We’re pleased to welcome Eliot Coleman to Colorado as one of the speakers for Slow Money Harvest Weekend, September 19-20.
Long time supporters of organic farming need to realize that the ground is shifting under their feet. Rapidly. Ever since the USDA (and by association the industrial food lobbyists) was given control of the word, the integrity of the “USDA Certified Organic” label has been on a predictable descent to irrelevance. The organic community initially insisted on integrity and thought they had achieved it. Unfortunately, they permitted the foxes to manage the hen house. We now have 4000 cow dairies with no real access to grazing and 1000 acre vegetable fields fed on “soluble organic” fertilizers of suspicious provenance. But, even more dismaying (I can hear the death knell of organic integrity ringing in the distance), we also have, although few are aware of it, organic hydroponics.
How can that be? There isn’t any soil in hydroponic production. How can it be organic? One of the appeals of organically grown food is based on the high nutrient status of plants grown in a biologically active fertile soil with all its known and unknown benefits. Well, that is what most people think organic production is all about because the original government definition of “organic” stressed “soil biological activity” as one of the processes enhanced by organic practices. Dismayingly, the USDA rewrote that definition in 2002 to remove any reference to the word “soil.” And the trend is straight downhill from that point on. Big money is presently being invested in “vegetable factories” and “vertical farms” where production is hermetically sealed in huge warehouses filled with LED lights and nutrient pumps. That frightening picture is the future of “organic” as defined by the USDA.
Despite the strenuous objection of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), which was supposed to set standards, the director of the National Organic Program (NOP), Miles McEvoy, has unilaterally declared the legality of organic hydroponics. And many of the organic certifying agencies jumped right on the bandwagon and have been certifying hydroponic operations. Come on folks, you are not in charge of organics anymore. The bureaucrats and the lobbyists have taken over. What will you do when the produce from “vegetable factories” set up in old warehouses in Maine cities and certified by some other agency, begin putting your local growers out of business?
I read the handwriting on the wall back in the 90s when the USDA first got involved. That is why I have never certified. I saw no future in battling the inevitable – the cheapening of standards and increasing influence of industrial food. I argued that we should find a new word or phrase to represent the true organic standards and protect it. The time has come to start certifying real food under a new label. We all know what the real standards are and we need to demand them. The first battle has been lost and, if you don’t take action, I am afraid you could lose the war.
Not a pretty picture…but predictable, as you say. Why is it we humans keeping trying to make Nature into a machine that predictably produces exactly the same stuff, with no compassion for LIFE?
Eliot’s voice is that of a true fundamentalist, in as good a way as that can be. But the organic community has dozens of different peeves that “crossed the line” for somebody or some group. This has been a very tough one, and the exact line is still being drawn. But not all farms and not all farmers should or do look like the iconic New England pioneers. Despite its sins and shortfalls, organic is more relevant and important than ever to our toxic, heating planet.
In a time of changing climates organic hydroponic producers offer high nutrient food to local markets using 85% to 95% less water than in-ground crops. I’ve had the privilege of inspecting many organic hydroponic operations as well as Aquaponic (veggies and fish). Contrary to polarizing nature of this article there are some great inputs available for hydroponics. Some of the new microbial based inputs help to build living nutrient systems in the water. The tests of the nutrient value of hydroponic and aquaponics foods coming from the operations we certify have been equal to or higher than in-ground crops! And as for pests… most are using nothing more than sticky-traps as it is an enclosed environment. The only operations using lights other than sunlight are in urban settings very far North and offer much needed herbs and greens to delighted locals who have no other fresh options in the dead of winter. .
Aquaponics are A-MAZING! They can be set up as nearly closed loop systems producing fish, shrimp, veggies, fish food, worms, and even the fuel that heats the water for the system! Both hydroponic and aquaponic are at the for front in sustainable farming. They offer urban consumers access to fresh produce as well as food security.
The organic seal has meaning. Organic producers go through a lot to get and maintain compliance to the rule. Those who want to eat clean and locally produced food but live far from a farm have the right to know that their food is organic and has been produced without the use of toxic pesticides and chemicals. Why create an issue where there is no issue. If a product is produced hydroponically it is listed on the organic certificate under, SCOPE: CROP- Hydroponic. If it offends don’t buy.
FYI- The USDA has appointed an Organic Hydroponic Aquaponic task force. It will begin to meet in this fall to better define the organic side of the industry. …But then the writer knows that and is trolling to build distrust. The only question is why?
The suggestion that hydroponic produce could ever qualify as organic is an oxymoron – a self-contradictory concept.
“Hydroponic” contradicts the basic premises of “organic.”
Organic farming embraces Nature by producing vegetables on optimally fertile soils that are alive and complex to an extent we can barely imagine.
Hydroponic growing excludes Nature by producing vegetables on an infertile sterile medium doused with chemicals that can never duplicate the nutritional complexity of a fertile soil.
Organic farming supports the food producer with free inputs from the natural world.
Hydroponic production saddles the food producer with purchased inputs from the chemistry lab.
The two could not be more different.
I agree 100%, we need a new name for Organics and guard it well. And it needs a big name behind it like yours Elliot! Certified Naturally grown doesn’t seem to have been the answer.
This is just one reason why I am not USDA Certified Organic but rather I am Certified Naturally Grown by http://www.cngfarming.org/ To me it is a much higher standard of a true organic farming method than what is allowed with USDA Organic.