Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
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(OFRF), Lipson (1997) looked at the research topics of projects that were
funded by the USDA. Of course a search of
organic
was not possible because
this term was not a recognized search variable. But Lipson used seventy-
onerelatedtermssuchas
compost
and
crop-rotation
in an attempt to find
all research relevant to organic farming. Incredibly, of the thirty thousand
USDA research studies, only thirty-four have a “strongly organic” focus, and
these represent less 0.1 percent. This is a poor showing for an agency that
admits organic crops and foods are one of the fastest growing segments of
U.S. agriculture.
The organic taboo is an inexplicable phenomenon that goes back a few
decades. The 1980
Report and Recommendations on Organic Farming
was
actually commissioned by the USDA in the late 1970s, but it was basically
ignored by the agency (Youngberg et al. 1993). The term
sustainable
became
the accepted term in policy arenas, and “organic” has been used as a label
to designate a specific type of commodity (Klonsky and Tourte 1998). This
is likely due to the fact that the term
sustainable
is acceptable within the
industrial production mind-set. Perhaps because it is so nebulous, it never
really challenges the industrial status quo. So “sustainable” is a safe term
- and commonly used by environmentalists and agrichemical companies
alike (Youngberg et al. 1993). In contrast, organic has a real meaning; and
it requires a radical shift away from the industrial system, since synthetic
agrichemicals are prohibited in organic farming. This leap requires, to some
extent, a denunciation of the status quo, and obviously the USDA could not
or would not take that step. Thus government programs inundate us with
the vague term
sustainable agriculture
, which may in fact look very much
like industrial production. It has been convenient to keep the term vague so
that there is no real change to the conventional system.
There is confusion around this term
sustainable agriculture
. Its definition
generally includes concepts of ecological, economic, and social sustainability
(USDA-SARE 1998). But it is fuzzy; even the USDA's Sustainable Agriculture
Research and Education (USDA) program provides a confusing definition:
“sustainable agriculture encompasses broad goals, and farmers and ranch-
ers develop specific strategies for achieving them” (USDA-SARE 2003, 2).
Indeed, most farmers would say they are sustainable - who would proudly
admit to unsustainable use of resources? Compounding the problem is that
farmers themselves don't really know what sustainable means, as one study
shows most farmers think it relates only to environmental concerns and not
economic or social issues (den Biggelaar and Suvedi 2000). And the term
can be misused, as it is “embraced by virtually every constituency with an
interest in agriculture” from environmentalists to farm input manufactur-
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