Organic?

Today, it seems like the word "organic" is on everyone's lips. It's in the grocery stores, in ads, in the newspapers. Before I came to ARI, I was interested in organic food and organic farming, but I suspected the organic movement might be the child of the non-farming middle-class - certainly a well-meaning, even admirable project, but maybe not economically sound for the majority of farmers in the Philippines or Kenya or China. Organic food in New Hampshire was almost always more expensive than the non-organic option. Organic restaurants (like the delicious Farmer's Dinner in Queeche, for those still in the area) could only be occasional treats for college students like me. How could farmers in poor communities afford to grow such expensive crops?

At ARI, I'm gradually learning what the label "organic" actually means. It means using non-chemical fertilizer - what we call bokashi at ARI, a fertilizer made of chicken manure, soil, rice husk charcoal, microorganisms, and fermented plant juice. It means weeding each bed, rather than just applying pesticides. It means time-intensive work, but delicious vegetables - the carrots here are so sweet, you can smell them as you pull them out of the soil!

But does organic farming actually benefit farmers?

I'm starting to think so. Today, I listened to some of the participants talk about how they will use the training in organic farming and community organizing they received at ARI in their home countries. One woman from Sri Lanka talked about the problems in her community related to the use of agricultural chemicals - about how chemicals had caused strange health conditions (headaches, fatigue, and even paralysis!) and had exhausted the soil. For her community, organic farming is simply safer and smarter than chemical farming. It will protect both the health and the future livelihood of her children. Living in the US, relatively protected from industrial or agricultural chemicals, I often forget about the harmful effects chemicals have on both the human and natural environment. I forget that for many farmers, organic farming is not just about a healthier or tastier product, but about a safe and sustainable lifestyle. Going organic can also reduce farmers' expenses. Chemical fertilizer must be bought, and it is often expensive. Organic fertilizer can be produced by the farmer using local resources (chicken manure if the farmer raises chickens, pig manure if he raises pigs, etc.) at very low cost. Of course producing organic fertilizer takes more time and labor than simply buying chemical fertilizer, but it could ultimately help farmers become more economically self-sufficient.

That being said, I'm also learning at ARI that the spirit behind the organic label matters. One staff member shared parts of the book The Omnivore's Dilemma with us last week. In that book, the author talks about "oil-soaked organic lettuce," lettuce produced by enormous organic farms in the United States that are simply conventional farms without the chemicals. The farms may not use chemical fertilizers or pesticides, but they still use huge quantities of oil to fuel their farm equipment, and they exhaust the soil by monocropping (growing only one type of vegetable instead of rotating crops annually). Environmentally, they don't quite give off the fuzzy green glow that the organic label suggests...

So it's a complicated issue. And right now, I feel very much uniformed. I'm trying to educate myself about farming and about how farming impacts the current discussions about environmental sustainability, energy security, and green living - and most importantly about how farming can become a tool for development, for improving the lives of the participants I am lucky enough to live with.

Wishing everyone a happy weekend!
And: "Slow down. It's Advent."