Myths About Myths About Organics
Organic myths come in many forms. Lies, half truths, and the occasional bit of common sense. Here's some help in wading through it all.
Lies
There are lies, and damned lies, lies of commission and lies of omission. Corporate advocacy groups have been titling at windmills for years, and sometimes what they say doesn't really add up. For instance, since 2003 the group Consumer Freedom has been saying that the safety of organic beef is a myth since mad cow disease has occurred on organic farms. Alhough it's known that BSE is transmitted by feeding cows to, well, cows, they persist with this myth, backing it up with an out of context quote from the BSE Inquiry of Great Britain[1]. You only have to read the report to find the problem:
With one exception all 154 recorded cases were animals which had been converted from conventional to organic management. The exception was a dairy cow born during the conversion of the herd six months prior to registration.[2]
Another organics myth we've seen over the years is the claim that organic produce is "grown in manure". An often cited source is an article by John Miller in the neoconservative magazine National Review. Besides the obvious fact that this is simply not true, Miller's original source itself turns out to be a myth. The original quote, also referenced in a hit piece on the Chefs Collaborative by ActivistCash (another Consumer Freedom site), credits the CDC's Dr. Robert Tauxe in a 1997 article of the JAMA with saying "organic .. means your food was grown in manure"[5]. The problem is, Tauxe has never said anything like that:
Tauxe denies ever making that statement and says he believes the rumor originated with Dennis Avery. After fielding numerous media queries on the subject, CDC took the unusual step on January 14, 1999 of issuing a press release stating, "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not conducted any study that compares or quantitates the specific risk for infection with E. coli 0157:H7 and eating either conventionally grown or organic/natural foods.[3]
What Tauxe actually wrote in 1997 was the following:
In the past, the central challenge of foodborne disease lay in preventing the contamination of human food with sewage or animal manure.[4]
The good news is that since organics have become a nearly 30 billion dollar industry, comprising 3% of the national food industry with over a million acres in production[6], big business has discovered a new found affection for organics. In fact, what we are seeing from both sides (if we can oversimply the situation a little), is a drift towards the middle.
Half Truths
A March 2008 article in Marie Claire by Sarah Wexler that's been widely reprinted in recent months takes on six organic myths.[7] I'm not sure these can be classified as myths so much as strawmen and distortions, but for what it's worth let's have at a few of the sillier ideas. First, the article takes on the myth that "organics are always better for the environment". Well, "always" seems to be the operative phrase here, but the debunking Wexler takes goes along the lines of productivity: claims have been made that organics simply takes too much space to feed the world. Michael Pollan, on the other hand, disagrees:
Supporters of organic methods maintain that total food-energy productivity per acre can be just as high as with conventional agriculture, and that dousings of N-P-K are made necessary only by the industrial scale of modern agriculture and its long-chain systems of distribution. Yet the fact remains that, to unwind conventional agriculture, you would have to unwind some highly valued features of the modern world order.[8]
So the productivity problem is not a matter of absolutes and impossibilities, so much as it is a problem of politics and methodology. A sounder criticism, that "(the) tendency to replace complexity with checklists is the hallmark of the alternative food sector" comes from Mother Jones, in the wonderful article "Spoiled: Organic and Local Is So 2008":
As demand for organic has grown and farmers have been pushed to gain the same überefficiencies as their industrial rivals, more of them (particularly those selling to chain groceries) simply import manure from feedlots, sometimes hundreds of miles away. Technically, these farms are still organic—they don't use chemical fertilizers. But is something really sustainable if the natural fertilizer must travel such distances or come from feedlots, the apotheosis of unsafe, unsustainable production? Forget about food miles. What about poop miles? [9]
Another half truth that Wexler goes after is the claim that organics are tastier and more nutritious. Well, you can always lie with statistics and Wexler cites studies on the worthiness of organic produce, which may or may not be borne out by the choices at your local food stands, but the argument assumes all things being equal. "Tomato A, identical to tomato B in all regards except it's organic", is not an accurate test. Organics are often tastier and more nutritious because they're different in many other ways. Heirloom vegetables and heritage breeds are quite often better tasting and more nutritious than their mass produced counterparts. And more often than not, they are grown sustainably, locally, and organically. And as Wexler points out, would you honestly prefer a mealy tomato shipped in the hold of a freighter from Chile over a local, vine-ripened Brandywine? Likely, not.
Certainly organics is not always anything. So let's put the strawmen aside and focus on the real problems.
Common Sense
Polyface farm, featured in the book "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan, and in the recent movie "Food, Inc.", is an alternative, biodynamic farm that is not necessarily "certified organic". Indeed the title of the talk Salatin delivers at universities is Beyond Organics, an idea that is catching on. Many are leveling the same criticism at the organic label as Salatin: that it's just that, a label, owned and operated by the UDSA. What Salatin and many others are after now is not a label from the government that's been usurped by large agro-biz, but honest, sustainable practices of farming and ranching that are healthier for the farm, the animals, and the consumer.
Beyond Organics, focusing on sustainability and also responsibility and fairness, is becoming something of a movement, even getting some recent notice from CNN.[10] The vision now spreading is a more holistic approach to food production, a start to finish return to small, sustainable, fair agricultural practices that benefit farmer, the local economy, the workers, and the consumer.
The Future
"Buying Local", "sustainability", "organics", these are words that carry a lot of emotional heft. They are and will be manipulated by the media and by large corporations. Big supermarket chains are cashing in on the consumer's desire to buy locally, and the consumer is not necessarily is getting what they think.[11] But the good news is that people are becoming wiser and more discerning. What this means is this is a growing movement, and it is here to stay, and not just in the US and Europe. In India, Africa, and SouthEast Asia, farmers are going organic. WWOOF even offers the opportunity to tour the world, working at organic farms in exchange for room and board.[12] What a wonderful thing!
Scientific American reminds us that sustainability is not simply one thing: it is many things that we all must be a part of.[13] And this seems to be the key: to avoid oversimplifying and avoid over-complicating the problem. The new food economy, sustainability, locavoria, organics and "beyond organics" are not a threat to business, they're the harbingers of the end of irresponsible business. And how can that be all bad?
Thanks for reading,
LocaVori
notes:
[1] http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/headline/2289
[2] http://www.bseinquiry.gov.uk/report/volume12/chapt104.htm
[3] http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Trashing_organic_foods
[4] http://www.biomedexperts.com/Abstract.bme/9366593/Emerging_foodborne_diseases_an_evolving_public_health_challenge
[5] http://www.activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/oid/72
[6] http://www.lavidalocavore.org/diary/1860/organic-demand-is-growing-faster-than-supply
[7] http://www.marieclaire.com/health-fitness/advice/tips/organic-food-myths
[8] http://www.michaelpollan.com/press.php?id=49
[9] http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2009/02/spoiled-organic-and-local-so-2008
[10] http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/16/best.organic.produce/index.html
[11] http://www.slate.com/id/2138176/
[12] http://www.thisisbrandx.com/2009/05/wwoof-how-you-can-help-organic-farmers-worldwide.html
[13] http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=top-10-myths-about-sustainability
Posted by LocaVori on June 17, 2009 at 12:47 p.m..
