Organic
Connections JAN–FEB 2011
The magazine of Peter Gillham’s Natural Vitality
Frances Moore Lappé Building a Living Democracy Organic Report 2011 Where Organic Is and Where It’s Going Andrew Kimbrell The Role of Organic in Food Safety
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Who’s doing what to whom and why
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f you’re proactive about living a healthy life and desire the same for your family, friends and others, today’s America forces you into the role of an activist. Now, I’m a child of the sixties, so this comes fairly naturally to me. But when you have to fight over not getting poisoned or sick or genetically modified by the food you eat, and the government giving free rein to chemical, biotech and food companies to conduct human biological experiments on us for profit, you’ve got to wonder what the hell is going on? (pardon my “French”). When corporations became people in the eyes of the law in the late 1800s, they began using vast accumulated wealth to influence elections and create powerful industry lobbies to craft public policy favoring their interests. This has been a part of American capitalism for generations. The economic meltdown we’re currently living through is a tragic demonstration of the harm this can cause. Government by and for the people has been replaced by government by and for the corporate “people.” This perversion of democracy has negatively impacted our lives for so long, most of us were born into a world that operates in this wise and grudgingly accept it as normal life. When the arms race was in full swing back in the 1950s, the Atomic Energy Commission assured one and all that atmospheric testing was perfectly safe. Times have changed but the song remains the same. Today’s atomic bomb tests have been replaced by genetically modified food, toxic pesticide cocktails and unregulated nanotechnology—all, our government assures us, perfectly safe. The stakes are high. We’re dealing with our health, our children and our environment. We—the actual people—want safe, healthy food and a sustainable environment. The corporate people want profits and strong quarterly and annual reports. These two value sets become opposed only when profits are obtained at the expense of the health and welfare of citizens and our planet. The sad truth is that people getting sick actually adds to the bottom line of our economy. It sustains the insurance business, keeps doctors busy, fills hospitals, is a windfall for Big Pharma and their research scientists, and is good for drugstores (and mortuaries). You and I are living in an economic framework that has no consideration for quality of life. The GNP and other related indexes simply measure the well-being of corporate “people.” If we want it another way, we—the actual living people—have to change the game.
Ken Whitman publisher
Organic Connections™ is published by Peter Gillham’s Natural Vitality 8500 Shoal Creek Boulevard, #208, Austin, TX 78757 Editorial Office 818.333.2171 • e-mail info@organicconnectmag.com Product sales and information 800.446.7462 • www.petergillham.com © 2011 Peter Gillham’s Natural Vitality. All rights reserved.
In this issue
or•gan•ic |ôr ganʹik| denoting a relation between elements of something such that they fit together harmoniously as necessary parts of a whole: the organic unity of the integral work of art • characterized by continuous or natural development: companies expand as much by acquisition as by organic growth.
4 Frances Moore Lappé Renowned author, educator, speaker and activist Frances Moore Lappé talks with Organic Connections about the underlying factors standing between the world in which we now live and the world we all want.
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Organic Report 2011 Organic Connections put together a panel of leading experts from the Organic Trade Association, The Organic Center and the Organic Farming Research Foundation to determine the current state of our battle for a healthier world.
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13 Andrew Kimbrell Public interest attorney, author and executive director of the Center for Food Safety Andrew Kimbrell looks at the flaws in our food system and talks about what makes organic so important at this time.
Free subscription to ORGANIC CONNECTIONS weekly web features at our award-winning site www.organicconnectmag.com
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Frances Moore Lappé Building a Living Democracy by Bruce Boyers
Connections. “As I started out I asked: Why is there hunger in the world? But soon my question became, Why is there hunger in a world where there is plenty of food? And then it grew to become the vastly bigger question: Why are we as societies creating a world that none of us as individuals would ever choose? My questions get bigger and bigger, but what keeps me going is the feeling that, no matter what, I’m not shying away from the most important questions. “The social problem-solving instrument We are surrounded by many serious environ- that we call democracy in this country has mental, health and economic issues: climate been increasingly degraded, so that, for many change, an unhealthy and dominating indus- people, it can now feel impossible to recogtrial food system, a depressed economy and nize and meet the challenges of this century of spiraling poverty, to touch on a few. Some life on Earth—challenges like climate change, signs of change are evident, yet it’s still easy to massive hunger and increasing inequalbecome overwhelmed by the enormity of the ity. Yet at the very same time a democracy tasks remaining. is being redefined, brought to life as a living Renowned author, educator, speaker and practice—from citizens in Latin America and activist Frances Moore Lappé has confronted elsewhere engaging in ‘participatory budgetcore issues like these for many years. The ing’ to 84,000 forest management groups in author of some 18 books, among them the India in which villagers set and enforce rules international bestseller Diet for a Small Planet, to protect and regenerate threatened forests. she is the co-founder of three organizations, “So what keeps me going is a passion for digincluding Food First: The Institute for Food ging to the underlying root and uncovering and Development Policy and, more recently, examples of a richer, more effective underthe Small Planet Institute, a collaborative standing of democracy—democracy as a way network for research and popular education of life, not simply a structure of government. seeking to bring democracy to life, which she “In Getting a Grip 2 I say that the root challeads with her daughter, Anna Lappé. Frances lenge is in our heads. It’s in the worldviews and her daughter also co-founded the Small we’ve absorbed that are based on assumptions Planet Fund, which channels resources to of scarcity, part of the mechanical worldview democratic social movements worldwide. that separates each of us into our individual In her latest book, Getting a Grip 2, she parts, isolated from one another.” takes an in-depth look at the underlying factors standing between the world in which Who’s to Blame? we now live and the world we all want. “We increasingly withdraw for a reason, I Digging to the Root believe,” Lappé writes. “We feel overpowered, not empowered.” And she adds, “. . . a sense of Despite the world’s many problems, Lappé control over our lives is essential not only to has managed to view them as challenges and mental but physical well-being.” to continue to offer unique and practical She points out that the average citizen is solutions. She attributes this to her native placed in an extremely untenable position in thriving curiosity. terms of being able to cause change. Economi“Curiosity has driven my life, in the sense cally the top 1 percent of households—about that my life is about asking the question a million families—controls as much wealth behind the question,” Lappé tells Organic as more than 90 percent of households put 4 organic connections
together. Shockingly, at the same time, almost 60 percent of Americans will live in poverty for at least a year during some point in their adult lives. This financial imbalance also relates to political power. Due to the removal of limits on campaign contributions from corporations and the vast lobbying power of corporations (there are more than two dozen lobbyists for each person elected to represent us in Washington, and an estimated $16 million a day is spent on lobbying), governmental power is tightly controlled by the same minority holding the most financial influence. But Lappé is pointing us in a very interesting direction for solutions—right straight into the mirror—as she lays out for Organic Connections the following example. “Let’s think about something that is, rightfully, outrageous to most Americans: the deception, lack of transparency, and inside influence on the part of our legislators, leading to lack of public oversight of the financial industry. This led not just to our country’s economic collapse but to global suffering, including the increase in worldwide hunger. That justifiably makes us angry because we are directly affected, while people in other countries had no role in it nor any way to rectify it.
“It’s easy for us, here where it all began, merely to blame. But in an ecological worldview we’re all connected, and if we are all connected, we’re all implicated. We certainly have to call on the carpet those who knowingly acted in our worst interest. There’s a lot of evidence now that many creating and selling risky derivatives knew what they were doing was unethical, but they went ahead and did it because other people were doing it. Many of them have admitted this. Yes, we have to increase the public oversight and accountability, but we also have to ask ourselves, where were we? Why did we allow the withdrawal of public oversight of the financial industry? Who was following that quote unquote Modernization Act [Financial Services Modernization Act, 1999], which was key to the unraveling of rules that had kept the financial sector accountable to the public interest? “We weren’t paying attention. A lot of us were going along in the belief that the market simply works on its own to create a democratic and middle-class society. “So we have to call on those who were most implicated, but we have to say that we—meaning the broad citizenry—were also implicated. We, especially those who would have the opportunity to read about and follow this sort of thing, were not doing our jobs either.” In this context, Lappé highlights the value of mutual accountability. “One of my favorite examples of this ethic is a group in the Pacific Northwest called the Applegate Partnership and Watershed Council, which is composed of loggers, environmentalists and farmers who came together to develop a common plan for their watershed. They wore a lapel pin around town that just consisted of the word they within the circle with a diagonal line through it that’s the universal symbol for no. In other words: No more ‘they’!” The acceptance of mutual accountability is part and parcel of what Lappé calls a living democracy—a system in which we all take part and in which we’re all empowered.
preparing the meal, I searched high and low in every cupboard and closet for my favorite baking dish so I could start baking Believing Is Seeing the root vegetables. Frustrated, I finally gave up. Much later, I turned around and Optimistically Lappé declares, “We’re free to there it was—only it held a plant! Because I throw ourselves into the most thrilling plan- had framed what I was looking for as a etary struggle our species has ever known. . . . kitchen item, not a planter, I could not see It starts with seeing possibility. it—even though it was big, red, and right in “The cliché is seeing is believing. I say no, no, front of me! no—that in fact we can’t see what we don’t “If we can’t really define what living believe is possible. Instead I say that believing democracy means—a true culture, or an is seeing. We see what we expect to see. ecology of democracy, I sometimes call “In my book, I tell a story about preparing it—if we can’t really see it in our mind’s Thanksgiving dinner last year. As I was eye and believe it’s possible, then we won’t
see it emerging right now, right in front of our noses, despite the incredible backward direction that formal democracy is taking.” In her book, Lappé writes that living democracy is shorthand, in part, for fair play and decision making through honest dialogue that includes the voices of all affected. “Consequently, I see my work as helping people, including myself, to believe in the possibility of a living democracy,” she says, “so that we can then see evidence of it emerging and view ourselves, therefore, as part of it. It’s also about fundamental human nature: if we believe ourselves to be selfish materialists, then we behave that organic connections
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way; we see other people in the same light and that gets reinforced.” From Abundance to Scarcity
Lappé talks about her own early and profound economic realization. “We create the scarcity we fear. My first insight as a 26-yearold came when I realized that all newspaper headlines and the experts were saying that we were right at the edge of running out of food to feed people and that famine was inevitable. Paul Ehrlich’s book [The Population Bomb] came out in 1968, and then there was a book in 1969 by the Paddock brothers called Famine 1975, predicting that in the next decade there would be massive famine because of absolute limits to the earth’s capacity. “What changed my life was the realization that hunger was due to economic dogma—a belief system about how the market should work. The market brings the highest return to those who already have the wealth; so wealth concentrates to the point that there are a great many who don’t have the economic wherewithal to buy food directly. Hence, grain became so cheap that it made economic sense to feed a third of it (now almost 40 percent) to livestock—for a fraction of the nutritional return of what was fed to them. “Therefore we end up, through our belief system, actually taking vast abundance that would allow us all to eat well and shrinking it. Currently, just about half of the world’s grain goes directly to people and the rest goes to livestock and to other uses—agrofuel is one of them. Think about it: we have a planet with almost a billion hungry people and yet only half the world’s grain is allocated to feeding the entire population.” Direct Involvement
So, how do we take back our power to act on our values? “We have allowed a huge degree of concentration of power in our political system,” Lappé says. “This brings the challenge back to, how are we taking responsibility for creating a decision-making structure that includes us and works for us? “A first step is getting money out of elections and, particularly, getting corporate money out of elections. We as a people have to get directly involved in reclaiming our political democracy. We have to make this core challenge just as sexy as farmers’ markets and school gardens; we’ve got to make it every bit as real and fun to get involved and just as much of a ‘movement of the heart’ as the civil rights 6 organic connections
movement or that for gender equity. That means a democracy not of money (which it has been) but of people. “And it can be done!” Lappé counsels. “In Getting a Grip 2 I tell the story of my hero, Deb Simpson, in Maine. In 2000 she was a single mom, a waitress with a high school education. Friends spotted leadership in her and encouraged her to run for office. She was elected, then re-elected, to Maine’s House of Representatives. She now serves in the state senate, where she sits on the Natural Resources Committee. This was able to happen because Maine has effectively gotten money out of elections—80 percent of the legislators in the state assembly in Maine have run without corporate money. Because the people said no to corporate money in politics, Maine has been able to pass groundbreaking environmental legislation. There is now federal legislation in Congress based on the Maine model, the Fair Elections Now Act, which has 166 co-sponsors in the House at this point.”
of—and getting citizens’ voices into—our political system, it doesn’t take much time to learn what you need to know about fair elections: elections free of corporate money. Take the Fair Elections Now Act (www.fair electionsnow.org). Just read about the basics of the approach and weigh in with your own congressperson through a telephone call; or, it just takes a couple of minutes to send an e-mail or a letter. You don’t have to derail yourself from your particular curiosity or passion to understand how fair elections, free of corporate influence, are essential to creating the larger context in which the food movement can thrive. No matter how many community gardens we create, as long as there is a handful of food manufacturers who spend hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising to our children, and who infiltrate our minds and appetites through that advertising and through the ubiquitous availability of that food, we will never reach our goals. “What I am saying is we can feel strengthened by working both ends, so we know our The World That We Want personal community actions aren’t detached but are connected to changing the deeper Those of us involved in trying to create a sus- structures that have turned our food system tainable food system know where we have to into a health hazard for millions. We can go. Lappé demonstrates how her methodol- be following our own curiosity to specific ogy ties in with these objectives. and local engagement, and at the same time “The approach I’ve been talking about ap- deepening our broader contextual awareness plies to any and everything we are doing to instead of letting that wider context disemcreate the world that we want. Being part of power and depress us. We can see the interthe food movement could potentially touch ventions we can make that wouldn’t take up each of the three ‘course changers’ I discuss in all our time—far from it. We can be players in my book: a monopoly market to a democratic the bigger picture and feel powerful enough market; a culture of victims and blamers to a to then take that feeling back into our families culture of empowerment and mutuality; and and into our community actions. a politics driven by money to a politics driven “I’m not asking people who are beautifully by citizens’ values. Certainly the culture of the and powerfully focused on transforming our food movement offers us the chance to solve food system to divert from that to changing the middle one—from victim to problem how money works in politics; but I am saying, solver. Food is emotional and deeply personal. with very little of our time, we can include We all eat and everybody loves to think and this in a way that is not a burden but is really talk about food. It’s a common meeting place empowering. Partly it’s just informing each where we can take direct responsibility for our other that there is a way to get our political lives and for our children’s futures through all democracy back and providing the number to the different venues that are opening in terms call or the e-mail through which to weigh in.” of gardening, community gardens, school In conclusion, Lappé sums it up: “Living gardens, farmers’ markets, CSAs, and on and democracy—democracy as an invigorating on. The cultural change that I talk about in way of life—is no longer something done to Getting a Grip 2 can, I hope, reinforce all those us or for us but a way of living together that involved in the local, healthy food movement we ourselves shape.” to say, ‘This is not just a nice thing to do; this is part of building a living democracy.’ You can order Getting a Grip 2 from the “But in whatever we’re doing that is part Organic Connections bookstore. of the food movement, we can also weigh in on the other two course changers as Find out more about Frances Moore Lappé well. Along the theme of getting money out and read her blog at www.smallplanet.org.
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The organic industry has gone through major expansion in the last few years, fueled by a steadily increasing awareness of the importance of real food.
OTA’s mission is to promote and protect organic trade to benefit the environment, farmers, the public and the economy. They represent businesses across the organic supply chain, including food, fiber/textiles, personal care products, and new sectors as they develop. From her position, Christine has a clear view of the goals of the industry and the barriers it faces. “I grew up in a home where it was really stressed that how and what you News has surfaced about the dangers of pes- Organic Connections sat down with three of ate was really important,” Christine told ticides remaining in purchased comestibles, the leading experts in the organic industry. Organic Connections. “When I was in college, and food-related health issues such as diabe- To these individuals their work is not simorganic was kind of a hippie thing. The book tes and obesity have become so prominent ply a job; it’s a crusade and even a lifestyle. Diet for a Small Planet was all the rage, and that even First Lady Michelle Obama has I was very intrigued; so way back then I become involved. All of these factors have Our Panel of Experts started changing the way I was eating. With led a growing number of consumers to seek the OTA, I’ve really come to understand out food that is safer and more nutritious; Christine Bushway is the executive direcwhat it is that organic delivers to the consummed into one word, that means organic. tor of the Organic Trade Association, a sumer. In the spring, the President’s Cancer To get a more detailed look at where we membership-based business association for Panel report was released and it discussed stand in our battle for a healthier world, the organic industry in North America. the importance of consumers avoiding pesticides, because we have a 41 percent cancer rate in this country. I like to call that report a self-help document that consumers can use to really assist with the promotion of their own health, and I think that’s what organic enables people to do.” Dr. Charles Benbrook is the chief scientist with The Organic Center, a non-profit organization with the mission of generating and advancing credible science relating to the health and environmental benefits of organic food and farming. “I’ve been working on the interface of agricultural production systems, food safety, public health and the environment for 30plus years,” Charles told Organic Connections. “For me, organic begins at a very personal level. I run my body pretty hard, and because organic connections
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I push myself I know that it’s really important Christine Bushway: US families are buying for me to eat a nutritious diet. My job is to more organic products than ever before—and try to stay on top of new science that’s coming from a wider variety of categories. This is acout from around the world on the impact of cording to findings from the latest consumer organic farming on food quality, as well as the study jointly sponsored by the Organic Trade impact of conventional farming systems on Association and KIWI magazine. the quality of conventional foods. Right here at my home, we raise most of our own meat, Bob Scowcroft: The growth of organic in produce our own eggs, and have a very large 2010 came in between 5 and 6 percent of the and productive garden. Because I have seen overall food system. Certain sectors—carrots, what this diet has done for me in terms of my grapes, fresh salad mixes, things like that— energy level and my health, I want to try to are exceeding 10 percent. There are reasons help bring that to other people as well.” why this is growing; some of it is economy of scale. I think a portion is the result of stories Bob Scowcroft is the executive director of about atrazine and methyl bromide; there are the Organic Farming Research Foundation, some incredibly toxic chemicals out there whose mission is to foster the improvement that are becoming known by name in the and widespread adoption of organic farm- public consciousness. There is also a lot of ing systems. The OFRF sponsors organic concern and ever more attention being paid farming research along with education and to genetically engineered crops and the fact outreach projects, disseminates the results that organic bans them and does not allow of OFRF-funded research and education these in their system. I think such elements projects to organic farmers and to growers will attract a widening consumer base. interested in adopting organic production systems, and educates the public and decision Will organic producers be able to keep up makers about organic farming issues. with the demand? “I’ve been working on organic food–related issues for 32 years,” Bob told Organic Connec- Christine Bushway: A lot of this depends on tions. “I started out in the very late seventies specific crops and regions. OTA continues working at Friends of the Earth, trying to to support funding from the USDA for such assist the team to ban Agent Orange. In that programs as the Organic Certification Costinitial process I ran into a couple of organic Share Program (to help defray a portion of farmers who somewhat laughingly and also the costs for farmers to be certified) and the very seriously said, ‘You know, there are 7,000, Environmental Quality Incentives Program 8,000 different pesticides and herbicides out (EQIP), which provides funds to reward there. Why don’t you just be for something organic farmers for conservation practices that doesn’t use any of them?’ That really as well as technical assistance to transition to made sense to me, and is what ultimately led organic. These types of programs encourage to my helping form the OFRF and my work farmers to be organic, which, in turn, will with them. mean more organic products in the market“Supporting organic eliminates chemicals place. In addition, there are other programs and impacts all the different sectors of our to encourage more organic production. natural environment. Also very important to Whole Foods Market, for instance, offers a me are the family farmers that are the main local-producer loan program, which procomponent of organic, and their ability to vides up to $10 million in low-interest loans farm profitably using organic protocol. And to small local producers, including organic lastly, at home, our family eats organic—we’re producers. It does so because it believes in largely in the high 90 percent range of every- supporting local farmers and producers and thing organic. We even have organic T-shirts.” helping them produce more organic products to meet demand. The Big Questions
To formulate a “state of the union” for the organic industry, we put some key questions to our panel of experts. Their answers are both enlightening and, ultimately, encouraging. Is there a greater consumer demand for organic produce and organic proteins than in the past? 8 organic connections
Another factor is that there was a certain amount of land available in the last five years that had not been actively farmed and had not been sprayed with any chemicals or treated with any prohibited fertilizers. But supply of that land, particularly land that is reasonably productive and can be brought into an existing organic farm operation without a lot of capital investment, is quite modest at this point. To offset this, in the coming year and in the years ahead, one of the new trends we will see is greater effort by US farmers and food companies to meet the demand for particular fruits and vegetables outside of the traditional production and harvest season by offering consumers frozen, canned and dried fruits that are organic and very high quality. I believe most of the growth in organic production is going to come from conventional farms that have already shifted some of their acres to organic, but are going to shift more. I’m talking about commercialscale farms, and I think it’s entirely possible that in this next decade there will be many thousand-plus-acre conventional farms that end up putting most or all of their land through the transition.
Bob Scowcroft: I would say the answer depends upon which sector, which commodity and which region. There have been particular challenges over the years with protein that comes out of poultry and meat. The infrastructure is very concentrated in conventional agricultural meat-producing factories; and to run an organic system requires mobile slaughter units, storage capacity, cold storage, distribution networks, and an interface with a federal regulatory system that is designed to only inspect 10,000 head a week slaughtered and 300,000 a year feedlot animal operations. On top of all that, they’re doing an incredibly poor job of it. Nevertheless, on the upside, we’re just beginning to see under this administration’s “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” program more regional food hubs, better support, and even some grants for the construction and approval of more mobile slaughter units. We’re seeing federally Charles Benbrook: Currently, some produc- inspected slaughter facilities supporting ers are keeping up during parts of the year; small family farms that might have 200 however, there’s no question but that there hogs and 80 head of cattle and grazing land, are shortages of many items—particularly and we didn’t really see that until this adperishable items—during the parts of the year ministration. The bottom line, as now and when crops are not being actively harvested always, will be food safety; so we need food in North America. I think there is less of an safety legislation to be recalibrated to allow issue with shortages of products that store for a more collaborative and more intensive well, like grains, even butter. monitoring of organic standards to permit
I see farmers’ markets as a completely positive new development—but farmers’ markets can only deliver and satisfy a certain amount of annual food needs of Americans. We still need to develop an organic food industry to provide food for everyone.
The challenge remains to help consumers understand the many benefits of organic products and to differentiate these values in the marketplace.
those products to move through the system very efficiently. Are more farms going organic? Christine Bushway: The US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service gathers information from the accredited certification agencies to track how many farms have become certified organic and how many acres are involved. This information is only available through 2008, but it shows that, yes, more farms are going organic. Bob Scowcroft: It’s only in the last two years that a division of USDA called the Ag Census published, using a number of the questions we employed in the nineties as a non-profit, a significant batch of data on the state of organic farmers and farming in the United States; and this has shown that the number of organic farmers has expanded. Farmers’ markets are growing and are increasingly popular. Many of the farmers are not certified organic but don’t use chemicals or toxic sprays. How do these farmers fit in with the organic movement, or do they? Christine Bushway: Under the National Organic Program, farmers who use organic practices but are not certified can sell their products as organic without penalty if they sell less than $5,000 in product a year. Consumers can ask the farmers to show them paperwork verifying that they actually farm organically. Farmers who sell more than $5,000 a year must be certified in order to sell their products as organic. Thus, those who are eliminating the use of chemicals or toxic sprays can communicate to consumers that they are employing methods that eliminate this use but cannot claim they are organic. Charles Benbrook: They fit in great. There’s certainly no conflict or tension between the large commercial organic farmers and farmers who are selling their produce at the farmers’ market. I think the farmers’ markets are going to continue to grow and become a more significant outlet and source of fresh fruits and vegetables during the production season in those parts of the country where people have access to them. I see farmers’ markets as a completely positive new development—but farmers’ markets can only deliver and satisfy a certain amount
Bob Scowcroft: I am sure organic is going to grow. It has some potential to grow dramatically when it comes to the consumer who has had it with food that causes medical Bob Scowcroft: Organic has always been a problems. We’re going to see an ever increasvolunteer proposition; no one has ever made ing number of consumers who’ve connected anyone choose the word. If you do choose the dots between carcinogens in our envito use it, then there is the statutory power ronment and their parts per million in their behind it and rules and regulations you must food; and we’re also going to see an economy follow. When it gets to the farmers’ market of scale, which some organic producers are level, there are any number of producers that already beating, that allows for entry into for a rainbow variety of reasons do or don’t more of the nation’s markets. choose to use the term. No longer can you Organic has every opportunity if we get a just write it on a piece of cardboard, however. fair share—just a fair share; that’s all we want. If you want to use another term and avoid the If we’re 6 percent of the food system, we word, you have every right to do so. want 6 percent of all the resources provided by the government, which includes the Farm What is going to happen with organics in the Bill, crop insurance, trained agricultural next one to five years? extension agents, and land grants for organic sciences. If we get those from the governChristine Bushway: Organic sales continued ment, we can watch these 20,000-odd farmers to grow during 2010 despite the challenges of go to 40,000. If we manage our imports into the economy, and are projected to keep grow- the country with standardized certification ing in the next five years. As more scientific protocol, organic could be easily 15 to 20 studies begin to confirm that the attributes percent of the economy. I have no qualms of organic products address many concerns with saying that we could get to half of our of the day (depleted soils, climate change, the food systems being organic in the next neurological effects of toxic and persistent decade or two if we really put our shoulders pesticides on children, as well as links to can- to the plow. cer and other diseases), the organic industry will have more good messages to tell consum- For more information from the Organic Trade ers. The challenge remains to help consumers Association, visit www.ota.com. For more on understand the many benefits of organic The Organic Center, and to access their many products and to differentiate these values in studies, visit www.organic-center.org. To get the marketplace. further information on the Organic Farming Research Foundation, visit www.ofrf.org. Charles Benbrook: I believe there’s going to be a strong recovery of the leading companies. There is every reason to project that consumer demand for organic food will accelerate, and the growth rate is going to accelerate as we come out of the recession. A lot of pressure can be expected from the public to clean up the food supply and reduce the frequency of exposures to pesticides, animal drugs, food additives, and other constituents in food that are implicated in health problems. There is a virtual avalanche of new science coming out strengthening the case that dietary modification is now the single most important step that the average American needs to take to improve his or her health. Twenty years ago that statement would have been about reducing smoking; ten years ago it would have referred to HIV/AIDS; today I think, without question, that modifying what we eat is the most important health goal in the United States. of annual food needs of Americans. We still need to develop an organic food industry to provide food for everyone.
We’re going to see an ever increasing number of consumers who’ve connected the dots between carcinogens in our environment and their parts per million in their food; and we’re also going to see an economy of scale, which some organic producers are already beating, that allows for entry into more of the nation’s markets.
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If you were ever looking for an advocate when it comes to food safety, you couldn’t do any better than Andrew Kimbrell. He is a
Andrew Kimbrell The Role of Organic in
food safety
radio and television programs across the unsustainable our industrial food system country, including The Today Show, CBS has become. The sleight of hand is to try to Sunday Morning, Crossfire, Headlines on treat each incident in its own isolation and Trial and Good Morning America. He has not understand that they’re all connected to lectured at dozens of universities through- the larger systemic failures and problems of out the country and has testified before industrial agriculture. congressional and regulatory hearings. Kimbrell recently sat down with Organic Connections to give a laser-sharp insight into our food system, and what part the organic industry truly plays in changing our future.
“A huge number of the food safety issues come from the factory farm system. Because you have animals in such close, confined and unnatural conditions, you’re creating a situation in which E. coli—a marvelous and beneficial bacteria in its natural setting—turns into a killer because of the mutations that happen in these factory farms. Just like anything else, even with human beings, when you crowd a lot of things in the same area you’re going to get your flus and your plagues. With these food safety issues, we’re seeing a direct result of the spread of industrial agriculture and the inhumane way in which we treat the 10 billion animals that we use every year for food.” public interest attorney, activist and author. Problems of Industrial Agriculture The factory farm system has also resulted in He has been on the front lines of public vast areas of land being used to grow a single interest legal activity in technology, human Alarming reports occur regularly in the media, crop, such as corn—a process called monoculhealth and the environment for most of his such as the spinach E. coli scare. The disease turing. As any farmer will tell you, it has huge adult life. In 1997 he established the Center has also shown up numerous times in meats implications for the crops themselves. for Food Safety, and he currently serves as shipped to fast-food outlets. Kimbrell points “You get your monocultures and you have its executive director. This organization is out that through such disparate reports in the 10,000 acres of the same crop versus a diresponsible for knocking down effort after media, the public at large, as well as legislators, versity of crops,” Kimbrell said. “Of course once you have the monocultures, in come effort of biotechnology giants to pollute our fail to grasp the actual issue—and its scope. “What we constantly see is a failure of the the weeds, in come the insects, and so you agriculture—and endanger our health— with GMOs, and is directly challenging media and of policymakers to really say, ‘The have all your pests. That’s when you get an other harmful technologies such as food problem here is industrial agriculture,’” Kim- explosion of herbicides and pesticides— brell told Organic Connections. “They want us after World War II especially—and thence irradiation and nanotechnology. Kimbrell is also a renowned speaker and to see these events as scary isolated incidents comes the whole problem we have with has been featured in documentaries and on instead of indicators of how dangerous and industrial farming.” organic connections
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Bacillus thuringiensis) are considered pesticides, so they go to the EPA; but crops genetiIn examining the magnitude of the prob- cally modified as herbicide tolerant go to the lem, one would be hard put to figure out USDA. You have these agency splits—one how such issues have continued for so long little part of the agency here and one little part without punitive legislation or some sort of of the agency there—all mixed up between government intervention. The reason? The USDA, EPA and FDA.” extremely powerful food lobby and the enThe solution is so obvious that it would trenched power of agribusiness. seem those in power must be doing their level “If you look at larger issues on Capitol best not to notice. Hill, almost all the agriculture committees “In a similar way to Homeland Security, in Congress, and certainly at the state level, what you really need is to take all of the food have been stuffed with folks who are pretty functions out of those agencies and put them much in the pocket of agribusiness,” Kimbrell into one food agency,” said Kimbrell. “Given observed. “Frankly, in my experience, the the importance of food, why in the world do USDA should be called the ‘US Department we have to link it with drugs and the FDA? Perpetuating the Problem
You’re not talking serious
food safety until you
have a dedicated agency devoted to food and food production. We currently have a totally
broken
food safety system.
of Agribusiness,’ not the US Department of Agriculture, because what they have successfully done for way too long is take the ‘culture’ out of agriculture and put business in there.” But the problem extends beyond simply “placing the right people on the right posts.” Actual regulation of our food system has taken such a low priority that the various government agencies themselves are crippled, and getting any changes made from the outside becomes nearly impossible. “Just speaking as a guy who’s spent a lot of time on the Hill, it is ridiculous on a straight efficiency level to have the kind of fragmented food safety regimes that we have at the various agencies,” Kimbrell said. “For example, if you want to have a certified humane meat, you go to the USDA. If it’s eggs, you go to the FDA. In genetic engineering, Bt plants (plants engineered to contain the natural pesticide 14 o r g a n i c c o n n e c t i o n s
Almost every FDA commissioner forever, including the current one, Peggy Hamburg, has been the drug person, not the food person. Food becomes the second fiddle and has for years at the FDA. Food doesn’t have its own agency, and yet what is more critical than food and water? So we obviously should have a dedicated agency that combines and makes far more efficient use of all of the various subagencies that are fighting with each other for funding, that are not coordinating, and that often have very different kinds of philosophies because there are different cultures within these agencies. It was discussed early on in the Obama administration, but it unfortunately was dropped. “You’re not talking serious food safety until you have a dedicated agency devoted to food and food production. We currently have a totally broken food safety system. The bandaids in the present Food Safety Bill are insufficient. We need to get serious about this, and at least then we will have a coherent potential for some progress in the field.” The Vital Role of Organic
While fighting to bring our current industrial food system under control, it is equally important to bring the organic industry to the fore in society. “Food is the most intimate relationship we have with the environment,” Kimbrell continued. “Along with breathing and drinking, it is
the most critical relationship we have around survival. So I think it is not simply an issue of safety or an issue of personal health—it goes beyond that. Looking at the future of food and food production in the twenty-first century, one gets an excellent indicator of what direction our entire society—not to mention civilization—is going.” Building the House
“The mantra of CFS is Organic and Beyond— not Organic or Beyond but Organic and Beyond,” Kimbrell said. “We fought very hard for many years to get the organic rule itself. We consider it the beachhead, and now we need to defend the standards and evolve the ethic. We have organic—but organic shouldn’t be the ceiling of the food future; it should be the floor, maybe the basement. Above that you want to build a house that is local, appropriate scale, humane, socially just and biodiverse. There are indications of humane in the organic rules, for example, but they don’t specifically address and significantly argue those other issues. And so the critical point is how—through market pressure, through premiums, through public and private cooperation—can we then develop that house above that floor? “Also, if organic is the floor of this house we’re building, then the methods prohibited under organic—which include GMOs, sewage sludge and irradiation—shouldn’t be there at all. We fight the elimination of those
and the other prohibited methods, including of course pesticides and other chemical inputs, because all of that should be the floor of American agriculture, not some niche market on top; all of that should just be the basis of how we do business.” Redefining Progress
What makes organic so important—and not just in the food fight, but actually for our entire
consciousness as people at this particular historical moment—is that it’s one of the few places where saying no to certain technologies equals progress.
Kimbrell explains that our very definition of progress has helped land us in the situation we’re now in. “When you think about it, for almost 400 years in the West we have equated progress with an ever greater ability to manipulate and control nature,” he said. “What makes organic so important—and not just in the food fight, but actually for our entire consciousness as people at this particular historical moment— is that it’s one of the few places where saying no to certain technologies equals progress. Progress means working in partnership and participation with nature, rather than ever greater manipulation and exploitation of is indeed progress. If you go to any college nature. By saying no to pesticides, fertilizers, campus and ask, ‘Is organic progress?’ they’ll GMOs, irradiations and sewage sludge, we’re say yes; they’ll tell you that organic food is a saying no to the greatest technologies of more progressive way to be and to live.” modernity. We’re saying no to the chemical,
decisions. Every one of those decisions will create a new food future one way or another. “It’s very important that those of us who have devoted so much of our lives to the organic movement realize that we’re at the forefront of a larger shift in consciousness. It’s the same shift that we’re going to need to see in energy, in transportation, in economics and in law. It’s part of a larger change, a
Our Role ... as Creators
Kimbrell goes out of his way to express his disdain for the term consumers and to stress that each and every one of us in the organic industry—from the shopper up to the farmer, manufacturer and distributor— has a vitally important role. “I really stay away from the word consumer,” Kimbrell said. “You know, fires consume. They used to call tuberculosis consumption because it wasted away the bodies of its victims. If you have any sort of poetic or mythonuclear and biotechnology revolutions that logical feel for life, you know that’s just not a were equated with ‘progress’ for so long. It’s great way to think of ourselves. When I have actually not progress; progress means devel- a wonderful meal, I don’t consume it—I enjoy oping a more sustainable, humane and just it; I savor it. way for that terribly important thing we call “So I believe, rather than consumers—and food production. this is particularly true of those of us in the “It’s historic. It would be similar to some- organic movement—in every aspect we’re thing like natural childbirth. There are a few creators. I think we should look at our food others that are like that, where people have decisions of what we grow, what we sell, said progress means saying no. But organic what we buy and what we eat as creative
It’s very important that those of us who have devoted so much of our lives to the organic
movement realize that we’re at the forefront of a larger shift in consciousness.
redefining of ourselves as a species to live in harmony with the natural world and our fellow creatures. Organic is right there at the edge of that consciousness shift, and it makes it a very exciting place to be. I think that’s why people feel so empowered, just even the average member of the public who is buying the food or growing the food, as well as those who are selling the food and those of us who are protecting against the prohibited methods. The exciting thing is that we feel empowered to make those decisions and to know we’re at that particular time in history, opening a door to a new way of thinking.”
To find out more about the many activities of the Center for Food Safety, visit their website at www.truefoodnow.org.
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