What’s in a Name? The Rise of Alternative Farming

1. What’s in a Name?The Rise of Alternative Farming • Local Food, Market Gardening, Niche Farming, Organic Farming—different, and yet oh so similar • The concepts of local food, market gardening, and niche farming are often viewed interchangeably, while all are often confused with organic farming. Why? Might it just be because they are parts of a whole?

2. Just a Bit of Background • We tend to forget that once upon a time most farms were market farms, and most food was local food • Change was generated by advances in food preservation and transportation, and continued by a fundamental restructuring of the nature of the farm through the first half of the 20th century • For the consumer the result was cheaper, more plentiful and more varied food choices purchased from grocery stores. • For the farm economy the result intense price competition and mechanization, consolidation, and crop simplification

3. Background continued • By the mid-1900s most farm markets were gone, home delivery of local produce basically disappeared, Americans fully accepted grocery store beef and pork, and the revolution in chicken raising was soon to spell the doom of local chicken. • In short, the structure needed to support market-oriented farming was all but gone. • Florin remembers his childhood

4. Organic Farming • Change, and the rebirth of market gardening, began with the emerging interest in organic farming in the 1950s—the roots were in the incipient concern for environmental degradation and food adulteration. • First often viewed as fringe, weird, maybe even a communist activity • Rodale • By the 1970s private sector organic certification became widespread • During the 1990s the US developed federal legislation on organic certification

5. Organic Farming Explosion • The organic market has been growing by 15-20% annually—8-10 times the rate for all foods • Now accounts for nearly 2% of all food sales • Can now buy organic foods in nearly 3/4s of all grocery stores • Wal Mart entering the market

6. Organic Farming Issues • Benefits of organic poorly studied, mostly word of mouth—the world still has not figured out what to do with niche farming • Arguments for: • Less use of synthetic pesticides and herbicides—better for humans and better for the environment • Use less energy and water • Improve soil quality • Arguments against: • Elitist—the poor cannot afford organic • Lots of natural pesticides cause harm and are not as well studied as are conventional pesticides • Are really just anti-technology and anti-modern science • Soil quality improvement mostly due to crop rotation

7. The Local Food Movement • Think globally, act locally • Definition flexible and often confusing • Interpretations of the meaning of the term • Produced by local independent farmers • Unprocessed or lightly processed • Often confused with organic • Local foods and local economies • Farmers markets • Community-supported agriculture (CSA) • Valuing farming as an occupation

8. Market Gardening—Outgrowing the Niche? • Small scale • Often just a few acres, rarely as much as 100 acres • Variety of products • Sell directly through stands, farmers markets, CSAs, food co-ops • 80% of price to farmer, opposed to 10-15% in the rest of the farm economy • “Urban foraging” • Increasing sales through natural food stores • Alternative business and life style choice • Hobby farms? • Not an option for most traditional farmers—with exceptions • Farmland preservation • The continuing issue of price—elitism again