Dispatches from the Fields: Whatever happened to organic?
The limits of consumption-based food movements
Ariane Lotti and Stephanie Ogburn,

A few years ago at farmers markets here and around the country, most customers would ask a farmer how she grew her vegetables and herbs. Eaters were concerned about organic growing habits and pesticide use on farms, and inquired about the methods used to grow the produce they were purchasing. Nowadays at market, almost no one asks if Dragonfly Farms is certified organic. (We're not, but are pursuing Certified Naturally Grown status.) They don't even ask if we use synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or fertilizers.

Consumer priorities, and the questions buyers ask, have shifted. Now the main farm-production question I hear is related to place: "Where is your farm?" Customers used to worry about how food was produced; now they worry about where it is from. This switch is both interesting and somewhat troubling. It's interesting in part because it shows how the power of one captivating idea -- local -- can quickly eclipse the power of another -- organic.

It's troubling because, from the perspective of a movement against agribusiness-as-usual, organic farming has a lot more substance than local does. The organic farming movement has a history of opposing and actively questioning the status quo of Green Revolution -- style, high yield, industrial agriculture. The movement largely formed itself in opposition to the Green Revolution, drawing on the strength of pioneers like Sir Albert Howard, Jerome Rodale, and the publication of books like Silent Spring in the early 1960s.

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