Animal Chronicles Spring 2007
Industrialized Organics - And What to Do About It
by John Thompson
Organic food, once just a mélange of sprouts, grains and free-roaming farm animals from the enchanted realm of counter-culturists, has grown up. Last year’s sales were around $15 billion dollars, and a 20 percent annual growth rate is expected. Consumers have clearly voted with their willingness to pay more for pure, healthy food.
High growth and big margins, however, look like candy to a food industry that typically tries to overcome low margins with high volume. The big guys want a piece of the organic action, and giants like Dean Foods, Kellogg, Cargill and Unilever have already bought their way in through acquisitions of farms and brands. These investors are encouraged by business-friendly government agencies and organic standards that are usefully vague.
An example of that vagueness is the Food and Drug Administration’s National Organic Standard that animals have access to pasture. That’s it. How much pasture, how often? The FDA does not say; thus, some operators confine livestock into nearly factory farm conditions and still call it organic.
The retail side is also burgeoning as supermarket chains enlarge their organic sections, and now Wal-Mart has entered the fray with promises of doing what they do best — increasing volume and lowering prices.
To meet this growing demand from retail price low-ballers, producers must both reduce costs and increase their acquisition of product. Squeezing suppliers for better deals is the common practice, leaving farmers with less money for good animal and land stewardship. It also pushes them closer to insolvency.
Copying conventional food practices, organic buyers have also gone overseas, even though relying on the quality in faraway lands can be problematic, and both animal welfare and environmental safeguards are deficient. Moreover, to save on transport charges, some buyers are importing processed organic food, like powdered milk and dehydrated vegetables, to use in their U.S. products. All that seems like the antithesis of the organic dream.
Helge Hellberg, executive director of the Point Reyes-based Marin Organic, believes that what is happening threatens the fundamental reasons people are attracted to organic food. “Any time we purchase an organic product, we are not just asking for healthier foodstuff, we are buying the entire infrastructure of how that food was grown and raised, including its impact on animals and the environment,” Hellberg says.
Marin Organic tells consumers about alternatives to the mega-agricultural model. The group, supported by local farmers, is responsible for the growth of local farmers’ markets with healthy, nutritious fare and, thus, for saving the livelihood of many small businesses. Too many farms, though, have failed, and survivors like Straus Family Creamery are having to work harder.
Marshall-based Straus keeps a herd of about 300 largely open-pastured cows, but they also buy milk from local dairies that will comply with its exacting standards of purity and animal care. Yet, organic milk is getting harder to find as the big dairies are fighting for production from the remaining small herds, says founder and owner Albert Straus. “It hasn’t been very pretty out there,” he adds.
To nurture its consumer support, Straus has crafted its own unique cheeses and ice creams made on the farm and marketed directly. “We are also starting a non-GMO (genetically modified organism) standard,” Albert says. “There isn’t supposed to be GMO in organic, but there is quite a bit of contamination.” Straus is the first dairy in the nation to adopt such a standard and Albert hopes that others will follow, “perhaps not willingly, but there will be a demand for this to happen,” he says.
Marin Organic is also helping local farms convert to organic. “We have about 150 farms that are not organic yet, and some of them are suitable for row crops and for feeding animals. Our mission is to have an all-organic county with humanely raised animals,” Hellberg says.
In Marin County, as well as in communities across the nation, accessing truly fresh organic food requires that consumers adopt the “Buy Local” mantra.
That is what brought organics out of the communes and onto our dining tables. “Individual decision-making has the power to keep organic farmers economically viable and caring for their animals and our environment. Ultimately it is linked with our health, and it is how we can honor the land as it supports us,” Hellberg adds.
John Thompson is a local journalist focusing on environmental and animal issues. He is also an MHS board member.
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