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Organic foods coming
back in style
By Crystal Hubbard
Collegian Freelancer
Birkenstocks, straggly hair, Haight-Ashbury,
and the "Mother Earth" movement all characterized
what later generations would come to call the era of the "hippies"-or,
more chronologically stated, the 60s and 70s. However, one of
the mainstays of this period in American and European cultures
is gaining momentum in today's high-tech world of electrically
charged automobiles and spray-on toupees. As people become increasingly
aware of health concerns facing our prepackaged, TV dinner-ized
world, more consumers are turning to organic grocery stores
and "free range" farms.
Urban, suburban and rural parents, concerned
with a number of manufacturing issues, ranging from pasteurization
to pesticides, preservatives and growth hormones, are turning
to flower power children and their offspring to supply their
households with foods that promise higher quality and safety.
Also, those with a desire to promulgate healthy crop environments
and rotations see organics as an answer to the dangerous manufacturing
of common household items.
But what, exactly, can be considered as an
"organic" product? A working definition from FAO/WHO
Codex Alimentarius Commission should suffice: Organic agriculture
is holistic production management systems which promotes and
enhances agro-ecosystem health, including biodiversity, biological
cycles, and soil biological activity... Organic production systems
are based on specific and precise standards of production, which
aim at achieving optimal agro-ecosystems, which are socially,
ecologically and economically sustainable. Terms such as "biological"
and "ecological" are also used in an effort to describe
the organic system more clearly. Requirements for organically
produced foods differ from those for other agricultural products
in that production procedures are an intrinsic part of the identification
and labeling of, and claim for, such products.
In other words, an organic product is anything
manufactured in a non-conventional, non-homogenized, pesticide-free
environment.
In a poll taken by the National Organic Program
in 2001, 82 percent of the United Kingdom's population desired
a return to more "traditional" methods of crop raising,
in an attempt to stave off the onslaught of conventionally produced
products. Even more recently, trend spotters at New Hope Natural
Media Online have cited growing organic awareness (albeit trendy)
in the United States. High schools on both coasts have implemented
a trial period of soymilk vendors, in place of ubiquitous Coke
machines, and health-snack machines in lieu of the traditional
post-lunch Snickers.
Opponents of organics see the movement largely
as a stab against government subsidized farmers, who rely on
chemicals to produce crops at a much more economically efficient,
rate. Organic foods are traditionally more costly than their
conventional counterparts, and tend to appeal to the more affluent.
Lower-income parents wishing to serve their children "the
very best" are certainly at a disadvantage if what organic
proponents say is correct.
Next week's issue we'll take a closer look
at the organic movement and what it means for the average consumer.
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Tyler Horning/Collegian
Monic Rasmussen stocks the
shelves with more organic cereal at Hillsdale Natural Grocery.
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