We've talked about 'conventional' vs. 'organic' crops (so far, pretty much just leeks, really, but there will be more). That paper was pretty much focusing on those farms and their differences, and how that plays out in terms of impacts. In this post, though, we'll talk more about organic farms potentially getting more conventional - and so theoretically less 'good' in the ways that we want organic to be good. This is referred to as 'conventionalization'. The big question at hand is - how do we tell if conventionalization is happening?
So is my granola bad or not?
Darnhofer and co. seem to be a wee bit annoyed with the current 'debate' about whether organic farms are becoming conventionalized. I've identified with this feeling of irritation previously, while going on about granola and whether the fact that an organic operation had changed and scaled up meant it was necessarily bad.
So when I got the the part in their paper where they get very snide (in a scientific, proper sort of way) about drawing conclusions from inappropriate data (like farm size! Ha!) to decide whether organic farms are getting worse, I felt a little justified. And I will admit it - when they put in a jab about how studies on the changes in organic farming were being done by social scientists (heaven forfend!) I started feeling a bit of actual smugness. Not that studying neutrinos at some point actually makes me any more qualified to talk about changing farm dynamics than a social scientist.
How would we know?
All my misplaced feelings of superiority aside, it quickly became clear that just because the authors did not like the way the debate was being conducted, did not mean any easy answers awaited.The authors don't disagree that there's very likely a real problem. They acknowledge multiple times that there are 'signs' of conventionalism, and while they may not yet be dominant, they are real and pose a threat. From the pure perspective of outputs, more conventionalized farms may not have the environmental or social benefits that are generally ascribed to organic farms (we'll come back to those). And in diminishing those benefits on a large scale, conventionalism theatens the credibility of organic farming as something that is meaningfully different and more positive than the alternatives.
The authors talk about a lot of changes that are commonly pointed to as signs of conventionalism, or bad change:
- Larger farms
- More disease treatments for animals
- Intensified milk production
- Less farmer 'concern' about the environment
- Fewer 'mixed' (e.g. completely different crop types, or crops and animals both)
- Higher usage of 'allowed' fertilizers
- Less direct marketing (e.g. more sales through retailers)
Is change an illusion?
Some of these changes, they argue, may not even really exist. Size, for example. I have a vision in my head of what an organic farm looks like - it's a field, several acres, ten minutes from where I grow up. It's owned by a Skagit Valley family, and boasts a varied veggie stand with a hand written sign. When I hear about organic farms that are hundreds of acres in size, focus on a few crops, and that sell primarily to retailers, I contrast them against that vision and start thinking about how things are 'changing' - but there's not a whole lot of historical data to show that my vision is the 'original'. In fact, the authors note that in Europe, organic farms in 2005 were, on average, twice as large as conventional farms.
As another example, they also argue that statistics about mixed farms may be misleading. The point of mixed farms with both animals and crops is that the animal waste can then be re-used as a part of the farm fertilizer. However, if some farms that previously had both animals and crops now have just crops, that's only meaningful if there were previously enough animals to put a dent in the farm's fertilizer needs - a dozen pigs aren't going to have much impact on a 50 acre farm, and their loss doesn't impact that overall footprint of the farm much.
Or is change just elusive?
It's not that things are not changing; many things are. There's real data on a number of those bullets I listed a few paragraphs up, and while a statistics don't always make it clear exactly what's going on, they can point at areas that need more questioning. The big point the authors make is that not all change is bad. People learn. New entrants to organic farming may change the demographics of the organic landscape, but they may bring fresh insights, leading to positive change in the end. Markets shift, which might lead to the mix of crops in production shifting in response - not inherently bad. And those who have been in the field for a long time may find different ways to solve problems that work better, bringing about changes that don't in any way represent a negative shift.
When change matters
And there's the value judgments coming out - 'positive change', 'not inherently bad', 'negative shift'... Here's where it gets tough. What makes a change good or bad? We end up back at values. What is the 'heart' of organic farming that we do not wish to change? What about 'organic' do we value?
Well, we've talked about values before, and in fact this is the paper that brought those IFOAM standards (which I quite like, by the way) to my attention. The authors argue that if we take those standards as a good definition of the core values of organic farming, the right way to evaluate changes is to assess whether a change somehow goes against those principles.
Does a bigger farm mean it is less healthful, disrespects ecological systems, is unfair, or indicates a lack of care? Not in and of itself, no. What about disease treatments to cows? More fertilizers? These start to touch on the organic principles, but not in an easily quantifiable way.
So how do we make values into something quantifiable in this case?
More to come...
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