet search for "Who Owns Organic Chart by Cornucopia Institute" for a sobering visual of who owns your favourite natural food brands.

By capitalist design, Big Ag wants to control the entire USDA organic program. Through stacking boards and spending billions in lobbying efforts, the special interests of the conventional food industry creep into the organic realm, resulting in the acceptance of farming methods that would make the founders of the organic movement roll over in their grave.

We now have "organic" chicken CAFOs with 200,000 birds packed into environmentally controlled buildings, and "organic" dairy CAFOs with 15,000 cows crammed into feedlots, and large "organic" grain shipments being sold into the US with no documentation.

In many ways, organic has become a new way for Big Ag to make more money. Data shows that people perceive "organic" to be a healthier way of producing food, which is an open question. There is no question certified organic food is cleaner, and it is safe to say that given similar soil conditions, organic food could be more nutritious. Still, it is essential to point out that there are no standards for nutrient density in the organic certification process.

It is an alarming realisation: we invented the chemicals that we are paying a premium for in organic food to protect ourselves from. And what's worse, many times we are giving these extra dollars to the same corporations that invented the chemicals in the first place. Brilliant business model, but bad for people.

We are starting to wake up to our food reality, but some saw this coming a long time ago. One of the first known reactions to conventional farming was Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) who, in response to farmers in Eastern Europe that were beginning to experience the loss of fertility on their farms from chemical inputs, delivered eight lectures in 1924 now known as The Agriculture Course. It is an outline that has become known as "biodynamic agriculture".

In many ways, Steiner's methods were before their time, involving homoeopathic field sprays, planting by celestial rhythms, and new techniques for making potentised compost preparations. The concepts of life force and spiritual science that he championed are only now starting to become more popular. But the remnants of what Steiner brought forward have been here all along in the spiritual science of dedicated farmers around the world, and the lunar planting calendars of the Farmers Almanac.

Steiner's ideas inspired many people, including Walter James (1896-1982), known as Lord Northbourne, whose interest in biodynamics led him to visit Switzerland in 1939 to invite the leading advocate of the times, Dr Ehrenfried Pfeiffer (1899-1961), to present the first conference on biodynamic farming in Britain. The following year, in 1940, is when Lord Northbourne published a manifesto called Look to the Land that first coined the term "organic farming".

The pioneer of organic in the US was Jerome Irving Rodale (1898-1971), the founder of the Rodale Research Institute and Organic Farming and Gardening magazine. Beginning in the 1940s from his farm in Pennsylvania, Rodale developed his publications and institute that continue to inspire "non-chemical" farming methods for US farmers and gardeners.

Rodale was originally impacted by the work of Sir Albert Howard (1873-1947), a British scientist who spent many years observing and learning traditional agriculture in India, and developed a method of composting called the Indore Process that is still in use today in tropical regions.

The pioneers of the organic movement provided practical applications and logical, natural reasons to do our farming and gardening differently. The activism around this movement culminated in 1990 when Congress passed the Organic Foods Production Act, requiring the USDA to develop national standards for organic products.

Then, in 2001, Congress established the National Organic Program (NOP). The NOP is a federal regulatory program that develops and enforces uniform national standards for organically-produced agricultural products sold in the US. The core mission of the NOP is to protect the integrity of the USDA organic seal, which is allowed for use on products that contain at least 95% organic ingredients.

Did you catch that? Certified organic food doesn't have to be 100% organic.

One of the more recent controversies regarding organic certification is the debate about hydroponics. Hydroponic, aquaponic, and aeroponic farms can get organic certification for crops in some states and markets. Advocates promote the relative cleanliness and efficiency of these farming methods, and opponents point out that any way of growing that does not utilise soil undermines the spirit of the organic movement.

The USDA currently considers this debate a "settled issue", and out of these compromises, there are now new platforms for certification being developed that go above and beyond organic certification. The Regenerative Organic Certification officially launched in March of 2018, and not a month later, another certification platform, the Real Organic Project, was introduced. The purpose of these platforms is to ensure the integrity and transparency in labelling by defining certified food as grown in the soil and to prevent the certification of controversial methods of farming such as concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) and hydroponics.

We are making progress, but when it comes to good food, it is never fast enough. In the food business, we are what we eat, and our buying power drives global markets. You don't have to grow all of your food to impact agriculture in positive ways. Remember, eating is an agricultural act.