Organic & Local

Although we have finished reading Wandering Home by Bill McKibben, there was a recent article in the Adirondack Almanac that reminded me of a conversation the class had regarding the organic and local food movements. Speaking about the organic movement, McKibben writes, “For a generation, a certain number of farmers scattered across the country have managed to hang on by a growing organic food for consumers willing to pay more for a dinner free of pesticides” (45). A few lines down, McKibben also writes, “For two decades ‘organic’ had meant more than just ‘pesticide free’; it also meant ‘some local guy grew this with his own hands.’ Now that meaning was evaporating” (46). As large corporations entered the organic market, they quickly overshadowed local farmers, and became some of the world’s largest organic producers. The term “organic” therefore lost its original meaning. This caused a shift to the local foods movement, causing consumers to shift from supporting the organic movement to supporting local farmers.  

In the Almanac Article entitled The Farm Bill, Local Foods, And You, Laurie Davis describes the provisions of the recently enacted Agricultural Act of 2014, or Farm Bill. Davis explains that this bill significantly increased funding for programs in support of the local foods movement. For example, funding was tripled for the Farmers Market and Local Foods Promotion Program, which support not only farmers markets, but also community-supported agriculture, farm-to-institution, and food hubs. Additionally, the Value-Added Producer Grant, established in 2001, received an increase in mandatory funding levels from the Farm Bill. This grant will help small farmers to develop, process, and sell value-added items derived from their own farm products. Lastly, the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program received increased funding to support and promote local foods in the North Country. Although there is still some room for improvement, Davis mentioned that this bill made some “major inroads into support for local food.”

With the Farm Bill enacted, it will be interesting to see how the local food movement will take off and which direction it will go. Unlike the organic movement, it will be harder for large corporations to take over the local food industry. For example, Tyson, one of the world's largest processors and marketers of chicken, beef and pork, has its headquarters are located in Arkansas. It would therefore be more difficult for Tyson to claim their products were “local” to consumers who are buying their products in New York. Tyson would have to open hundreds more factories to make this claim. For this reason, it seems to me that the local food movement has a greater potential than the organic movement ever did. It’ll be interesting to see how the Farm Bill contributes to the movement, and also how large corporations react.