In this chapter, the author sets out to investigate the organic "scene". Starting from his local organic super market Whole Foods, while he picks up this next family dinner, and explains organic food.
Even the very definition of the term involved with the industry itself. What is really behind the misunderstood word of "Organic"? The impression to the general population is that, any product stamped with organic word on is automatically more "superior". How true is that? The Author also questions all the literature presented alongside the the food; how accurate does it it depict the actually condition of the plant/animals on their respective farms?
As it turns out, the mainstream organic should be called "Big Organic". A bunch of the organic farms started as hippie farms of the 70s, using no chemicals in growing their produce. Eventually they felt the growing pains and needed the industrial machinery to help them expand their "business". It is ironic that the very hippies that once raged against the machines eventually deflected to the "dark side".
source: boingboing
One such example is Gene Kahn, founder of Cascadian Farm. It was just a simper quasi-communal hippie farm back in the day. Eventually, Kahn realized that: no body's overly concerned about organic food after all: "It's just lunch". Eventually, these one time "small organic" farms evolved into the super sized "big organic" farms that fills the selves of the organic produce section in the supermarket.
Deeper in the investigation, the author found that the big organic farms , aka industrial organic, are not completely different from the conventional farms after all. Other plants are introduced on the fields as the alternative to pesticides; horse dun is used as fertiliser, instead of NPK chemicals. Mass manual labour are employed to take care of the plants. Yet massive harvesting and packaging machinery are still used to "process" the the crop.
It is no wonder that Joel Salavin insisted being called "beyond organic". All this processing he considers his anti-thesis.
I do not think using foreign labour (in this case, from Mexico) is the longer term solution for the food industry, as it creates what's called a "dependency" for developing country to outsource cheap labour to industrialized nations.
The Rosie chickens, the so called "free-range", is treated not that different from the the steers of the Iowas feeding lot: although the chickens here are not bathing in their own feces and fed anti-biotic, the are still in cramped quarter. The free-range part, is nothing more than a door way to a tiny space that the chickens do not even go to.
source: Mom's on the roof again
Sitting down with his family to indulge on an all organic meal (featuring Rosie the chicken,
South American asparagus in January, and a variety of California industrial-organic produce) with his family, the author admits that the food is essentially the same as an ordinary meal - after you factor in the freshness.
So what does that leave the value of big organic then? The author admits that it maybe very well be "healthier" for people to eat, although science is not at the level to pin-point what exactly it is that makes it healthy. It is using scientific induction to make this "educated guess".
What is known for sure? The drastic reduction of pollution to the environment while raising the crops and animals. No manure ponds, no pesticides are may remain in our atmosphere. No chemical runoff to poison our rivers.
The author concludes this chapter with some sarcasm: all this seemly is "greener" method of producing food has still, one fatal flaw: it is still “floating on a sinking sea of petroleum.” Every step is making the food onto the dinner plate still requires too much petro to ship it around the world.
source: Pacific riptide
Hey, nice site you have here! Keep up the excellent work!
回覆刪除farmmachinery used