Very well said. The fundamental challenge is that there is a huge
amount of money to be made by relatively few people in the course
of liquidating the "good will" associated with the term 'organic' in
the marketplace -- good will accumulated in tiny drops from the errors,
frustration, creativity, stewardship, and persistence of thousands
of organic farmers over the last two decades.
It reminds me of the early years of farm chemicals. The land (at that
time) still had tremendous resiliency, built up over years of solid
rotations and the stewardship of modest-scale family farms. In consequence,
the addition of chemical fertilizers and pesticides at that time appeared
to provide tremendous benefit and results. Of course the chemicals
ended up eliminating the very resiliency on which they depended for
their "miracle" performance.
The simple fact is that many of the corporate traders and processors
in organic agriculture (Cascadian Farms and Eden Foods have been
notable exceptions) understand very little about organic farm systems
and appear (by their actions) to care even less.
As Einstein so aptly put it, "You can't solve a problem by applying
the same consciousness that created it." But, then again, if you're
more interested in making a quick buck by exploiting the latest
niche market, solving a problem or helping a system evolve doesn't
really matter...