Is Big Organic a Cause for Panic?

By Laird Harrison

Not long ago, organic food dwelled in the countercultural margins of the grocery world. Filling up your fridge with organics meant a trip to a co-op or natural foods store where cashiers wore their hair in dreadlocks and the scent of patchouli oil mingled with the aroma of carob beans. So the announcement last year that Wal-Mart, the biggest retailer in the world, planned to sell organic food—including new versions of Kellogg’s Rice Krispies and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese—drew headlines.

But Wal-Mart’s announcement was only the latest step toward the mainstreaming of organic. Already, over the past decade or so, small organic farms have consolidated into large ones, major supermarket chains have started stocking organic products, and distributors have begun importing them from other countries. Additionally, multinational food processing companies have bought out numerous familiar small brands. For example, Coca-Cola now owns the fruit juice company Odwalla Organics; General Mills bought Cascadian Farms; and J.M. Smucker acquired the R.W. Knudsen Family, Santa Cruz Organic, and After the Fall beverage brands.

The image of a small vegetable patch farmed by ex-hippies no longer corresponds to the reality behind much organic food. This trend poses both opportunities and confusion. On one hand, people can choose from more convenient, widely available, and consistent products. On the other hand, more of this food is transported long distances, is highly processed, or contains unhealthy ingredients. Faced with this new complexity, many consumers wonder just how organic organic is right now.

The big boys
When it comes to following the letter of the law—in this case the organic standards set up by the USDA—big companies abide as well as little ones. "I’ve seen small operations try to work around the standards, and I’ve also seen large companies do an excellent job, and vice versa," says Bob Scowcroft, executive director of the Organic Farming Research Foundation. "I don’t feel that relative to the rules, size is something we should be concerned about."

Indeed, size often leads to consistency. Until the large companies entered the scene, supplies frequently fluctuated, depending on local weather and the whims of individual farmers. You never knew what you’d find on the shelf on any given day. But multinational companies like Natural Selections, which sells organic produce to the country’s major supermarkets under its Earthbound Farm label, have put an end to all that. "We’re proving that organic can feed the world," says Myra Goodman, the company’s cofounder and executive vice president.

Natural Selections brings in $350 million a year and employs more than 1,000 people, growing fruits and vegetables in numerous regions, states, and countries as far flung as the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest, British Columbia, Chile, Mexico, and New Zealand. By following the harvest as it moves around the globe, Natural Selections can assure supermarkets an unvarying year-round supply of baby spinach or precut carrots.

The global reach of companies like Natural Selections enabled the entrance of organics into stores like Costco and Wal-Mart, which want semi-trailers delivering a steady supply of identical products, not a box of tomatoes and a few heads of lettuce. In this expanded market, Goodman and others argue, not only can devotees find organic food more easily, people who’ve never shopped in health-food stores can try organic for the first time. What’s more, with the expertise of big food processing companies, the convenience of organic foods has soared—three-cheese macaroni, frozen TV dinners, ready-made burritos, you name it. Some large companies like Wal-Mart have promised to lower the price of organics as well, though that will prove difficult: The acreage of organic farms is increasing only 15 percent a year, while the demand for organic food is growing at closer to 20 percent, according to studies by the USDA.

Finally, big organics is improving conventional farming practices too. Partnerships between companies like Earthbound and large conventional growers have led the latter to use more ecological techniques on their conventional fields, Goodman says. "They are using less synthetic fertilizer and fewer pesticides. That’s one of the things we’re most proud of."

Growing pains
Still, the notion that bigger is better has some in the organic movement furious. "These great big companies have bought up some of people’s favorite organic farms," says Elizabeth Henderson, an organic farmer, co-op founder, and activist in Genesee Valley, New York. People like Henderson question whether big organics—though they may follow the letter of the law—also follow the spirit of it.

Certainly, some do but compelling research suggests that small organic farms go the extra mile and exceed standards more consistently. In the late 1990s, for example, Julie Guthman, an assistant professor of community studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, surveyed 144 organic farms in California to determine how close each came to "sustainable farming"—which she defined as "the minimization of energy and resource use by recycling resources within the farming system or at least within the local region." Guthman created a scale of 0 to 5, awarding higher scores for such practices as crop rotation, cover cropping, soil conservation, the regular addition of manure and compost, and natural pest control.

Measuring farm size by sales, she found that the bigger farms were more likely to score low. In fact, none with more than $10 million in sales scored above 3—compared to a quarter of the farms with less than $100,000. Guthman says the study shows organic labels have limited power to improve how food is produced: "This is a really anemic way of reforming anything," she says.

Plus, Guthman and others point out, many companies sell organic food with one hand and pollute with the other. Tyson’s organic chicken, for instance, may meet USDA standards, but the company also has been convicted of air pollution (for ammonia released from its overcrowded conventional hen houses) and water pollution (for animal waste released into storm drains). When you buy Kellogg’s organic corn flakes, the money goes to a company that also sells preservative-packed corn flakes made from genetically modified corn sprayed with pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.

The global reach of these companies has also attracted criticism. According to USDA research, about 10 percent of organic food consumed in the US is produced overseas—an amount that’s growing. "Certainly there’s nothing organic about bringing soy beans in from China," says Ronnie Cummins, executive director of the Organic Consumers Association. Even domestically, organic food is following the trend of conventional food in traveling farther and farther. For example, a study conducted at Iowa State University’s Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture found that produce grown in the US and eaten in Iowa travels an average of 1,546 miles. If Iowans got just 10 percent more of their food from within their own region, they would save up to 346,000 gallons of fuel and cut carbon dioxide emissions by 7.9 million pounds a year, the researchers calculated.

Researchers at the University of Essex and City University of London decided to find out which made the most economic sense—eating conventional, organic, or locally grown produce. They assigned a monetary value to the environmental damage conventional agriculture inflicts—such as the cost of treating people sickened from pesticides. They then calculated what the savings would be if either the farms went completely organic or if people got all their food from farms within a 14-mile radius. Going organic would save England $2 billion a year, they found, but since shipping food damages the environment so significantly, a local food system would save $3.7 billion.

Besides burning fuel, long-distance transport deteriorates the nutritional quality of food. The more time that passes between harvest and consumption, the more the nutrients degrade. A University of Pennsylvania study, in fact, found that spinach lost half its folate after eight days of storage at 39 degrees. Of course, some organic producers don’t concern themselves overly much about nutritional quality to begin with. Just because a food bears the organic label doesn’t mean it’s healthy—a fact that many consumers new to health foods may overlook. Kellogg’s Organic Frosted Mini-Wheats may be free of pesticides and synthetic preservatives, but they contain about 20 percent sugar by weight. And need we even say anything about American Spirit’s organic cigarettes?

The past fall’s E.coli-spinach debacle highlights another potential problem with big organics. Although sanitation inspectors can more easily regulate a few big companies rather than many little ones, any mistakes these companies make get magnified, says John Guzewich, a food-borne illness expert with the USDA. "If you produce contaminated food in your backyard and you’re the only one eating it, you’re the only one who gets sick," he says. "If you’re growing produce that serves thousands of people, then thousands of people may get sick."

Beyond organic
So, is Big Organic a cause for panic? Well, the answer’s not that clear cut. Trying to balance the pluses and minuses of an industrial version of the organic movement can confuse even the most conscientious consumer. On the one hand, the major supermarket and big box chains—from Whole Foods and Safeway to Costco and Wal-Mart—have made organic products accessible year round to folks who could not otherwise afford them or even have access to them. And that’s a good thing. But in order to do that, they need Big Organic—large-scale organic farms run much like conventional corporate farms—to provide the consistency and large quantities they need. This comes, of course, at the expense of small, family-owned and -operated farms.

As easy as it is to jump to (mostly negative) conclusions, not all big industrial farms are evil. Some continue to honor the inspiration that started them on their way. Stonyfield Farms, for instance, now partially owned by yogurt conglomerate Groupe Danone, still donates 10 percent of its profits to environmental and organic organizations, still buys much of its milk from small dairy farms, recycles its used yogurt cups into toothbrushes and razors (see "Recycled Razors," page 20) and runs a national school lunch program. Silk Soymilk, now a subsidiary of dairy giant Dean Foods, still manages to support organic family farms through FarmAid, use wind power, and reside on the EPA’s list of top 25 green power companies. And Earthbound Farms, the mega-giant that delivers the lion’s share of the nation’s organic produce, prides itself on planting trees to offset its fuel consumption, treating its employees fairly, and helping conventional farms move toward organic agriculture.

On the other hand, while all organic farms must follow the letter of the organic certification regulations, many of the industrial farms have—by the very demands of their size—had to forego the pastoral ideals originally attached to the organic vision. Such things as truly free-range chickens, dairy cows that graze in pastures every day—the images most of us have of organic farming—simply have no place in the industrial model. Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma (Putnam Books, 2006), wonders how produce packaged in a plastic bag and on sale in a store "three thousand miles and five days away from" where it originated can be called organic? Sadly, he tells us, as organic agriculture has become more successful, "organic farming has increasingly come to resemble the industrial system it originally set out to replace," with its reliance of fossil fuels and high-tech processing plants, and its less-than-mindful treatment of the land and animals it uses. Perhaps, he muses, it’s time for Little Organic to redefine itself and for us as conscious consumers to move beyond that designation. Ever since its inception, the organic label has signified a healthier, fresher, more flavorful choice; today it’s just as likely to be a marketing device in what Pollan refers to as the creation of "supermarket pastoral."

So what does it mean to move beyond organic? You can start by seeking out products and foods from local companies and farmers you know emphasize global stewardship, sustainable farming practices, and healthy choices. These days you can also choose from more than 100 practice-specific labels in the US alone, including Humane Raised; Free Farmed; Bird Friendly; Salmon Safe; Fair Trade (ensuring that workers get paid a fair wage); and Biodynamic (integrating organic practices with a spiritual connection to Earth). Many natural food stores provide additional labels as well, offering a description of the farm and the philosophy under which it operates. But beware of clever copywriters, who know what you want to hear and who are adept at "spinning" the truth. If you want even more information, you may need to do your own homework on the Internet (or pay the farm a visit if it’s local). And speaking of local, never underestimate the importance of buying fresh from your farmers�?market or directly from the farm. When you do so, you support your local farmer and your community, while ensuring the wholesomeness of your food. And in the beginning, that’s what organic was all about.

Shades of Green
A plethora of resources exist to help you both shop locally and determine how "organic" your organic food is—in terms of the spirit of the law. Here are a few to get you started.