92 Money Tree The Business of Organics

CHAPTER 1 Whole Foods CAN A SUPERMARKET REALLY BE ORGANIC? In 1980, John Mackey, a 27-year-old vegetarian, and his 23-year-old girlfriend, Renee Lawson, were running a small health food business in Austin, Texas, USA. They decided the time was right for an organic supermarket, so they merged their business with another store and opened Whole Foods Market. Their motto was: Whole Foods, Whole People, Whole Planet. Previously, health food stores had concentrated on herbal products, beans, fruits, and vegetables; but the new store also sold products such as fresh bread and local fish, meat, and cheese. The new supermarket was an immediate success and by 1985, Whole Foods had added stores in Dallas and Houston.

The company began buying out its local competitors, and in 1992, it started opening stores throughout the USA. Since then, its varied organic produce, clean colorful stores, and friendly staff have proved a recipe for success. The Whole Foods success story has not been free of criticism, however. Although the company sells an image of high quality organic, local produce, the reality is often different. Most organic food in the USA actually comes from a few giant farms. This is because US food legislation makes it difficult for small farms to qualify as "organic." Also, a lot of the company's produce comes from abroad; and while goods from China and Mexico may be green, the amount of oil needed to transport them is certainly not. Many green activists insist that Whole Foods does not represent the model of sustainable local food that the organic pioneers intended. One of the biggest criticisms of the store, however, is its pricing. In fact, the company's promotion of healthy organic food as a lifestyle choice to the wealthy has even led some critics to change its motto to: "Whole Foods, Whole Paycheck..."

CHAPTER 2 What Is Organic Anyway? WHEN YOU THINK OF ORGANIC FOOD, WHAT WORDS COME TO MIND? NATURAL, LOCAL, ETHICAL? IN FACT, THE CLASSIFICATION OF ORGANIC FOOD IS A TRICKY BUSINESS. Until the 19th century, nobody would have considered farming as anything other than organic. Crops were fertilized using animal manure and compost. In the 18th and 19th centuries, however, chemists were discovering more about chemicals. The work of German chemist Justus von Liebig, in particular, led to the development of cheap nitrogen fertilizers. The agricultural revolution that followed, especially in Great Britain, brought about a huge increase in crop production. This helped feed the country's rapidly growing urban population and reduce famine. However, not everybody was convinced of the benefits of the new technologies.

Sir Albert Howard's experiences in India convinced him that correct animal and crop management in a local area produced strong pest-resistant plants that were superior to those grown with chemical fertilizers. He saw chemical fertilizers as expensive, unnecessary, and unsustainable and studied ways to farm productively but naturally. Howard himself never used the word organic. It was British agriculturalist Lord Northbourne who first referred to a farm as a single "organic whole," describing a more balanced, sustainable style of farming. Northbourne's ideas, however, were not widely accepted. The following years saw an increase in the use of fertilizers and pesticides, which allowed farmers to plant large quantities of single crops. Most farms became industrialized single-crop producers that depended on pesticides and fertilizers. Then in the 1970s, some people began to express their concerns about the negative effects of these methods on soil quality and the environment. These green activists began to call for a return to more traditional styles of farming.

At the same time, in other parts of the world modern methods were replacing traditional farming. In Mexico, Pakistan, and India, Nobel Prize-winning agriculturalist Norman Borlaug pioneered the use of new crops and technologies and greatly increased food production. Environmentalists criticized Borlaug's work, which they claimed led to reliance on a single crop, inequality, malnutrition, and the loss of natural wildlife. While Borlaug recognized some of these claims, he argued that his principle aim was an end to hunger, something, he pointed out, that most of his critics had never experienced. Meanwhile, in the USA and the UK, many smaller farms were trying to return to natural methods, growing many different crops and keeping animals to fertilize the soil. Throughout the 1970s, activists continued to promote a return to more traditional ways of living, and some people were encouraged to try to provide their own food, both out in the countryside and using smaller urban gardens.

However, as the idea of organic food became more popular, big business began to move in. The 1980s and 1990s saw the growth of large organic farms and supermarkets, and the importation of organic produce from abroad. At the same time, new legislation in places such as the USA and Europe has made it extremely expensive and complicated for small producers to obtain organic certification. Ironically, many natural local farms are not classed as organic, while much of the organic food supermarkets sell often comes from foreign countries. This has led to criticism from environmentalists who feel that the term organic no longer represents the ideals of organic farming. As we move into the 21st century with a world population of seven billion people, the debate on how we should feed ourselves shows no sign of coming to an end.