Organic Food?

[futurebird]

I have a lot of friends who inform me (with pride) that they have switched to organic produce. I have nothing against this-- I buy it when I can find it-- but, quite often, I find that my friends, who are young left-leaning (though not always politically active) professionals in NYC have confused "organic" with a host of other issues that face our food supply and that they believe-- erroneously that simply by shopping and buying certain things they can change the world. First of all... what are the problems with the food supply in the US?

1. Healthy food, such as fresh vegetables and fruits, are hard to find or too expensive in many neighborhoods leaving only low-nutrition alternatives: grains and sugar-based foods.
   
2. As the price of oil rises, the way that we farm will become unsustainable. Oil-based fertilizers, and shipping food long distances are not good practices for a stable food network. We need to revive diverse local farm networks, so most food is coming from less than 150-miles away.
   
3. For middle-class and wealthy people in the US meat is a huge part of the diet. Meat also has a very large carbon foot-print compared to other foods. We could eat much less meat (I'm not saying NO meat, just less) and be just as healthy if not more healthy. Doing so would free up more resources for producing vegetables too meet our long-term food needs.
   
4. Farming contributes a lot of carbon to the environment and choices that we make about farming will have an impact on our climate.
   
5. Food grown with oil-based pesticides may be less healthy than organic produce. There is some evidence that this is true so we should look in to it-- if oil-based pesticides do cause serious health problems they should be eliminated from all foods.

When you buy organic food all you're doing is avoiding the potential danger in #5-- you're doing it for yourself and your family. Organic food may not be local, it may not be produced using sustainable farming methods, it may be highly processed and wrapped in tons of packaging. So it's not always "green" -- furthermore, the certification process is a little silly-- as far as I can tell it's created a line of gourmet produce for the wealthy. How is this addressing any of the serious food issues we face? If we're going to address these food supply issues we need to do more than just shop.

So, what actions work?

1. Start or join a CSA.
   
2. Lobby you local government to help people on public assistance get produce from the CSA. See if you can offer this food at an extra low price to people in need.
   
3. Get to know a farmer-- Find out how they grow the food and what challenges they face--- Ask them what they think of "organic certification" you will learn a lot.
   
4. Reduce the amount of meat that you eat and spread the word to others about doing so.*
   
5. Ask your politicians to take up the food supply issue. Make it pragmatic.
   
6. If you are middle class or rich: go shopping in the poorest area in your city-- just try it once as a learning experience-- You will see that the quality of food and the prices are very different-- This will help you understand the issue better. I think it will make most of you a little angry and you'll understand why I'm not in love with foods stamped as "organic" as a solution. I sometimes don't think that people even have a clue what the problem is-- It's just simple ACCESS in many parts of the country. You can't buy fresh food even if you wanted to.
   

*this is a kind of "consumer action" --Are there way to make it less passive? Tell me!