Comments on: Globalization datapoint of the day: Organic isn’t locavore

By: TimWorstall

TimWorstall — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 10:50:33 +0000

“I do wonder how this state of affairs came about — you’d think that demand for organic products would be felt locally, in the first instance. But I guess global agriculture is so global now that demand shows up first in places like Australia and Argentina, where land is cheap ”

Well, yes, you would expect a land hungry process like organic farming to go where land is cheap really.

By: najdorf

najdorf — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 06:19:56 +0000

tuckerm: There are a few farms out there, but they are mostly boutique operations limited to the Massachusetts growing season and crops. When the press is around everyone talks about “Yes, of course, this 20 acre farm supplies dozens of Boston-area restaurants that serve organic, local cuisine to thousands of customers.” Until some of the acreage gets converted back from office parks and subdivisions to farms and someone opens a restaurant which serves apples, turnips and potatoes from November to May, the “organic local restaurant” concept is mostly window-dressing. Sure you will have a nice special on strawberry desserts for a few weeks, you can run an asparagus menu in the spring, the mushroom man may come through for you from time to time, but day-in and day-out the restaurant is going to be sourcing imported tomatoes and fish like everyone else. Most people don’t want to wait 11 months to eat their favorite dish at the peak of flavor, especially when they live in a place that is buried under snow for months of the year.

By: nyet

nyet — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 03:03:22 +0000

I live in the Bay Area and can easily buy local (California) organic everything.

By: minderbender

minderbender — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 21:41:29 +0000

Hrrrmmmm, seems I was wrong – I can’t find anything that indicates that hormones and antibiotics aren’t used in Australia and Argentina, and I have found that some beef cows in both countries are grain-fed. Still, acreage seems like a crude measure, since land varies widely in yield per acre. An organic acre in Holland may be worth 10 or 100 in Australia.

By: minderbender

minderbender — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 21:23:39 +0000

Isn’t all beef production in Australia and Argentina organic by legal mandate? That is, I believe it’s illegal to give beef cows hormones, antibiotics, etc. (or even to feed them corn). I’m guessing that cattle ranching is land-intensive, particularly in dry areas, so the numbers are probably skewed. But maybe pasturage isn’t counted in “agricultural land.”

By: Auros

Auros — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 21:11:18 +0000

Basically, you can eat local-organic fairly easily in the SF Bay Area. And that’s it.

By: KJMClark

KJMClark — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 20:36:48 +0000

Actually, it’s funnier than that. If you click on the tables for the 2011 report (hoping to find data on organic production in a table), you get sent to the “statistics” area of their website, where you find a bunch of – statistics on acreage.

Maybe we’re all doing this eating thing the wrong way – we should be eating the land after all!

By: KJMClark

KJMClark — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 20:32:40 +0000

It’s funny that none of those charts look at organic production or organic sales. Looks like someone got a convenient database of organic acreage and threw some graphs together. No one eats organic acreage, but that’s what they had available to make graphs. “If you lost your keys over there, why are you looking under the streetlamp?”

By: sam76

sam76 — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 20:18:38 +0000

I believe a large part of the land classified as organic in Australia is low productivity land in central Australia that has historically received very little in the way of artificial inputs. That is, it has never been economically feasible to apply fertiliser or herbicides.
In other words the land has always been organic, but because of economic necessity rather than as a result of market demand.

Perhaps the situation is similar in Argentina??

By: tuckerm

tuckerm — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 19:58:50 +0000

When I was in high school I worked at an organic farm that mostly supplies produce for restaurants, they weren’t paying farm stand prices, but it was still quite a lot. Around Boston when you go out rt. 2 past the inner suburbs you have a pretty wide variety of farms that supply to a mix of consumer and restaurant clients that depending on the demands either are or aren’t organically certified. The one I worked at was, and one of the better known chefs in the area (Ana Sortun) partners with an organic farm, but some of the other farms that are listed on menus aren’t organically certified. Verrill Farm for instance is on a ton of menus at top end restaurants in the area (Blue Ginger, Craigie on Main…) but aren’t organic certified. I think the local demand actually outstripped the organic demand here pretty significantly, and if you can put the name of the farm on the menu it satisfies consumers of the integrity without using the organic certification.