Beyond Organic

Joel Salatin's farm is not certified organic.  He is one of the loudest voices for sustainable agriculture, and he does not want his farm to be certified organic.  This is remarkable, as he is one of the people who sat at the table when the USDA certified organic standards were being created.

Mr. Salatin, who calls his farming practices "beyond organic", says that not being certified organic makes people ask questions.  Think about it:  You go to a farmer's market and notice a booth that has a certified organic seal and you stop asking questions.  You assume, by virtue of that certification that you know all you need to know . I am certainly guilty of that. 

The fact is that there are so many variations within organically certified foods that that seal is only the beginning.  In an article from Orion in 2003, Michael Pollan said " ... in recent years organic has grown to include paradoxes such as the organic factory farm and the organic TV dinner. And now, there is even organic high-fructose corn syrup. We are not far from organic Coca-Cola."  This is so far from the classic tenets of organic agriculture that it is astonishing.

Salatin brings up this point:  Using the same theory about certified organic labelling, you'll just to go any doctor who is a "board certified physician", right?  No, of course not.  We ask our friends, check on education, specialties, etc.  We should be doing the same with our food as much as possible.

When possible, we should be interviewing our food producers and, if not finding out specifics about their growing practices, then at least be getting a general vibe about what they stand for.  Trust me, I have worked at a few farmstands and farmers are used to (and welcome) questions of all sorts.  We should take advantage of the direct buy at a farmer's market to find out things that we can't at the supermarket.

In Joel Salatin's book Holy Cows and Hog Heaven, he says to beware of the small farmer who aspires to an empire, as they are not any different than a multinational company.  "He has already made the mental leap, the value compromise to be there.  The fact that he has not yet arrived does not mitigate how such a goal will be expressed in the food he produces.  The food produced is merely an extension of the farmer's mindset."

Things to watch out for:

Single product focus.  Diversified farms do more for the environment and create a lighter environmental footprint than those who sell one or two products.

Trademarks and copyrights.  According to Salatin, those who are protecting their product so tightly as to trademark or copyright it are afraid of competition and not confident in their product integrity.

Terminology like "market share" and "economies of scale".  These ideas do not mesh with the core philosophies of farm friendly foods and local production.  "Natural reproduction is through duplication, not annihilation," states Salatin.

Fancy packaging.  It costs more, and requires a large volume to justify it.  It is a sign of other decisions the farmer is making to help build an empire.

Autonomy among collaborators. If farmers are so locked into grower networks that they may only sell products through a centralized company location then they are probably empire building.

Aspiring to sell through Wal-Mart.  Any producer who aspires to sell at a store where even local products (in the highly unlikely case that there are any local products) must travel hundreds of miles just to return to your local market is "starstruck, not customer struck."

So try it out, find out a story.  I am not saying that you have to know the exact origin of everything in your fridge, but it is a fun exercise to start small and ask the farmers about your apples, your ground beef, and your green garlic.  For the good farmers, asking them to talk about their food is like asking them to talk about their children ... they are happy to do it and willing to share.

Sources:

* Joel Salatin lecture, UC Berkeley, February 2005.
* Holy Cows and Hog Heaven, Joel Salatin.
* Getting Over Organic, Michael Pollan, Orion Online.

Comments

[McAuliflower]

I love Michael Pollan's articles and had never thought to look up Orion online. This also harkens to Gary Paul Nabhan's Coming Home to Eat.

[jen]

I first saw that article published in Utne, I believe. He pops up in random publications. I have been scouring different periodicals (including local Berkeley papers) for his writings and find them every so often ...

[Tamir]

You can check out Mr Salatin's lecture at Berkeley. This guy has it figured out.

http://journalism.berkeley.edu/events/details.php?ID=164

[DR Geoffrey Wallace]

Joel, I want to buy some of you food for a friend in nashville and I want to introduce your ideas to scotland.
Geoffrey Wallace
major fan of beyond organic