The Great Organic Marketing Ploy

We all know that when the term "organic" is attached to a food product it means that it is grown free from chemicals, on environmentally sustainable farms, and by small family farmers, right?

Wrong.

There is a false perception among many consumers of what organic really means, and I'd like to take this opportunity to help lift the veil.

The most popular misconception about the organic label is that it means food is grown without any chemicals, whether they be fertilizers, pesticides, or insecticides. This, my friends, is simply not true. Standards set by the USDA's National Organic Program actually allow producers to use a fairly substantial list of "approved" synthetic substances and still call their products organic.

In addition, as the popularity of and demand for organic products has grown over the past decade, organic brands have become more and more concentrated in the hands of the large companies that control much of the traditional food trade. For example, did you know that Coca-Cola owns Odwalla? Or that Kellogg owns Morningstar Farms, Kashi, and Bear Naked? With so much consolidation in the organic industry, the term itself has come to represent more of a value-added marketing term than an indicator of how it was produced.

In fact, it is the production scale of many industrial producers that has allowed them to become such active and successful players in the organic marketplace. As Michael Pollan observed nearly 10 years ago on a visit to California's vast agricultural empire that is the Central Valley, "the same farmer who is applying toxic fumigants to sterilize the soil in one field is in the next field applying compost to nurture the soil's natural fertility." By simply adjusting their production methods to meet the specifications of the National Organic Program, industrial producers have been able to wedge their way into a niche market that once was dominated by small farmers.

This isn't an attack on organic farming in general. There are many farmers across the country who have dedicated their lives to producing food in a more environmentally sustainable manner that is better for both the land and consumers. And organic production is a key to building a more sustainable food system.

But it's important to understand what organic means and doesn't mean, especially when choosing how to spend your food dollars. For me, it'd much rather buy a non-organic apple from a farmer down the road than organic spinach from California.

Photo credit: cogdogblog