Organic Food Industry
Food Chain Radio Show #1167
Michael Olson, Author & Urban Farming Agriculturalist
Policing the $80 Billion A Year Organic Food Industry
Guest: Laura Murray, Organic Food Industry Certification Inspector
For all but a tiny sliver of human history, all farmers were organic, which is to say, they did not use synthetically derived nutrients or poison crop protections. Because for the most part, there weren’t any!
Michael Olson – Food Chain Radio – Can the USDA keep the integrity in “organic” agriculture?
Then World War II came along and from it came all kinds of new chemicals and machinery. These new tools gave farmers the ability to affect the ultimate magic, which was to substitute expensive time for inexpensive money. In other words, farmers could buy the chemicals and equipment to do the work they formerly had to do themselves, and so began the industrialization of agriculture.
There were some who did not buy in to the industrialization, like the Amish, and some visionaries as well, like Robert Rodale. But for the most, they were marginalized with a smile by the industrialists.
But then, consumers began asking for food grown without all the poisons. Small farmers began growing that food using biologically intensive techniques developed through the millenniums. Which is to say, farmers fed the soil, and the soil fed the crops. These farmers called themselves “organic” as a way to distinguish themselves. People began buying their “organic food,” and paying more for it.
To protect organic farming from the depredations of industrialization, organic farmers gave their word to the federal government for safe keeping. And with that protection, “organic” grew into an $80 billion dollar a year industry. And so we ask…
Leave a comment below: Can they keep the integrity in “organic” agriculture?
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