Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
downfalls of industrial agriculture: Farmers can create a new marketing
system for themselves that is outside the large, industrial farming system,
and clearly certified organic farms do not employ the synthetic pesticides
and fertilizers that are mainstays on conventional farms. These farms are
resilient, as organic farmers adapt to change, act independently, and learn
new techniques as needed (Milestad and Darnhofer 2003). So organic farm-
ing is better for the environment (Xie et al. 2003) and better for small family
farmers.
Buying organic food is not only increasingly trendy but truly good, both
for health seekers and environmentally conscious shoppers. Consumers
are aware of organic products and willing to pay a bit more to buy these
items. The drawback to this rapid growth in demand is that organic farming
can sometimes be pulled into the industrial mode of production, which I
nickname “Big OAg.”Of course, agribusiness corporations realize the large
market growth in organic products. Consumers now seek organic cereal,
cookies, canned goods, and produce, and food companies are well aware of
these trends. There is concern that this is a time of transition for organic
farming, distribution, and retailing, as it is getting bigger and thus more
similar to a conventional food system (Dimitri and Richman 2000). For ex-
ample, Tree of Life and United Natural Foods (which bought out Blooming
Prairie and Northeast Cooperatives in 2002) are the only national distrib-
utors of organic foods, controlling 80 percent of the market. In addition,
“Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and Wild Oats together have over 440 stores
across the United States and sell approximately $5.5 billion in natural and
organic foods each year,” which “gives these chains a dominant presence” in
retailing (Sligh and Christman 2003, 26). If there is a market for millions of
one-pound bags of precut organic carrots, then a large farming corporation
will step in to produce these carrot bags and ship them across the continent,
with little regard for the “buy locally” philosophy. Likewise, organic milk
has become dominated by a single corporation (Horizon Organic Dairy
was recently bought out by Dean Foods) that uses ultra-pasteurizing tech-
niques to lengthen shelf life so that the products can be shipped across the
country. The huge dairy corporation claims to rely on smaller family farms
for their milk supplies, but the scale of this corporation is in sharp contrast
to the image many consumers have of organic production. How will these
consolidations affect the organic products that consumers demand and the
crops that organic farmers grow?
This is not a uniform shift within organic farming, all toward Big O
Ag. Rather, separate farming sectors are influenced differently. The organic
produce sector seems to be most readily assimilated in the industrial mode
[37],
(37)
Lines: 355 to 359
———
0.0pt PgVar
———
Normal Page
PgEnds: T
E
X
[37],
(37)
