Organic or local?

It’s been a rough time for the organic agriculture industry recently. A major scientific survey study found no credible evidence anywhere that organic food is nutritionally better than regular old conventional food, damaging a key assumption of most people buying organic food; major multinationals like Wal Mart have partnered with large scale, industrial farms to produce industrial organic food, cutting little guys out of the market; the world economy has stumbled and many people are cutting corners and budgeting tightly, not finding as much room for expensive organic products.

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There’s also that little problem about reports of fraudulent “organic” food – food that’s claimed to be organic but which raises suspicions that aren’t easily answered because there’s little policing and testing of organic problems.

All these issues tend to undermine a market. Perhaps it’s just a stage of growing pains. After a couple of decades of quick growth, the industry is having to sort through some pretty grown-up stuff before it can grow further.

Or perhaps it’s a long term plateauing, with economic troubles restraining demand and farmers getting interested in different directions.

Food fancies of urban consumers morph over time. Vegetarianism seemed to be catching on at one time, but always just floats out there on the fringes. Organic seemed to be a endlessly growing phenomenon (although still only a tiny, tiny slice of the ag pie), but whether that will continue on the other side of these economic troubles obviously remains to be seen.

But there’s another popular food fad that has caught on amongst urbanites, and it may better fit both the wholesome-ethical eating concerns of those attracted to organic and vegetarianism to the current economic environment. It’s the local food movement, the 100 Mile Diet, whatever you want to call buying foods from local farmers.

It became trendy a few years ago (a couple of years ago CBC radio got my wife and me to strictly follow the 100 Mile Diet for a month and talk about what it was like) and it still very popular. Interest has boomed in farmers’ markets like the St. Norbert’s farmers’ market here in Winnipeg and local meat producers are finding growing interest.

One of the advantages of the local food diet is cost – so long as you’re not too fussy about whether or not the food involves pesticides. If you can buy bulk stuff from local farmers, you can probably save money. And that’s likely to be an ongoing concern in North America, with U.S. unemployment reaching towards 10 percent.

The Socionomics Institute – a sociological/cultural offshoot of the Elliott Wave International market analysis firm – discussed organic versus local food recently and came out on the side of local: “Both the interest in and money for luxury items and services (such as organic food) should wane. We may see a rise in unorthodox and useless treatments . . . The local food movement, however, could grow, especially if there are interruptions in the food production/delivery system . . . “

I’ve noticed some of the same urban consumers I know who were at one time militantly organic or vegetarian have flipped into being “locavores,” and have backed away from total rejection of pesticides or meat. Apparently eating local food is enough to make one morally pure and ethically superior, so those old concerns about pesticides being “poison” and meat being “murder” are washed away in the redemptive waters of locavorian baptism.

That’s a growing market for a few farmers around every city out there. It won’t do much for the vast majority of prairie farmers, but for a few guys who want to build a market outside the bulk commodity market, it could work. (And does: I know a couple of farmers whose business is primarily serving local consumers.)

I can see the locavorian thing growing more in the non-ideological/economic way. The one thing my wife and I took out of our one month immersion in locavorianism is to plant a garden each spring. The purpose is cheapness. If we can produce all our own vegetables for six months a year, we can save a couple of thousand bucks and with two young kids in the house, that matters. That doesn’t help farmers, of course . . .