Small Farmers Face Barriers in Embracing Organic Farming
The marionberry picker located at Frank Meyer’s farm. Photo by Sally Turley.
As a society we have effectively removed ourselves from where our food comes from. Since 1953, the percent of Americans that live on farms has decreased from 14 percent to 2 percent. Through industrialization and urbanization, we have mechanized the food industry, removing ourselves from an integral part of our collective lives. Yet, we think about the places where we get our food not as being highly mechanized, but as quaint squares of land that one person can maintain. After going to the Farmers market on Woodstock and talking to some of the vendors, I couldn’t help myself but to get on to a farm to see what it was actually like in today’s urban-centric society.
Frank Meyer lives 45 minutes away from Reed and helps run his family’s farm. At one hundred and fifty acres and brimming with marionberry bushes, it seemed as far from Reed as anywhere in the United States. On the drive to Frank’s farm we passed an apple orchard littered with what looked like perfectly good articles. Frank commented on this to some length, exclaiming that although it looked like a real farm it was far from it. He went on to explain that although the Hoffman farm operates a so-called ‘farm store’ they produce only a few of the things they sell. They choose, instead, to sell other products that other small farms have made, leaving thousands of dollars of apples to rot on the ground. Organic-certified farms do not feel the pressure that Frank and his family feel, as the profit margins for organic-certified farms are higher than standard farms.
For instance, the average difference between organic and non-organic carrots is such that organic farmers in San Francisco are able to make 3.6 times as much as the conventional farmers. This price disparity ends up allowing these organic farms to make much more money than the conventional farms. Moreover, it is challenging to begin to make large amounts of money off of organic foods, as there is a long and arduous process that these farms must go through first. The 36-month transition period is what puts most farms over the edge. During this 3-year period any farm attempting to become certified as organic cannot use any pesticides on their food, but also must continue selling their produce to conventional markets, unable to sell their goods at higher “organic” prices. Most small family farms are not large enough or don’t make enough money to lose money for three years and stay solvent. Frank grows marionberries and sells them up the chain to companies that buy from small farms and resells to larger companies. These large companies give themselves Eden-esque names and market themselves as being small locally-run companies. Despite the potential increase in profit that would come from being organic-certified, Frank’s family will continue to grow conventionally.
But Frank’s farm is not alone in the national struggle to move from conventional growing techniques to USDA certified organic ones. Public works funds are increasing for organic and local food in an attempt to continue to capitalize on the high demand for organic foods. This year the USDA is expected to announce $125 million over the next five years for research and an additional $50 million for conservation efforts. Research in organic farming is essential in order to have higher quality foods on the shelf that are better for you, and live up to the organic standard.
In the past six years the number of farmers’ markets has increased 76 percent, suggesting a cultural push towards local and organic food. This increase correlates with organic food consumption, which is the largest sector in American farming. The 2014 farm bill included $1.2 billion to cover programs that will help small farms to increase their knowledge base, raise their profit margins, and reduce startup costs. This $1.2 billion is also representative of a marked increase in budget allocations to the sustainability sector, which includes organic foods.
Assistance with initial cost offset to small farms may encourage growth in this sector. Before the latest farm bill was passed, organic farms were paying a 5 percent surcharge for insurance coverage, but in the latest version this has been eliminated, encouraging smaller farms to make the switch. The USDA also will be announcing $52 million to support local organic farming, citing the disparity between organic farms operated by large corporations versus small farms. This $52 million will give money to small farms to allow them to compete in earnest with the larger corporations who have monopolized the organic industry.
Annually, the organic foods industry estimates around $35 billion in sales, a figure expected to grow by 20 percent annually over the next few years. However, large companies are the ones who come out on top. Companies like PepsiCo are able to create products that, to the consumer, appear to be natural and organic despite being anything but. By monopolizing the packaged organic food market, these big corporations push smaller farms out of the larger organic market, pushing them to local farmers’ markets that really do care about organic products.
But then what is the difference between organic and non-organic? The initial attempt at an organic policy was called the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA.) The aim of the OFPA was to ensure standards that the consumer could rely on, and to facilitate interstate travel of foods. In 1998, the OFPA created the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB.) In 1998, a proposed organic rule was submitted that caused extreme backlash. Included on the list of acceptable “organic” substances and techniques were bioengineered crops, irradiation of organic crops and “sewage sludge.” Although these have been since removed from the acceptable organic ingredients list, they are indicative of early attempts to increase cash flow in place of increasing the quality of the product.
This corruption of the term “organic” has led to the situation today, where we have three different tiers of organic foods: foods that contain exclusively organic ingredients are allowed to use the USDA label and also state that they are 100 percent organic; foods that contain at least 95 percent organic ingredients are allowed to use the USDA organic label; and foods made with at least 50 percent organic ingredients are allowed to claim that they are made with organic products. Noting the large possible profit margin on these products, large corporations have been attempting to increase the number of synthetic materials that they can use on products they want to label organic.
Today, 21 pesticides are allowed to be used on crops that are certified USDA organic. Companies such as PepsiCo and Nestlé lobby for more lenient controls on organic produce in order to attain greater profit margins. Most of these large companies are using their organic foods for mass-produced packaged items such as Campbell’s new line of organic soups.
Organic doesn’t always mean selling to larger companies though, occasionally it just means the garden that you have in the back yard. Frank demonstrates his love for the earth here, on a sloping hill overlooking the herd of sheep that graze on the land. He plants vegetables that he cares about: cantaloupe like you’ve never tasted bursting from ripeness, Israeli cucumbers hand imported this summer after finding “the perfect flesh to seed ratio,” tender Viennese zucchinis and huge beautiful bright red tomatoes. The label USDA organic may not show up on the food that comes from his garden,but Frank isn’t worried about labels: it’s the