The TV commercials for the new line of organic cereals from Kellogg Company (NYSE:K) bring tears to my eyes. They're shot in a subdued color palette, evocative of the early 20th century, when every mama fed her children healthy, farm-fresh grains at a hand-hewn oak table in the family kitchen. Kellogg is trying to connect its products with the yearning to return to local, sustainable, homemade.
But Kellogg is nothing but not local. And the way big business is getting into organic food is, everyone seems to agree, perverting the very thing organics are meant to do. Not only that: if everyone had organic food, it wouldn't be organic any more. BusinessWeek calls it "The Organics Myth." And the reality is that you just can't mass-produce locality.
When Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) announced they'd be offering organic food this spring, everyone seemed to throw up their collective hands and say, well, there goes the organic farm! Lots of industry analysts wondered if the push into low-cost organics would only mean that smaller farmers got squeezed, more, and suppliers like Wal-Mart would end up knocking on the doors of the big commercial farm organizations for organic produce. (Or offering organics that wasn't "really" organic after all.)
But at the heart the argument seems ridiculous. No, we can't revert to an agrarian society. But the demand for organics so outstrips supply that (for instance) Stonyfield Farms has to vastly reduce the percentage of organic products it offers. (Meantime, more entrepreneurs are flooding into the healthy foods business. Check out all the franchise opportunities available). But why can't more commercial farms just adopt organic practices? Why is this so hard?
I think the answer can't be: buy organic Rice Krispies. The answer has to be something more complex, and it starts with educating consumers to eat differently, to buy produce in season from (real) local, organic farmers, instead of insisting on oranges and asparagus year-round. To be more flexible, to roll with the punches.
No, not everyone can have organic fresh green peas year round. But everyone can have some organics, some of the time, and I think that's what we should all be working toward.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-06-2006 @ 11:32PM
Shari said...
It's all well and good for people in warmer climates to eat local fruits and vegetables when they are in season, but what about those of us in cooler climates. The "season" only lasts 2-3 months. What do we eat the remaining 9 months of the year?
There's a company in Boston (bostonorganics.com) that sells via a weekly subscription plan. Each week customers receive a box of vegies and fruit. The company distributes local, organic produce when they can. They purchase other foods from small, organic farms outside they area. They've been given a hard times from those who believe organic food must be local. Personally, I think they provide a great service to an area where local produce is limited.
10-07-2006 @ 12:07AM
Gary E. Sattler said...
I think the first thing we need to do here is to define for the food distributors what organic really means... to us.
The term "organic" relative to consumable foods refers to foods which are grown in an environment essentially free from chemical fertilizers.
But, we as consumers take the term a step beyond the dictionary definition. We want those chemically free foods to arrive to us without the contamination of chemical additives and preservatives.
Organic produce can be laced with chemical preservatives and still be honestly called organic... as the dictionary defines it. This truth would stand up in court.
So, don't let Walmart fool you. Those foods which they will be providing from chemically free producers will most likely be preserved in the same manner as any other produce available in their stores. They can do that and still pretend they're selling stuff that's chemical free.
We need to head this thing off right at the start. Consumer advocates need to be informed of what the public expects from chemically free "organic" foods. Then the retailers need to be held to those standards. We will probably even need to educate the public at large about the difference between organic and chemically free.
If we allow the retailers to lie to us right at the beginning, we will face years of trying to unpervert the intented meaning of the word organic.
Organically grown- and -chemically free, do not technically mean the same thing.
Let's make sure the retailers understand exactly what we want... and demand that they meet those standards.
10-12-2006 @ 10:37AM
doris darsie said...
very worthwhile info! I never really trusted ORGANIC 'tho I have bought it -- NOW I think the emphasis should be seedlessness (Monsanto's in particular) which could mean (if fully realized) it would not be flooding or fire, but HUNGER!!!!!!!!!!
10-14-2006 @ 4:23AM
Harry Good said...
Soon it will be genetically modified patented hybridized organics - they can sell most people anything, including chemicals, just by putting some spin on it.
Just look at the chemicals woman use in their quest for beauty - talk about brainwashing.