Organic Food

So now that the organic food industry [$12B/yr] is getting big enough to attract some major attention [20% annual growth!], larger companies wanting a piece of the pie want to cut some corners and Congress is jumping into the fray. This NY Times article is a pretty good quick read.

Consumer groups and some organic pioneers say they are concerned that the movement - a response to the practices of corporate food production that promotes a natural chemical-free approach to farming - will become watered down unless firm standards are maintained.

The debate has been under way for several years. But last week, Senate and House Republicans on the Agriculture appropriations subcommittee inserted a last-minute provision into the department's fiscal 2006 budget specifying that certain artificial ingredients could be used in organic food.

Things like baking powder and carbon dioxide have already been approved, but this lobbying attempt goes far beyond that to open a gigantic loophole.

But Joseph Mendelson, legal director at the Center for Food Safety, a liberal advocacy group, says that the proposed legislation will open the door to a range of other chemicals and artificial materials, including a large category of so-called food contact substances - things like boiler additives, disinfectants and lubricants with unpronounceable names.

I'm all for the expansion of organically grown products in supermarkets and more widely available specialty markets, but at what cost? The term organic will become diluted. Organic won't be organic anymore, it'll be healthier than other junk, but not traditionally organic.

The article highlights organic milk, the most popular organic product which is cited as being about twice the cost of regular milk. We used to get most of our milk and produce from Sue's Produce on 18th/Sansom Sts, but since we've moved, we head there less and less. But they do carry some yummy hormone free milk [not organic] for $2.50 a half-gallon. Considering that regular milk runs around $2 - $2.35, a good deal. They also carry a whole bunch of organic produce, most of it grown locally on farms in Lancaster, PA or in South Jersey. The stuff at Sue's is pretty cheap, they buy directly from the farms, but the price difference is still there for the most part on organics, cheaper than elsewhere, but still more.

I really liked this article from AlterNet on the (Still) High Cost of Organic Food from August. There's only so much they can do right now to keep things at a high quality and organic.