Conscious Choice: Organic Goes Mainstream

March 2000

Organic Goes Mainstream

by Tom Meier

Four years ago, while pregnant with her first child, Anne Lewis of Chicago started to think a lot about what she was eating and how it might affect her baby. Concerned about residues of pesticides in her food, she decided to try organic produce. But as she learned more, she began to see that switching to organic could have major environmental impacts as well.

Lewis and thousands of Americans like her who now shop organic are helping to revolutionize the way food is grown in this country.

Once available primarily at funky health food stores and co-ops in the form of wrinkled, sorry-looking produce, organic food is now sold at nearly three-quarters of supermarkets nationwide — and it encompasses everything from frozen pizzas to soda pop. Organic produce displays, according to one writer, are so stylish, they look like Calvin Klein showrooms for vegetables.

To Gene Kahn, CEO of Small Planet Foods and founder of Cascadian Farms, the nation’s largest producer of frozen organic products, this is good news. It means the work he’s been part of for the last thirty years has finally hit the mainstream.

For Kahn and many in the industry today — whether ex-hippie or current yuppie — organic is really about protecting the environment. So the more people buying organic, the more farm acreage can be devoted to this eco-friendly method of food production.

And we, as a country, are buying.

Huge Consumer Interest

The most comprehensive survey ever done on organic buying habits involving 26,000 U.S. consumers was just released in January by the market research firm the Hartman Group. It found that a full third of U.S. consumers purchase organic products — and 80 percent would be willing to try them if they were affordable and readily available at the supermarket.

In the last seven years, the organic industry has boomed from $1 billion a year in sales to $6 billion. Sales have almost doubled every three years. And even though it still accounts for under 2 percent of the total food system, organic is growing faster than any other segment of the grocery industry. Since 1990, organic has increased by more than 20 percent per year, compared with 3 to 5 percent for the food industry as a whole. This is attracting the attention of investors and large food companies. Heinz, Gerber, and General Mills are three of the big players who have recently entered the organic marketplace.

The new organic consumers reveal a different demographic than the early organic enthusiasts. Once characterized as sandal wearing Marxists with "Question Authority" stickers on the back of their rusty VW vans, the new organic shoppers tend to be professional women concerned more about their health than social change.

The Hartman Group survey actually revealed two major groups who buy organic. The heavier users of organic tend to be single females under thirty who make less than $30,000 a year. (One third of them makes less than $15,000.) Many are students, and a significant portion of them have or are working on graduate degrees. Even though these heaviest users of organic make less money, they are more likely not to mind paying a premium for organic and tend to have greater interest in organic as a means to protecting the environment than more moderate users.

The moderate users of organic are by far the larger group, and fit a more mainstream profile. They are still likely to be female (70 percent), but better than half are married, and many are between forty and forty-nine years old. One half of these consumers earns more than $50,000 a year, but they’re concerned with the high price of organic — and this is actually a barrier, they claim, to getting more into organic. They are more likely than the general population to live in or around urban areas of 2 million or more. They also have completed a higher level of formal education than the general population, although not as much as the heavy buyers of organic.

Fresh produce is still by far the largest selling category in organic. In fact, the top ten organic products that shoppers buy are all fresh produce items. But dairy, meat, and convenience foods like frozen entrées are all growing rapidly too.

Many of the nation’s top chefs are using organic for flavor reasons. Charlie Trotter of Chicago says, "I really do believe organic produce tastes better, simply because of the care it’s given as it grows. As a result, I think organic is becoming more popular with consumers for aesthetic reasons as much as environmental ones. People are realizing there’s a taste difference."

Industry leaders and many farmers agree that people first get involved with organic for "food safety issues" and perceived health benefits, but then they learn about other benefits as well.

Organic Helps the Environment

Although the majority of organic shoppers may cite health reasons as their buying motivation, by far the best-established benefits of organic are environmental. Organic farmers have known for decades that farming organically is better for the environment. Now there’s solid support for that. In a fifteen-year study conducted by the Rodale Institute in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, released in late 1998, organic was found to have significant environmental benefits over conventional farming. (J.I. Rodale was the first person to popularize the term "organic" in the 1940s.)

In this newly released study, researchers concluded that organic farming significantly reduced nitrate contamination of the groundwater — which affects rivers, drinking water, and other bodies of water. The study also found that organic practices improve soil fertility and overall quality. And organic farming greatly reduced soil erosion — an epidemic problem for America’s farms.

Further, it concluded that organic agriculture can reduce greenhouse emissions by locking more carbon in the soil rather than releasing it into the atmosphere. If organic fertilizer were used in the major corn and soybean growing regions of the U.S., the study reports, annual carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could be reduced by an estimated 2 percent.

The study also found that organic farming uses 50 percent less energy than conventional farming methods while producing yields the same or better than conventional yields. This challenges a decades-long popular assumption that farmers going organic would have to settle for lower yields.

"What we have shown," says Dr. Laurie Drinkwater, director of research at Rodale, "is that organic practices have multiple environmental benefits, in addition to improving soil quality and maintaining yields."

Demographics of Organic Farmers

The ability to match conventional yields is crucial for the organic industry, which still consists of mostly small family-owned farms. (In conventional farming, most farms are owned by corporations.) It’s difficult for the small family farmer to stay afloat today, and going organic is proving to be one of the critical ways to keep family farms in business.

"Going organic allows smaller farms a unique market access that they couldn’t get if they were growing conventional crops," says DiMatteo, because of the price premiums they can get and for the opportunity to market directly to local consumers.

There are approximately 6,500 certified organic farmers in the U.S. today, estimates Bob Scowcroft, executive director of the Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF) in Santa Cruz, California. That’s up from 5,300 in only two years — a 20 percent increase. Scowcroft says there are probably double that number who farm organically or are in transition but are not officially certified organic. The latest national survey of organic farmers, repeated every two years by the OFRF, found that 87 percent of organic farmers are family or family partnerships. The average acreage of an organic farmer is 140 acres (compared to 487 average for conventional farmers). Sixty-three percent of the organic farmers gross less than $30,000 a year, so they’re clearly out for more than money. They’re a highly educated group — 56 percent have a college degree, and 18 percent have graduate degrees. This is considerably higher than the general population. Seventy-five percent of the farmers are male, 40 percent are 41 to 50 years old, with the average age 47.5 years.

Eighty percent of these growers market their produce wholesale. Only 13 percent sell directly to the consumer, but 77 percent would like to increase their sales at the local level.

Although many organic farmers believe deeply in the environmental superiority of their method of farming, more and more are getting into it for economic reasons, according to Scowcroft. "There are a lot of split operations out there. My sense is that many who have come to organic in the last few years are not back-to-the-landers, but conventional farmers who are putting the back forty into organic because they’re enlightened, they want to be challenged, and finally and in capital letters, because the margins are clearly higher in organic and they want to diversify themselves."

For some organic farmers, costs can be higher, and organic growing practices often require more management than conventional farming. But the premiums afforded can offset the increased costs.

What is Organic Farming Anyway?

The consumer knows organic as food grown without synthetic chemicals, but what exactly is organic farming? (Actually there are a few synthetic substances that are allowed by the definition of organic, but they are only used as a last resort, according to Scowcroft.)

Organic is not simply the absence of dangerous synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. It’s a holistic approach to farming that tries to work with nature rather than control it. Conventional agriculture often views the farm as a factory and the food as no different from any other manufactured products. "In fact, there’s a large segment of the farming world that sees the soil as only something just to hold up the plant and something to facilitate the delivery of agricultural chemicals," says Fred Kirschenmann, who runs a South Dakota farm that is one of the largest organic grain farms in the country.

Organic, on the other hand, views the farm as an ecosystem, and tries to produce crops by maintaining a balance in this system. Key to this system is keeping the soil healthy, says Kirschenmann. To do this, organic farmers rotate crops, he says, because different plants drain the soil of different nutrients. If you plant the same crop year after year, you will end up with nutrient-depleted soil. Instead of dumping things like synthetic fertilizers on the soil to "force" the plants to grow, organic farmers cycle nutrients back into the soil from livestock manure and "green manure" — crops grown in the off season that are ground into the soil in the spring. The goal is not to have soil free of pests — it’s to achieve a living soil and a whole-farm ecosystem that emulate the balance found in nature.

Dave Perkins, who with his wife Barb runs Vermont Valley Farm CSA (community supported agriculture) near Madison, Wisconsin, says, "In order to do organic successfully you have to have a better understanding of soil. As you get into it, you become more aware of all the life going on in your field."

Randy Hughes, an organic grain farmer from Janesville, Wisconsin, who markets his own brand of blue corn chip regionally (called Blue Farm corn chips) agrees: "You’re more connected to and in tune with the soil. You’re working with Mother Nature, instead of trying to beat her at her own game. It’s more fun farming organically."

"I call it dancing with nature," adds Kirschenmann. "It takes more management than conventional agriculture, where you essentially read labels and follow directions. But when I take a handful of soil and feel the life in it and see the earthworms under it, something says to me, I’m doing the right thing. On this little spot of God’s earth we’re taking care of it the way we should be. And that’s very satisfying."

What Kirschenmann and organic farmers are doing, according to John Hall, president of Michael Fields Agricultural Institute in East Troy, Wisconsin, is "building and healing the soil."

Mike Hartmann, an organic dairy farmer in Minnesota, says that because of the "simplicity" of farming with nature, his expenses are actually considerably less than if he were a conventional farmer. "Sixty-eight percent of my gross income is profit. That’s just not done in the system anymore. The whole key to success for me," he says, "is generating more energy than you’re putting into it. Organic is really very simple if you think about it." Conventional agriculture, Hartmann says, can’t be sustained over the long term because the amount of energy put into growing (in the form of chemical inputs) is greater than what you get out of it.

In his ideal world, agricultural products would be distributed locally too. Along with his wife and brother, Hartmann runs Mom’s Dairy in Gibbon, Minnesota, ninety miles southwest of Minneapolis. They process and package all of their products at their own on-farm creamery and distribute at stores in the Twin Cities as well as doing home deliveries. He says that they can’t even begin to keep up with demand. "We go for quality," he says. "And the consumers know it when they taste it."

Will Organic Be Compromised by the Big Guys?

While Hartmann may worry about the pride and care of farming being lost as bigger producers get into organic, most veterans in the organic industry are overjoyed by organic’s huge boom and its move toward more mainstream shoppers.

Gene Kahn would like it to become our standard food system.

And Steve Pinkus, who helped form the Outpost Cooperative in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the early 1970s and is one of the region’s early progressive leaders of organic, says, "It’s been very satisfying to see organic go from many little storefront co-ops to something that’s in the consciousness of so many people now. Organic is better, even if it is grown by huge corporations. It’s a step way up from the standard way of growing food."

Yet some in the organic industry worry that as organic grows so rapidly — and big producers do start to flood the field — that the meaning and spirit of organic will be compromised by large-scale production driven by the profit motive alone.

This is a complex issue that generates debate in the organic community. DiMatteo believes as long as the federal government continues to listen to input from consumers and those in the industry, organic will stay pure. The essence of what organic means, she says, is embodied by the national organic standards. And the way to ensure that organic stays pure, according to DiMatteo, should not focus on keeping big producers out, but on getting a national organic standard that reflects the commitment and the care that those already practicing organic have.

But there’s a long association of organic with small family farming. Some in the industry are concerned that the family farmer may not be able to compete in the coming years with large operations that can afford to produce organic food more and more cheaply. As a result, says John Peterson of Angelic Organics CSA Farm in Caledonia, Illinois, organic may "wither as a poetic undertaking." Others worry that larger producers won’t produce the same quality food, and may cut corners or lobby the government to relax the rigid organic standards.

Organic Helps Family Farming Stay Viable

Although these may be real concerns, so far there’s not much to worry about. Scowcroft stresses that more than 80 percent of the U.S. organic farms are still small single-family farms under two hundred acres. And many of the big producers and distributors purchase directly from these farmers. So the more that organic is marketed — even if it’s by huge companies — the more the small farmer is supported.

So far, he explains, the entry of big producers into the field has created "just the opposite" of what some of the organic old-timers have feared. "The ripple effect has been largely positive," he says. "It’s provided another leg of sustainability for the small organic farmer." In other words, big companies producing organic products have actually helped the small organic farmer remain viable.

Buying organic is one of the most critical and important ways to keep the American family farmer viable today, Scowcroft says.

And Scowcroft also points out that the big players may actually have to adhere to the organic standards even more rigidly than the little guy because they will be under more scrutiny. If Heinz or Kraft were caught cutting corners or passing conventional produce off as organic, not only would it be a PR nightmare, but also their stocks could plummet.

Even though national and international players in the organic industry do distribute nationally, their purchasing policies often support the small, local farmer. Tom and Steve Pavich run Pavich Family Farms, the largest grower of organic grapes in the world and one of the nation’s biggest distributors of certified organic produce. They run their own farms, but they also buy much of the produce from small family farms scattered throughout the country. "I’d rather support Jimmy’s forty-acre broccoli patch than Monsanto," says Steve Pavich.

Small Planet Foods buys all of its dairy products exclusively from Organic Valley, a farmers’ cooperative based in Wisconsin that consists of an extensive network of small dairy farmers. And many of Small Planet’s suppliers of fruits and vegetables are also small farmers, according to Kahn.

"On-farm profitability has to be maintained if organic is to be successful in the long term. And large food companies understand that," says Kahn. "I’m not a doomsayer who believes that the advent of large conventional groceries or food companies will somehow destroy on-farm profitability."

Margaret Wittenburg, vice president of governmental and public affairs for Whole Foods Market, Inc. — the largest retailer of organic products nationwide — says that the company has a commitment to buying local where and when they can. At the Whole Foods Market in Madison, Wisconsin, for instance, produce manager Kristin Knutson says, "During the peak season we buy more than 75 percent of our produce from local organic farmers. Some are surprised by this and they assume that there is a centralized ordering system for all of the Whole Foods Markets. But actually it’s pretty decentralized. Farmers deliver produce directly to our stores just as they would to an area co-op."

Madison-based organic vegetable farmer Steve Pinkus confirms this. "They will often negotiate with the local producer and pay a bit more than from their California source, just to have local representation." Pinkus and his wife run Tipi Produce, a twenty-three-acre farm that does three quarters of its business with local stores and restaurants, and the other quarter at the Dane County Farmers’ Market in Madison.

The Price of Organic’s Growth

Gene Kahn thinks the best way to help the environment is to make organic accessible to as many people as possible by bringing the price down. "It’s really still an upscale phenomenon," he says. "And if organic is unaffordable, at the end of the day it’s just yuppie food. Remember, we’re only 2 percent of the food system. Organic has a huge opportunity, provided we bring forward a more mainstream consumer proposition." And, in addition to lower prices, that often means more processed foods, like Cascadian’s frozen entrées, the fastest growing part of his business.

Nell Newman’s whole strategy at Newman’s Own Organics (a spin-off of her father Paul’s food company) is to reach out to even more mainstream consumers by producing "great tasting products that happen to be organic," things like cookies and pretzels and chocolate bars.

This worries Fred Kirschenmann though. "If we mass produce organic just to achieve a low price and homogenize it in the process, the danger is that it will lose the very attractiveness that it has in the marketplace. The reason consumers want organic is that it’s different. Already we have organic colas and organic TV dinners in the marketplace that really look no different from the conventional ones except they have an organic label on them. I think we really ought to be preserving organic foods as whole foods as much as possible — and also working toward more local production so that they’re fresher and better tasting."

The buying public seems split on this issue. In the Hartman study, 75 percent of consumers reported that they would buy organic food if it were affordably priced and easy to find. However, in a study funded by Phillip Morris, 57 percent of people said they would actually accept higher prices for food if pesticide use could be reduced or eliminated; 68 percent would accept a smaller food selection; and 72 percent of people said they would buy produce seasonally and locally for cleaner food.

We still may be carting plastic wrapped organic potato chips to faraway places, says Kahn, but the farmland on which the crops were grown is ecologically sound. And the more ecologically-based farmland in the world the better, he says.

Still, the frozen organic food king concedes that sustainability is a process.

"We’re pouring diesel fuel into our trucks and running stuff all over the country and world," says Kahn. "And that is not in any way really sustainable. But it’s a step forward. So even though it ain’t a perfect world, just the idea of getting to consumers with an organic proposition is revolutionary."

Diverse Producers with a Common Concern

Today the organic industry is a diverse, multi-level industry that supports both small farmers serving local areas and large operations shipping products all over the world. It’s a small/large and local/long-distance industry. Some farmers sell to hometown markets where they are able to establish a personality and a local identity. Others sell to wholesalers or contract directly with large producers. Many small organic farmers do a combination of local retail and long-distance wholesale to make it.

And Margaret Wittenburg says that a spirit of cooperation pervades the industry. Rather than an us and them mentality, small farmers and big companies work together for their mutual benefit.

Steve Pavich says that one of the things that makes the organic industry so special is that it still provides ample opportunities for large farmers but also for small entry-level farmers. Steve Pinkus agrees: "There are always going to be opportunities for small local farmers, even as the big corporations get in."

And what unifies people in the organic industry — whatever level they are at — is a concern for protecting the environment. "Organic farmers are very vocal people," says farmer Randy Hughes. "They’re very well-read, they believe passionately in what they’re saying, and they’re very independent. But the one thing they’re all on the same page on is the environment."

The Evolution of Awareness

Ben Lilliston, communications director for the Organic Consumers’ Association in Minneapolis, feels that many consumers undergo an evolution as they get into organic. "I think there’s a direct relation between the growth of the organic at the supermarkets and at the farmers’ markets," explains Lilliston. "People may see organic in their supermarket and try it and begin to think about food in a different way. And they start to realize that they can go out on a Saturday morning and buy it directly from a farmer. So you’ve got to bring people along. And it’s a process."

Bob Scowcroft calls organic shoppers "evolutionary activists" beginning a journey of awareness when they get into organic.

What All of Us Can Do

We can clearly have an impact on the fate of the planet by what we eat. As noted farmer and writer Wendell Berry put it, "How we eat determines to a considerable extent how the world is used. Eating is inescapably an agricultural act."

So every time we buy organic or eat it at a restaurant, we’re casting a vote for the kind of food system we want.

And continued consumer participation is key, whether the threat is government standards or anyone else trying to dilute the meaning of organic. It’s the conscious consumer and the conscious farmer who are going to keep "organic" organic.

The long-term goal for some may be a move toward even more local and regional production, but many in the industry see the entry-level products sold at national supermarket chains as a crucial first step. People will not make the jump from Swanson’s Frozen Dinners to local free-range organic meat overnight. It takes time.

Katherine DiMatteo sums up the whole organic issue this way: "Organic is a sound, viable agricultural system that produces high-quality, good-tasting food, and at the same time it’s part of the solution to the environmental damage that’s been done over the last fifty years to the soil and water. By buying organic — even occasionally — you become part of a short- and long-term solution."

Our friend Anne Lewis of Chicago now shops for organic foods at local farmers’ markets when she can — and she’s even thinking of joining a CSA — because she wants to support local producers and get more connected to the source of her food. But more importantly, she says, she wants her children to grow up in a greener, less toxic world.

Tom Meier is a writer on organic agriculture from Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

Resources

Cascadian Farms

Hartman Group

Organic Consumers Association

Organic Farming Research Foundation

Organic Trade Association

Rodale Institute

Whole Foods Market

Wild Oats Market

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