Apr 7, 2007

Time Cover Story Kicks Off E-Mail Conversation

Time magazine boasts a circulation of more than 2.6 million, with another quarter million in newsstand sales, plus circulation worldwide in several languages.

But in many ways, it’s a local magazine. Its editorial material often reflects the New York City view of the world, which is: there isn’t much out there west of the Hudson River.

The March 12 issue perpetuates this Eastern view of geography.

In a rambling piece of Timese writing, John Cloud explores the world outside (but near) Manhattan while pondering the question, “Which is better, local or organic food?”

The cover sums up the answer: “Forget organic. Eat local,” says what looks like a PLU label on a big, red apple.

You might wonder at the choice. Why not organic and local?

Cloud dismisses Eastern organic as well nigh impossible, especially for apples. He recognizes it’s easier to grow organic stuff in the waterless wastes of the West than near the humid Hudson.

His question is, what’s worse: Spending all that energy to ship produce from the West, or eating all those pesticides Eastern growers use?

One big flaw in his writing is, he assumes that organic means unsprayed and never manages to straighten that out for himself or his readers.

Not surprisingly, the e-mail listserv called Apple Crop was ablaze with commentary, mostly from Eastern growers who loved the conclusion that local is better. They are local.

Jon Clements, the University of Massachusetts tree fruit specialist who started the e-mail sharing service some years ago, started the dialogue by summing up the Time effort: “The author clearly thought buying ‘conventional local’ was preferable to buying ‘agribusiness organic’ – particularly if the petroleum environmental cost was figured in.”

Kurt W. Alstede, general manager of Alstede Farms in Chester, N.J., agreed that local is better: “In the final analysis, people trust the face and the person they can see and touch… their local farmer. We have seen this to be the case in all of our direct marketing and have cultivated it in all of our advertising and marketing efforts. I was thrilled to see Time give this subject favorable front page attention.”

Andre Tougas from Tougas Farm in Northboro, Mass., said:

“Great article, definitely worth reading. I’m happy with the author’s conclusions, but I am still left with a lingering question. Do organic producers use pesticides?

“I think that if consumers knew more about organic production… the point of this article would be tipped even more towards local grown. But don’t get me wrong, as a u-pick farm in Massachusetts, I think the article was great!”

Mike Biltonen, Blue Marble Farm in Stone Ridge, N.Y., replied:

“The quick answer is that yes, they (organic growers) do use pesticides .. just different ones. This, of course is obvious to the readers of this listserv, (but) not so to your average consumer (who) believes organic equals no spray. More needs to be done to reveal the realities of modern, corporatized, organic agriculture.”

Biltonen has started a blog called “Organic Schmorganic: debunking the myth of organic in favor of local, ecological agriculture.” You can find it at

www.organicschmorganic.blogspot.com.

Steve Demuth from Decorah, Iowa, wasn’t sure the whole argument made much sense. Is it worse for the environment to ship 30,000 pounds of product 3,000 miles on a semi or for 2,000 consumers to drive 15 miles each to buy 15 pounds of apples? He didn’t think a handshake from a local farmer necessarily was an endorsement of the purity of a product, either.

“All of this is not to say that I think organic is an altogether great thing,” he wrote. “I don’t actually like the direction that organic has taken in the last 20 years; many of the regulations in the current certification are, to my mind, just plain wrong-headed. And I certainly think that a local, ecologically minded agriculture is preferable in many ways to a distant, organically certified one.

“But how am I to know that my local grower is following best horticultural, pesticide and ecological practice? Trust?

“Which brings me back to my starting point: this isn’t an either/or. Can’t there be a certification program for ecologically sound agriculture that steers clear of the silliness in the organic standards (and) tells me something useful about what is going on on the farm?”

Cornell plant pathologist David Rosenberger expressed the view of a scientist – one who had been asked to make a presentation about organic production of fruit.

“I was concerned that asking a skeptical scientist to address organic farming might be somewhat similar to asking high school science teachers to provide theological explanations for the origins of man,” he wrote.

“I agreed to make the requested presentation despite my hesitations, but … decided that I should provide the audience with my own perspective on organic farming at the outset of the presentation. I devised the following statement:

“As currently defined, organic farming is a mystical mixture of 1930s technology and new-age religion designed to quell the fears of the gullible wealthy in their fruitless search for a risk-free life.”

“It is not surprising,” he continued, “that our public media (a subset of the gullible wealthy) constantly promotes ‘organic’ while fastidiously avoiding any mention of the fact that organic farmers also use pesticides. I agree that the tide may be shifting from ‘buy organic’ to ‘buy local,’ but the false promises of organic will continue to attract a sizeable contingent for a long time to come.

“Some farmers (especially producers of annual crops) can still make a good living producing and selling organic produce. I don’t have any problem with that, especially since our whole economic structure is based on meeting consumer demand. Furthermore, I believe that scientists often can help to improve production systems within any given set of constraints, no matter how nonsensical those constraints may be. Thus, scientists will continue to assist in improving organic agriculture so long as there is a demand for that production system.

“The problem arises when scientists themselves begin to formulate the artificial constraints and promote their value, thereby abandoning their commitment to objectivity and descending to the level of hucksters.

“Thus, I’m perfectly willing to provide advice on how one might grow organic apples. Just don’t ask me to believe in them!”

Tougas, writing again, said:

“It is all about trust.

“The public has been told many, many times that ‘certified organic’ equates to ‘not been sprayed.’ When was the last time anyone from the organic movement stood up and said, ‘No, that is not what ‘certified organic’ means. Where is the credibility?

“It is time that the real issues be addressed. Not the fear mongering of the anti-pesticide crowd, but the real issues of obesity and the loss of habit of eating fresh fruits. As the fear of pesticides has risen, so has juvenile diabetes (double in the past decade), consumption of junk food, obesity and more. What is the correlation? When mom fears the sprayed apple, does she (instead) reach for the high-fat, high-calorie granola bar? 7up rather than apple juice?”

After a day’s worth of e-mail trading that was worthy of Wall Street, no one had chimed in from the West. The Eastern growers seemed tickled pink that they’d won the endorsement of the guys on Manhattan Island.

The New York metropolitan area is said to have 18.7 million people. That’s a lot of local.