>From: "Klaus Wiegand" <WIEGAND@lufa-sp.vdlufa.de>
>Reply-To: Wiegand@lufa-sp.vdlufa.de
>To: sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu
>Subject: Re: Proposed organic cost share program
>Date: Mon, 8 Nov 1999 13:56:25 +0200
>
>hello glenn,
>
> >Since both of you live outside the USA, and see what's happening
> >here throught slightly different eyes, what do you see as the
> >building blocks for farmer first national certification? Do you
> >see leaders, friends or obvious single issues to pursue
>
>first: these are my personal opinions and experiences from here,
>as i'm not familiar with the american organic movement and you
>will be surprised, how often behavior of americans seems
>extremely strange to us europeans. it might be totally wrong
>under your conditions.
>
>first i'm highly surprised about the way government is involved
>in regulating your life. and i thought germany has a bureaucratic
>system ;-]. today i read in the newspaper, that califorians have to
>pay a charge of 100$, if they exchange radiators in their houses
>and the bill to reduce it or put away with it was stopped by the
>democrats and several CONSUMER organisations. government should
>only be involved in cases, where individuals might be harmed or
>as a arbitrator or better as a mediator, where people can't agree
>on important things of a society, but not in other cases. the old
>sentance of a greek philosopher comes to mind, which says, that
>government should never ever regulate something, which it cannot
>control or garantuee.
>
>
>there are 3 groups of consumers:
>
>a) those, who know you personally and with which you live more
> closely together in a community. this is the simplest and
> maybe most satisfying and most sustainable way of selling and
> dealing with. as selling healthy food is (as every other
> question concerning health) a very SENSIBLE thing, it depends
> on personal relations and mouth-to-mouth propaganda. you do
> not need an extra propaganda or some kind of PR. a
> certification is useless here and a waste of money you better
> spend somewhere else on your farm !!
>
>b) those, who do not know you, but do not live VERY far away
> (maybe your farm nearby a larger town or a city). here you
> will already see my doubts, if it is sustainable, if people
> are driving 40 or 50 miles to your farm to buy food for 3 or 5
> days. the pollution from the gasoline will contradict any
> sustainability (the real price for environmental damage is
> 2-3$ a liter of gasoline) ! ignoring that, these people still
> are preferring organic food ! i think, i need not tell anyone,
> how to market your products. just make it reasonable to him,
> why he should buy especially at your farm... maybe take a look
> into the faith popcorn's book (the popcorn report), how to
> "cocoon" people.
>
>c) people farer away, which can only be reached by distribution
> channels. it's your individual decision, if you want to reach
> them, but remember: they are the majority. you only need to
> think about them, if you cannot make a living from direct
> marketing. and here starts, what i see as the largest problem:
> the ambiguity between consumers. they do not behave, like you
> would like them to do (meaning 100% supporters of the organic
> idea and consistant). i know people, who eat their dinner at
> some fast-food restaurant and in the evening go to a
> restaurant and insist on an nice organic supper, because it's
> healthier. if i can convince 100 consumers to buy 20% of their
> food organic, that's better than 10 people living for 100% on
> organic food. but a lot of organic farmers also try to sell
> their philosophy instead and only live in "inner circles of
> alumni" their slogan: entirely organic or nothing at all.
> organic farmers tend to be much less consume-orientated, more
> individual and environmental sensible than conventional ones
> (and I myself like their attitude very much), but do they need
> to tell others, that this is "the sacred way"?. here in
> germany there even is an entirely anthroposophic way of living
> and children's education behind the organic movement. that's
> ok, but organic farmers not only try to sell their fruits, but
> with them also their anthroposophic philosophy and that's
> something a lot of people dislike. they can think for
> themselfes and chances are, that sooner or later they come to
> the same conclusions all by themself. they do NOT care about
> your internal quarrels, whether 80 or 90% of the manure needs
> to be from your own farm. and these are USELESS quarrels. in
> case the different organic groups cannot agree, just make a
> compromise: 85%. but don't weaken your image by internal
> battles taken to the public !!. one of these battles is the
> question: "what means organic?"
>
> why not a part of their farm organic and the other part
> conventional ?? i know of at least one farmer here, who tried
> it and was bashed and isolated from his organic-cofarmers.
> IFOAM rules allow that very well !!!
>
>
>2 consequences: the absolutism, with which organic growers see
>their business, is an enormous restriction for them. maybe you
>remember my question, what organic growers can sell in winter.
>with an annual income of 10.000$ i see this absolutism a personal
>problem of the farmer's philosophy, which i as a consumer need
>not share.
>
>an example: i'm just involved in a project of small farmers, who
>offer a complete bundle of vegetables for a complete salad (like
>a colorful mixture of different salads for a "ceasar's salad".)
>all works well except the question of some organics, if the
>dressing also NEEDS to be organic and as a ready-to-eat dressing
>cannot be organic, they prefer to renounce the 95% of the total
>buy because of the 5% for the dressing.
>
>2nd consequence: beginning from a certain distance from consumers
>your farm it is obligatory to go TO the consumer, instead the
>other way round (that might not be valid for some of the vast and
>unpopulated american regions like the apallachians. again, that's
>MY guess from far away. you better ask your own consultants). and
>here starts the problem with certification. selling into a city
>again has 2 options: if you sell on a farmer's market,
>certification MIGHT not be needed and diversification is more
>important. option 2 is the main problem: most part of a city's
>food need is based on a professional and ANONYMOUS distribution
>system and here it is very important to create a chain of trust
>and discriminate by kind of a (certified?) label. that needs not
>necessarily be a governmental system.
>
>here in europe at the lower level there are EU regulations, which
>you HAVE to meet to get the EU label for organic production and
>beginning with august, 2000 they will be unique in the whole EU.
>
>additionaly in germany there's a private system, supported and
>paid by the organic movement (yes, you WILL need a professional
>system, more and more people are living in cities and
>consequently more and more consumers, i.e. the people, you get
>the money from). at the moment there are 6 small and 3 large and
>successful groups ("BIOLAND", "NATURKIND" and "DEMETER", makes 9,
>all agree, that that's too much, none of them wants to be the
>first to quit. in denmark and austria there is just 1
>organisation), who set their own internal and stricter rules as
>the EU for their own certification and who also do internal
>random control analyses. it works fine, as NONE (with VERY few
>exceptions) of the governmental analytical controls on pesticide
>residues and additives (they are restricted to these 2 items,
>because governent does not care about these group's internal
>rules) find any violations.
>
>so confidence in these 2 labels is very high and consumers trust
>them almost blindly. fresh products are mostly sold on farmer's
>markets, but they also are selling their other products (like
>noodles, flour, corn flakes, sea salt, dried spices and a whole
>bunch of readily prepared foods..) in supermarkets with
>increasing success (in germany 30%, in the UK 67%, in austria 70%
>and in denmark 90 of total organic sales. compare it with the
>number of organisations in these countries !!).
>
>selling in supermarkets needs some additional things like a nice
>design of the package, the right size (increasing market for
>singles), a moderate price (still 30-40% higher than conventional
>food) and a good positioning. and most important: it needs an
>organisation, which manages the distribution, deals with the
>supermarkets (which more and more become pure commisionaries for
>a place to sell and are insisting on "entry fees" too high for
>single farmers). and it needs a farewell from the usual
>absolutism and negiotiation of consumer's attitudes (still i
>never saw a TV ad for organic food, BUT WHY NOT?? and why not a
>nice designer package, it needn't have the overhead of a
>perfume?). that's too much for an individual farmer and needs
>something like an organisation.
>
>together with a friend i initiated another project (again not
>esp. intended for organics, but more for better prices.) years
>ago we "pushed" a special potato variety. a very small potato
>looking like a little cucumber (kind of a "bonsai" potato, 2-3 cm
>thick and 6-8 cm long)
>
>i got the idea, when i sold a bag of potatoes in the french
>alsace. there an old and honest woman sold me the bag with these
>potatoes, which are quite common there. when i asked her, why the
>potatoes were so small, she answered: "well, they are especially
>graded and taste better and are more convenient for cooking".
>when i asked her, what they do with the large ones, she answered
>with a smile: "we feed them to the swine or sell them to the
>germans".
>
>we convinced two farmers to try them and at the end of the 2nd
>year they mourned "if only we had planted twice as much fields".
>that would also be an option for organics: 2 different potato
>varieties for sale and one of them an unusual one. this way you
>can satisfy the "traditional" buyer, who wants no "gimmicks" AND
>the people looking for some sensation. and it's the sensation i'm
>missing at organic sellers on farmer's markets. argument: "we
>aren't interested in gimmicks". OOPS ??? when i'm buying noodles,
>i can choose between several dozens of conventional labels, when
>i buy organic noodles, they usually come in a neutral and
>wretched looking package.
>
>in sum: what organic agriculture needs, is a "corporate
>identity". the average consumer has not the slightest idea, what
>the behinds of a cover crop or soil fertility are (and doesn't
>care, YOU are the experts, so he can expect to a certain degree,
>that you think about, what's good and what's bad). hardly anyone
>of the consumers is in still in touch with nature or agriculture.
>compared with earlier eras in human history, we live in a society
>so artificial, so divorced from the natural environment, that it
>would be simply incomprehensible to our forefathers. this is not
>only true for people living in inner city areas, but also just
>about everybody else. but people are WILLING to support, what
>organic food can offer them. that's why the government still pays
>15.800 !! marks every year as subsidy to every organic farm or
>330 dm/ha. but for this people do expect a bullet-proof system
>(it's THEIR tax money), which can garantue 4 things: free from
>pesticides, free from additives, a prevention of cruelities to
>animals and free from gmo's. they don't care very much about the
>rest, at least much less than organic farmers expect.
>
>so what is needed, are for example convincing slogans, which
>sound logic to the consumer. example: "what was not put onto the
>field, can't be in the fruit" or "what quality can you expect
>from 5 sausages in a tin priced 80 cents?" or "caring about
>pesticide residues ? - we needn't", "lucky with a soup with 8
>gramms of dehydrated meat?" or "our cows are called sandra, milka
>and linda and not #234, #743 and #1254".
>
>DON'T argue about healthier food! and for all this you need a
>professional distribution system with knowledge in PR and you
>need (few) special wellknown labels, with which consumers can
>identify a special quality, whereever they buy. it needn't be a
>governmental system, but instead one, that is trusted. i'm sure,
>the amish will never need an extra label for selling food,
>because they have their own "control" system and a well-known way
>of living (their "label"). in germany there are about 10% people,
>who need not be convinced, for whom no certification or PR is
>needed, about 30-50%, who need to be convinced and who want a
>certain kind of proof and a control system, because they are
>sceptical against just a claim and the rest can't be reached by
>you by ANY mean (they buy, what's cheapest or don't care about
>food at all.) here it needed about 20 years until these labels
>became really known among all consumers and you might have
>expected it: these labels started with about 50 farmers
>organising themselfes and agreeing on an internal control system.
>
>
>p.s: your smallfarms.com system might be a nice possibility to
>inform people, where i can buy organic food nearby and can show
>the differences between production systems much cheaper than
>flyers or media advertisement. it can be modeled to be an
>(farmer-restricted) information system about prices and trends in
>the market (provided farmers are willing to inform others about
>prices. that's not always the case. here we had a system called
>pool-marketing. everyone added to a common pool and the large
>batch was marketed, so everyone got the same price. the better
>farmers soon left). there definitely is competition and there are
>bad farmers, who will have to leave the market. another thing,
>organic farmers are more likely to ignore than conventional ones,
>as they see themself as ONE big friendly community of equal
>thinkers, ignoring that life in the city is more like life in a
>jungle than in a small town.
>
>but i have some doubts, if it can be a information system for
>market chains looking for larger batches. nicely programmed it
>can create desires and serve as a guide for food choices. (i have
>not the SLIGHTEST idea, if it can be useful to attract consumers
>to direct-selling farm, because, as i already wrote above,
>driving 50 miles for food in my view is not sustainable, but
>europe is totally different, because MUCH smaller and more
>densely inhabited. it might be a chance for buying on the way
>home from work, if nearby.)
>
>and a last thing (in case you think i'm talking purely
>theoretical): our institute meanwhile pays for 3 certification
>systems: ISO, GLP and DQS. it costs a lot of money, but we
>decided to pay it, because more and more of our costumers demand
>a proof, that our analysis is done according to international
>standards. the funny thing: we also worked by these standards
>before and certification hasn't changed the slightest thing in
>our daily work except additional paperwork and time-consuming
>work for the analysts (who asked almost the same questions as in
>this discussion about certification) and me - i'm one of the 2
>internal quality assurance inspectors. either we have the
>certificate or our customers go elsewhere and we must live from
>those, who do not insist on a certificate (and therefore pay
>less, the others are charged for the extrawork). it's that simple
>and IT'S NOT ABOUT QUALITY. it's the same process of
>concentration as in agriculture and it's also an assurance
>against complaints and legal actions against us.
>
>
>puuh, finally finished.. any future mails will be fax-style...
>
>
>klaus
>
>
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