Beyond Organic

The phrase beyond organic is used by a constituency of growers and consumers that are not satisfied with the current organic standards and want to see a significant change in the food system. Since the organic standards have been narrowed to focus only on the input used in organic agriculture, those who want to go beyond organic aim to include broader considerations about impacts of growing, processing and distributing products, or “whole systems” thinking. They believe that organic agriculture is just as capable of being industrialized as conventional agriculture. While the number of those looking to go beyond organic remains small in the United States, it is growing as food producers and consumers become more conscious of how their choices affect the Earth and human health.

The demands of the U.S. Department of Agriculture organic certification program do not satisfy all growers, producers, or consumers within the sustainable agriculture movement. Current regulations allow for longer-distance, and even global, marketing with legal assurance of certain standards but do little to ensure the protection of small farms, local production, the health of rural communities, social justice, and farm workers' rights. Many criticize the lack of emphasis on issues such as biological diversity, renewable energy, and environmentally aware land stewardship. A counter-effort by small growers, activists, chefs, and consumers is creating a diverse movement that pushes for the inclusion of these concerns in food system politics. These ambiguous, diverse, and nuanced arguments, movements, and individuals all represent beyond organic. From a beyond organic perspective, it is not enough to eliminate only chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

The organic movement began small in reaction to the environmental and social impacts of industrial agriculture, but it has since made its way into the mainstream. Organic food (produced without using most conventional pesticides, fertilizers made with synthetic ingredients or sewage sludge, bioengineering [genetic modification], or ionizing radiation) production is now a $4-billion-a-year industry, and in many cases large organic growers produce thousands of acres of genetically similar monocultures. For example, Safeway, a large national supermarket retailer, has its own organic brand, and Wal-Mart has expressed ambitions to become the largest organics retailer in the country. Today, the fastest-growing processed food on the market is organic packaged food. The organics industry has not escaped agricultural consolidation either. For example, according to research done at the University of California, Davis, 2 percent of California's organic farms accounted for half of the state's organic sales in the mid-to-late 1990s. Lobbyists, generally representing large-scale organics, have recently been pushing to weaken the definition of organic, and to a certain degree they have been successful. For example, products with preservatives that allow for a longer shelf life are now considered certified organic.

Those whose ideals can be considered beyond organic, in contrast, see the need for a fundamental change in the food system and have not been satisfied with the progress made through the organics movement—notably, certified organic foods. Specific concerns of the movement include the increasing size of farming operations, lack of labor standards, corporate ownership of the organics industry, and increasingly lax organic regulations. The beyond organics movement claims to be represented by people who value socially just, economically viable, and ecologically friendly foods and practices over those that seek higher profits and efficiency. For beyond organic farmers, growing food the right way, whatever that might mean to the individual in question, means selling an idea, not just healthy food.

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