[Scpg] TRANSITIONS

[steven sprinkel]

T R A N S I T I O N S



by Steven Sprinkel

Ojai, California





 

 

July 2005

 

 

The long-simmering debate over organic versus local produce begins to boil over these days, in venues large and small. The common frustration with what organic has become is evident. And larger questions beside corporate versus family-run production underscore the seriousness of the debate. 



With fuel costs adding depth to the discussion- because the cost of sustainable fuel is now measured in blood-getting food from near rather than far becomes more compelling. We consider airplane bellies full of Holland's bell peppers, farmed shrimp from Indonesia, and boats pushing coconuts, durians, star-fruit and mangoes to eager gourmets and foodies. We have organic orange juice from Florida sitting here on store shelves in a valley with 2700 acres of oranges. We also observe China's production in commodities, like soybeans and apple juice, destined for markets willing to pay the best price. All the pumps are cranked wide open. 

 

Indeed, if war is what we need to sustain our glossy standard of living, then the unseasonal and tropical delights we enjoy may not be worth the real price we now pay. 



Delights like celery, for example. 



With all the record-setting rain in California this year, celery growers were prevented from planting for nearly two months. Therefore, there was no domestic organic celery to be found for over a month-but there was organic celery up from Mexico. We sold it at cost for three dollars per. >From the perspective of Company B, First Battalion, Fifth Marines, the celery might as well have been tomatoes or even bananas, the same amount of fuel was used to get it up here.

 

On one hand, we are happy to see the locally grown benefits more fully fleshed out, but do wonder if organic needs to be considered a contributing malefactor in the debate. Why either, or? Why us-them? There are, after all, oranges and apples, and then there are tangerines. Which is to say, you have long-haul product, your neighbor's goods, and then you have the organic version of the same. We suggest at the outset, that we should figure out the local deal, and then compare, by defending it, the attributes of organic, which are independent of the positives pertaining to the oranges from around the corner where a few pounds of urea was thrown under every tree.

 

We were content at first to let the hollering die down on its own, but when an important national sustainable agriculture leader, Michael Abelman, told a writer for the Los Angeles Times that he would " rather buy the commercial broccoli grown down the street than the organic that was shipped halfway around the world", its apparent that we have arrived at a place where we need to apply some care. The renowned  Mr. Abelman  has been an organic farmer for three decades. 



And I , as well, would be one who might need a dose of calm, because I have been warned more than once that I should not so thoroughly brutalize the organic system we have built, with the USDA at the apex, to the extent that my criticism might overly influence another farmer to not abandon the use of synthetic chemicals, nor a consumer, who could be undecided about the good that the organic farming movement has done and will do in the future. The stakes are too large to walk away from what was once a common dream, to stop the suicide machine.

 

I would rather support a system that aims to claim acreage for nature's sake, a system that takes one more railcar of anhydrous ammonia, chloropicrin or dimethylphosphate off our accident prone transportation system before another five thousand gallons spills into a river people get their drinking water from. Isn't it better if we just stop making that stuff? Organic does that, some day.

 

 

     We are all for local, but local doesn't get one percent done of what organic does when it comes to food safety, worker safety, environmental protection downwind and downstream, and real corporate control. 



Besides, if you are not one hundred percent behind organic, you really are casting a vote for GMO agriculture. Just because William Bolthouse and Grimmway own the organic carrot deal or Dean Foods has a large play in the organic milk trade, these consequences of our success provide no motive to ignore the hoary shadow of Monsanto lounging on the sidelines. Monsanto cut that deal for Seminis, the big multinational seed producer, in order to ramp up the GMO vegetable deal-and now forty percent, or more, of all edible horticultural products are at risk. 



We are all for local-I like to brag how I only put gas in my truck twice in all of January, and might have even run bunches back to the store on a bike if it hadn't been raining so much. But golly, it sure gives a person a fright to imagine us abandoning organic farming because its been so successful. On the other hand, we note that Mr. Abelman does ship his stuff over three hundred miles to the San Francisco Ferry Plaza market weekly, which is not really just "down the street" from Fairview Gardens in Goleta. 



 

Local produce is good. Nobody has to explain why. Nearly everyone seems to want local. Its fresh, and comfortingly familiar. The provenance is fuel efficient and implies safekeeping, rather than its anonymous, long distance counterpart. Buying it keeps more neighborhood money within sight. And I agree with those that claim its even a matter of national security. We should plan on feeding ourselves as a nation, just as prudent families keep ten gallons of water and some canned goods in the basement in case of calamity. And beyond these ideas, we have a national  movement to obligate country-of-origin labeling at point of purchase. Some of us just want to know.

 

So, what does local mean? In our place, we arbitrarily define local to mean that the local produce was raised within the our Ojai Valley, encompassing the various tributaries of the Ventura River down to Casitas Springs, and all the vales surrounding Casitas Lake. If the water from your place drains into the Ventura River, you are a local grower. The drainage is no more than forty miles long. The geography makes it simple. Good thing we are not on the banks of the Monongahela  River. 



However, the nostalgia for simpler times of farmers markets where almost everyone was

organic, shouldn't misinform the present. In Max Withers' LA Times article from the 4th of May in which Mr. Abelman was quoted, former Columbia University professor Joan Gussow, implies that the USDA's version of organic is "not what we meant. When we said organic, we meant local.We meant being truthful to the ecology of regions." 

Well, not really, Professor Gussow. We may have wished it could be so, but codifying sustainability must be a hundred times more complex than regulating organic. 

 

Instead, when we said organic, we generally meant no synthetic materials used. But Professor Gussow, and far too many other influential folks, seem just as confused now about the purposes of the National Organic Program as when she was a member of the National Organic Standards Board in the late 1990s, and served as the chairperson of the subcommittee which created the nefarious special criteria for processing which provoked, in part, the lawsuit against USDA recently settled by Arthur Harvey. Sorry to point that out, but we'll never get this straight if even the PhDs fumble. 

 

The standards in the Organic Foods Production Act do talk about ecology but very sparely, and never broaching the sociology that we may have thought was implied because we owned a road-side stand. 

 

The law prohibits the use of manure if it contributes to water pollution. It suggests that natural substances could be prohibited if they are detrimental to the environment or human health, or if there is a   " potential of such substances for detrimental chemical interactions with other materials used in organic farming systems; the toxicity and mode of action of the substance and of its breakdown products or any contaminants, and their persistence and areas of concentration in the environment"; and, one of our favorites, 



"the probability of environmental contamination during manufacture, use, misuse or disposal of such substance;  the effect of the substance on human health; (and) the effects of the substance on biological and chemical interactions in the agroecosystem, including the physiological effects of the substance on soil organisms." 



But though we wish that, somehow, it might have been possible under the brave new organic paradigm to prohibit the importation of organic honey from China, for example, we can't force organic's round peg into sustainability's square hole. Moreover, it would  not be necessary, if only more common sense was applied.



While perusing a tin of Mehan's Sandalwood Balm from Bonny Dune Farm near Santa Cruz, California, I note that they list specifically local bees wax in their ingredients list. Are we channeling the same paradox? That, because of free trade we blithely are putting our own beekeepers out of business, they who haul hives under cover of night to almond farms and watermelon fields to pollinate our crops?  Is local beeswax that important? You must know. Bonny Dune must know. 



At the end of a morning harvest, we walk a little warily with our heads bent down beneath the screaming flightpath of hundreds off thousands of honey bees winging rapidly between the avocado orchard blooming next to us and their blue and white hives resting in the organic Valencia orchard below us. Francisco Tirado and I are planting watermelons this week and I am feeling good about pollination.



That, instead is the story that needs to be told, and the relationship built between industry and consumer might be all the better for it should we be able to protect local production without regulating it. Advertising is a lot more efficient than getting congress to write a law and for the USDA to hang some regs on it. 



A few months ago when local production fell off we ordered honey off the truck. Then the sixty pound bucket of honey came to the store with CHINA stamped on the lid so I sent it back. And I beat the bushes some more and found some honey over the hill in Piru. If we all want our food web to be sensible before we are done we'll see if we can get more import buckets headed back the other way and save our honey producers who, besides the honey, give us things like local pollen during allergy season, and zucchini and honeydew melons, and tangerines. There is local's best motive.



Not that we are inventing anything. In Great Britain, for example, much energy has been spent in defining local and then managing agricultural commerce according to that definition. Farmers Markets in Britain generally offer produce that was grown on farms within a thirty mile radius of each specific market. This figure seems to have caught on broadly in the UK, where the subject has been debated to a fine point. The Campaign to Protect Rural England is determined that local is key, and they have been working at it since 1966! Dr. Jules Pretty of the University of Essex lends academic stature to the subject, and The Friends of the Earth and the Soil Association all have opinions. Somerset Local Food Direct proposes that local should be equivalent to the neighborhood. However, they do not define that; but I feel that a neighborhood is something I can walk through in about fifteen minutes. Man, that is a small place! 

 

In the United States, we may be a bit behind on specific definitions, but we are not slacking on wanting local produce to become better esteemed. Folks from Bridging The Gap in Kansas City, localharvest.org, Food Ventures in Puget Sound, Alice Waters, the famous chef at Chez Panisse in Berkeley, the venerated poet Wendell Berry, and farm folk from every tillable valley from coast to coast all strongly emphasize the importance of local food sourcing. 



So what is that local food web? Where do those turnips and tangerines grow? Did you grow that celery? ( NO) When will you have basil? ( In awhile).  I have my own zucchini, thanks. ( excuse me, and right on.)



I already missed mulberry season? Get Out!



**





TRANSITIONS appears monthly in the Austin, Texas-based ACRES,USA. 



ACRES has been published for over thirty years. It is a farmer's guide to chemical-free agricultural practices with many stories describing the success of farmers who have creatively moved away from synthetic farming methods and are now succeeding with new marketing skills and fresh perspectives on soil management and pest prevention.



For subscription information please call 800-355-5313

or refer to acresusa.com.







Steven Sprinkel produces organic vegetables, herbs and flowers on six acres in the Ojai Valley and is managing an eleven acre citrus orchard in the last 16 months of its transition to organic status. He has been farming commercially since 1975. Steve first learned about horticultural practices at Camp Joy Farm in Boulder Creek, California and more about commercial farm management while employed by Ken Kamiya and Joe Montoya in Hawaii. He has farmed in a number of other locales, including Carpinteria, California as a tenant farmer for seven years at the Moore Ranch Company and in the Austin, Texas area in the 1990s.



Most of Mr. Sprinkel's annual horticultural production is sold or processed at The Farmer and The Cook, which he co-owns with his wife, Olivia Chase. The Farmer and The Cook is an all-organic bakery, cafe, and corner grocery store in Meiners Oaks, near Ojai. It is somewhat well-known for its salad bar. Formerly Ms. Chase was the proprietor of the noted and award-winning City Bakery Cafe in Ventura, California. 

 

 copyright 2005 



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