Alternative Food Politics

From the Margins to the Mainstream

Michelle Phillipov, Katherine Kirkwood, Michelle Phillipov, Katherine Kirkwood

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351402941
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Industrie alimentaire

Media interest in food has intensified in recent years, leading to a contemporary food landscape where 'alternative' food practices are increasingly visible. Concerns that were once exclusively the domain of activist movements motivated by environmental, animal rights, health and anti-corporate agendas are now central to primetime television cooking shows, mobile apps and social media.

This book is the first to explore the impact of popular media and culture on contemporary food politics. Through examination of a range of media and cultural texts, including news, digital media, advertising and food labelling, it brings together leading and emerging scholars in food studies, media and communications, sociology, law, policy studies, business, and geography. The book explores the practices of alternative food movements, the marketing techniques of conventional and alternative food producers, and the relationships between food industries, media, and the public. Covering topics ranging from agtech start-ups and social justice projects, to new ways of mediating food waste, celebrity, and 'ethical' foods, Alternative Food Politics reveals the importance of media as a driver of food system transformation.

This is a pivotal time for media and food industries, and this book is essential reading for scholars and students seeking to better understand the futures, possibilities and limits of food politics today.

Part 1

Limits and paradoxes

1 The (continuing) paradox of the organic label

Reflections on US trajectories in the era of mainstreaming

Julie Guthman

I am convinced that organic agriculture is essential to the revitalization of rural America.

(Former US Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, speaking to the National Organic Coalition in 2012)

After decades of disparagement, organic farming in the US now enjoys significant legitimacy among policy makers and consumers, and in the food industry itself. To be sure, Vilsack’s comment is a far cry from that of a previous holder of that same post, Earl Butz, who, in 1971, equated a ‘return’ to organic agriculture as a recipe for widespread starvation. Institutionally, this heightened legitimacy is demonstrated in the full roll-out of a national organic food standard, increased (though still nominal) government funding for organic programs, and major changes in the rules for organic livestock that allow meat to be sold as organic. As for consumers, today no less than two-thirds of Americans buy organic products occasionally, and 28% buy them weekly (Greene et al., 2009). Virtually every major food manufacturer now carries an organic product line, and organic food can be found in big box retailers throughout the US, as well as in natural food stores in college towns and in upscale restaurants in cosmopolitan urban centres.

The so-called mainstreaming of organics has not been uncontested. On one side are those who claim that it has enabled a broader swathe of producers to employ at least better methods, and thus allowed more consumers access to at least safer and perhaps healthier food, which ostensibly should be (some of) the goals. On the other are those who point out that corporate and/or government involvement in organics has entailed a dilution of the values and practices of organic farming, and has brought unwanted competition within the organic market. These claims notwithstanding, few have investigated how mainstreaming has actually affected the farming sector in the US.

As it happens, much of the growth stemming from organic mainstreaming is in value-added production, rather than in a huge influx of new growers or a massive expansion of acreage. Indeed, growers who have transitioned to organics in response to mainstreaming have done so in hesitant and protracted ways. Mainstreaming has thus contributed to what has come to be known as bifurcation’, referring to the existence of two sets of growers. One set is comprised primarily (though not solely) of those who were once—or still are—in part conventional growers, who grow and sell products for major distributors, processors, and national chains, often at the behest of those buyers. These are the ones who represent and drive mainstreaming. The other set is comprised of those who primarily (though not solely) sell in local and regional markets, and often, if not always solely, engage in direct marketing. Most, but not all, in this latter group have always grown organically, but are not necessarily certified as organic producers. One question is why growth trajectories are the way they are, given the expectations that a US federal standard would level the playing field and thus ease entry across the board. A second is what significance bifurcation has for the growth and character of the sector.

This chapter explores these two, interrelated questions, through research I conducted in 2013 in preparation for the second edition of my book, Agrarian Dreams: The Paradox of Organic Farming in California (2014). Although I saw many dynamics at work, I found that the structure and growth trajectories of the sector are still fundamentally shaped by the form of regulation that the organic sector has embraced. In the US (and elsewhere), for producers to legitimately claim they grow organically, they must abide by a set of standards devised by oversight bodies and must then be certified to that standard. Certification may be performed by non-profit organisations, for-profit businesses, or even state agencies. In the US, it was originally the certifiers themselves who set the organic standards, as did some states. Today the federal government sets and maintains the standards through the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB). The federal government also oversees the work of the certification organisations, but does no certification itself. Regardless of the specifics of oversight, the entire system is voluntary in the sense that no one compels producers to adopt organic practices, unless, of course, they want to maintain organic certification. Instead they are incentivised to grow organically by the price premium that organic certification generally bestows.

But here’s the thing: to reward producers with a price premium there must be consumers with the will and means to pay more for organically produced food. And that, I argue, has limited the growth of the sector, particularly in precarious times. Moreover, consumer precarity has proven to be more threatening to the conventionally-leaning segments of the sector. These quasi-conventional organic growers (growers who meet the minimum standards for certification but otherwise operate much like conventional growers) cater to consumers who are much more price sensitive about organic food than are more dedicated organic consumers, who tend to favour producers and outlets in local and regional markets. That the sub-sector best positioned to spread organic production and to bring organics to a wider audience is not only seen as morally suspect but is also on less-sure footing speaks to the limits of a voluntary label as a way to transform agricultural production.

Organic growth and change

One of the original arguments for having a federal system for certification of organics, comprising both uniform standards and forms of oversight, is that it would allow the sector to increase its share of the total food market. Growth rates in organics have indeed surpassed those in the food industry as a whole, yet the growth rate for organics after the federal standard was implemented has been less than expected. This is partly because most of the activity by the big players took place in anticipation of the rule (Howard, 2009). I suggest, too, that it may portend an inherent limit to the size of the organic market as a result of the nature of its regulatory schema.

In 2015, the US organic food industry experienced 43.3 billion USD in sales, an increase of nearly ten-fold since 1997. Growing at a pace much faster than the rest of the food industry, and recovering from slow growth during the economic downturn of 2009, as of 2015 organic food sales made up nearly 5% of all food sales (OTA, 2016). Growth was strongest for fruits and vegetables, which represented 42% of total organic food sales, with organic dairy as the second largest category with 19% of all organic sales (USDA NASS, 2016).

These increased sales must have had some connection to growth in actual production. To be sure, after six years of growth, averaging 13% annually, certified organic acreage in the US reached more than 5.4 million acres in 2011 (the latest data posted by the USDA Economic Research Service as of this writing (USDA ERS, 2017). Of this, 3,084,989 acres were cropland, while land devoted to organic pasture totalled 2,298,130 acres. However, this still represented only about 0.8% of all US cropland, while certified organic pasture represented only 0.5% of all US pasture. Overall, certified organic cropland and pasture accounted for just 0.64% of US total farmland! The number of livestock managed organically also grew exponentially during that period, but still only to a point that 2.8% of US dairy cows and 2% of layer hens were managed under certified organic systems (USDA ERS, 2013). How are we to explain this? That organic sales represent a much higher percentage of total sales of food relative to the acreage devoted to organic production owes somewhat to the higher prices that organic commodities receive. But it owes mainly to growth in processing and marketing activities that add value to products after farm gate sales, as well as to a sizeable import sector in crops such as coffee, temperate fruits and vegetables (especially from Mexico), and tropical fruits. Put differently, the market for organic foods has been more robust than have the changes in actual agricultural practices.

A corollary trend is that growth in organic farming appears to be driven more by expansion of existing operations than by conversion of new ones. This can roughly be seen in the increase of the average size of operations from 261 acres in 1992 to 418 acres in 2011 (calculated from data in USDA ERS, 2013). A slightly more nuanced statistical picture is available from California, which continues to be a dominant player in US organics, accounting for 40% of all organic farm sales in the country, including non-food crops. As of 2015, it also had the highest percentage of certified organic acreage of all states (790,413 acres), representing 18% of total US organic farm land, and the most certified operations (4,296) as well (CCOF, 2016). That California’s share of sales is higher than its share of acres reflects that much of California’s crop land continues to go to high value fruit and vegetable production. Yet, even in this most robust of organic markets, organic is only 3% of acreage, and farm size has increased faster than the number of operations. According to data collected and analysed by agricultural economists Klonsky and Richter (2005, 2007, 2011), the number of organic growers just about doubled between 1992 and 2009, from 1,157 to 2,330, while the number of acres in organic production increased more than tenfold in that same period, from 42,302 to 486,169. Although a good chunk of this growth in acreage owes to the statistical inclusion of pasture (previously not always certified) and the real growth in livestock operations, which require pasture, the pattern is much clearer for California’s mainstay crops. The number of vegetable growers increased only 60% between 1992 and 2009, while the acres in vegetable crops increased 423%, from 37 to 120 acres. Discussions with growers in recent years corroborate this pattern. Many long-time growers have developed or purchased additional acreage since first beginning, and have transitioned their activities into livestock, the fastest growing segment. That expansion rather than conversion has been the primary pathway to growth in the more established sectors of organics suggests that the organic label is not inducing widespread entry. Indeed it appears that the organic label is working best for those already in the sector, reflecting and contributing to bifurcation.

Significant bifurcation

Bifurcation is a term that I and my co-authors, Daniel Buck and Christy Getz, first used in a 1997 article to refer to the distinctions between large growers specialising in one or two crops, using more industrial practices, and small growers, using a diversity of strategies and tending toward more agro-ecological methods. Our claims were based on a (very preliminary) study of the organic sector. Nevertheless, the article sparked a vociferous academic debate in response to readers’ inferences of a clear distinction between economic opportunists and social movement-oriented growers, between industrial and agro-ecological, and/or between large and small growers. Several scholars of organic agriculture have since suggested that the contrasts between the more commercially-minded growers and more ‘lifestyle’ growers are overdrawn (e.g., Constance, Choi and Holly 2008; Lockie and Halpin 2005; Rosin and Campbell 2009). Rosin and Campbell (2009), for example, reject the dualistic thinking of the bifurcation thesis, not least for the Manichean judgments it seems to imply. They note the many justifications under which organic growers operate in the New Zealand context. Similarly, Lockie and Halpin (2005) note that in Australia the differences in motivations between organic and conventional growers (and thus, by extension, quasi-conventional organic growers) are a matter of degree and not of kind, and that differences in farm size among organic growers mainly reflect differences in cropping mixes (in their case livestock grazing and grain crops versus horticultural crops) rather than ideology.

I do not contest these more nuanced findings, and I especially share concerns about using coarse, binary metrics to judge which growers are doing the right thing. In my research in California I have found that the lines are not clearly drawn, nor does the old guard have virtue cornered—especially to the extent that virtue is defined by a small-scale operation and a counter-cultural image. Indeed, some of the early hippy entrants went on to become major players. Earthbound Farms, for example, began as a two-acre market garden in the Carmel Valley and grew to command over 50,000 acres in the US and Mexico. At the same time, some erstwhile conventional growers became quite taken with organic growing practices, and increasingly incorporated complex agro-ecological practices into their production plans. Lakeside Organic Gardens, based in Watsonville California, was one such grower. After converting from conventional methods, the farm expanded from a 55 acre plot to grow over 1,700 acres in California, including 1,200 in the Pajaro Valley spread over 50 different parcels, and 500 near El Centro in the Imperial Valley (Reti, Rabkin and Farmer, 2011).

So, in what ways might it be legitimate to speak of ‘bifurcation’ at all, and what analytical purchase does it provide for understanding something about the dynamics of organic agriculture? At one level, the very existence of mixed growers—about one-third of operations within the California sector (but with a considerably higher percentage of acreage), according to statistics compiled by Klonsky and Richter (2011)—speaks to a subsector which, by definition, is not fully committed to organic agriculture. For that reason, some countries and international certifiers do not even allow mixed operations. These growers’ lack of dedication is not necessarily a matter of desire or interest, however. Several have told me they would be happy to grow more organics, or would even prefer to, if they received a price that made it work for them. Nevertheless, they are not willing to reject the convenience of chemicals unless a buyer makes it worth their while. One such grower who had several organic contracts discussed how he had dabbled in organics more than twenty years earlier but had quit when ‘the market wasn’t ready’, which for him meant he could not get the contract prices he wanted. In that light, the ‘bifurcation’ that I believe is of broader significance is less about the size of actual farming operations (whether measured in acres or sales), or even farmer perspectives and motivations, than it is about the distinctions between farmers who produce at the behest of the grower-shippers and processors, and those who grow independently. The vast majority of produce going through the large grower-shippers reaches a national market and ends up in major supermarkets (including Whole Foods), while that produced with more independent marketing arrangements tends to end up in local and regional markets—both direct markets (CSAs, farmers markets, and restaurants), and regional chains and independent grocery stores.

These marketing strategies reverberate throughout farmers’ operations. Those who grow for buyers are more likely to grow ingredients for processing by major food manufacturers, tend to focus on one or two crops (and thus tend toward monocultures), and are more likely to have mixed conventional and organic operations. They specialise, in other words, according to buyer needs and demands. In contrast, those who grow independently tend to have greater diversity in crops and complexity in rotations (although not so much for fruit and nut production). They also tend to be exclusively organic and to focus on the fresh market. They may do value added pr...