Perhaps our difference arises from our experience. I work with small
farmers in Mexico, mostly Indians, for whom organic agriculture is both
very old and very new. To them it opens a desperately needed direct market
for quality food products and is also a revindication of their own
agricultural traditions that, for decades, have been villified by
technocrats. They work very hard to meet international organic standard to
gain access to the organic market. And, though there are one or two bad
apples in every barrel, I am moved at the enthusiasm with which they
understand and express the organic philosophy.
Given the violence with which Mexico's market has been forced open for the
US food industry, and the way the US market is still highly protected from
Mexican products (this is called "free trade" by the Clinton
administration) I am not overly impressed when people in US agriculture
accuse the Europeans of looking out for their commercial interests. In
Mexico, we have certainly had our share of European colonialist attitudes
in organics, especially as we try to create a Mexican national
certification system and stop having to pay foreign inspectors $300-$800
per day. But we don't notice a lot of difference--OCIA and IFOAM all sing
the same song, as far as we can tell. For that matter, the way people and
our whole value system has become obsessed with money in recent decades,
can we criticize organic farmers for having to worry about their profits?
But the real question that should unite us under the organic banner are the
more fundamental questions: what world do want to live in? One in which
our food supply is controlled by a few, historically unethical,
corporations, where "quality" means standardized schlock and fit into the
processing machinery and lasts forever on the shelf but provides nutrition
for neither the body or the spirit? (Sometimes you have to look at the
picture on the box to know just what your supposed to be eating!) Do we
want to see small farmers, the diverse rural landscapes, the varieties of
native crops, and good plain food made with love and without chemicals
driven out by WTO, Codex Alimentarius and the monopolistic practices of our
"food system"? Are we to lose farm culture, farm cultures all over the
world such as the Maya where I work, the crop genetic variety they
conserve, the unique products and food you can find in each town? I think
these things are worth defending against corporate greed.
You say these things can't be "solved within the organic concept", to
attempt so is suicidal. Yet I don't think the "organic concept" is limited
nor graven in stone. I was impressed by the two or three OCIA assemblies I
attended where farmers would spend a day or two discussing standards. I
think the attitude their was that organic is dynamic concept and is very
much open to resolving the broader issues. I would point our that it is a
"social movement". People scoff at the term movement but think about that,
it is a social phenomenon in which thousands of people worldwide have
already come to an agreement about a lot of things. I don't see anything
else on the horizon that offers us them means of building an alternative to
coroporate agriculture together. I question the motives of those who say
"scrap it".
Certainly you are right to point to the danger of the proliferation of
"eco-labels", something I have always spoken out against, and the threat of
coroporate take over. The disarray of the organic "industry" in America is
also a sad fact. America is so big and prosperous that people sometimes
forget that there is also a rest-of-the-world (not even counting Europe)
and there, organics is growing fast. To abandon the organic movment would
be a tragic mistake that most of us are not about to make. If you have no
more faith in your own US organic farmers--the ones I know are dedicated
and skilled farmers--then at least remember the impact that the growing
organic market in the US has for thousands of small farmers outside the US,
such as the Maya organic coffee growers of Chiapas. Organic is our best
chance, for all of us, in the US and beyond. I just don't see precision
farming taking its place as a real alternative. So let's fix it where it
needs fixing.
I think if you go back and read the IFOAM statement again, forgetting your
negative feelings about IFOAM for a minute, you will see that it is not a
bad statement. It is something world farmers can rally around and hopefully
stop the Clinton administration and its corporate backers from taking
another step in imposing industrial agriculture on the world in the name of
"free trade" in Seattle in November. Let's get our priorities straight and
stick together before we've lost it all, our farmers, our relationship to
the land and wholesome food for our children.
Ronald Nigh
Dana, A.C.
Mexico, D.F. & San Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas
Tel. y FAX 525-666-73-66 (DF)
529-678-72-15 (Chiapas)
danamex@mail.internet.com.mx
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