If you could identify a father of America's organic standards, Harry MacCormack would be it. He's been farming organically since before the term existed. Of course, during his childhood in upstate New York, there was no need for the term. No one used chemicals yet, so there was no alternative to what we now refer to as "organic farming." Back then, they just called it "farming."
Like many consumers of organics, I am interested in how organic my organic food actually is. Can it contain chemical residues? Is it truly good for the environment? Or are the American organic standards merely a sellout to Big Business like so much else in our country is? Few people are better equipped to answer my questions than Harry.
Harry's Background
At age 14, Harry moved to California, where he had a life-changing encounter with DDT. He was picking beans for a summer job and a cropduster flew overhead and sprayed him and all of the migrant workers he was with.
His understanding of chemical contamination in the environment deepened a few years later when his dad learned that two solvents from his work at IBM were found in the local water system. Harry worked alongside his dad as they tried to clean up the mess, making discoveries about water contamination all along the way. The solvents in question were in an anaerobic zone in the water table, and Harry suspects they are still there today.
When Harry set out to farm as an adult, these early experiences led him to farm organically, using nature instead of petroleum-based chemicals to provide fertility and resistance to pests.
The Birth of Organic Standards
In 1984, Harry wrote The Standards and Guidelines For Organic Agriculture, basing it on the philosophy of organics of the time rather than on science. The government wasn't involved yet, and the final version of the organic standards is quite a bit different from Harry's 1984 effort.
As the 1980's wore on, he found that companies such as Kellogg's and Del Monte wanted in. Large companies might not subscribe to organic philosophy but they saw opportunity in organics. As Harry put it, "They were willing to play by the rules if there were rules." And Harry had written the rules.
Even backed by corporate interests, organic standards were not easy to implement in the federal government. The House Ag committee wanted none of it. Instead, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR) introduced the bill to the House floor. Sen. Leahy (D-VT) did the same in the Senate. The Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 passed.
Then it sat.
And sat.
And sat.
OFPA passed without any help from the ag establishment and they were not eager to fund it either. After 12 years, in 2002, the program received the funding it needed to get off the ground. To date, the National Organic Program still receives meager funding. Only enough to employ 9 employees.
Despite its lack of support, Harry still feels that the National Organic Program is a success. The USDA allows ~100 Accredited Certifying Agencies to certify farms and businesses as organic. Of these ACAs, one is Harry's own Oregon Tilth. The certification system mostly works, apart from a few big dairies (like Horizon and Aurora) who have a hard time fitting the organic practice of allowing animals to graze on open pasture into their giant industrial model.
(Hat tip to Brudaimonia for an excellent diary on third party organic certifiers)
Organic Processed Foods
Harry and Oregon Tilth became pioneers again when they worked to create organic processing standards (Harry also mentioned that Gene Kahn from Cascadian Farms, described in The Omnivore's Dilemma, was instrumental). Unlike farming, which was designed as organic by Mother Nature herself, processing requires some compromise.
In processing, there are still many chemicals we don't have an organic substitute for. Up until a 1995, it was a free-for-all: "organic" meant 95% organic and 5% anything else. A Maine blueberry farmer named Arthur Harvey won a suit in 1995, fighting to make organic mean 100% organic.
Harvey's victory was overturned in a back-room deal between the Organic Trade Association and members of the House (which went through as a rider on the 2006 agricultural appropriations bill) but Harry feels that this was a victory overall. From the thousands of synthetics allowed in organic processing's non-organic 5% before, now only 38 substances are allowed. When you use one of them, you must show you were unable to find an organic alternative.
Harry's take on it is that "we've probably got the best stuff outside of Europe." That isn't to say that we're perfect. He still sees a few areas with room for improvement, as detailed below.
Problems with Organics
Harry shared with me a few examples of areas he'd like to see improved. When you open a processing plant of any sort (even if it's on a farm or in your house), you must be certified by your state. Sometimes, state laws conflict with organic standards. (For example, approved cleaning solutions may not be organic, and organic cleaning solutions may not be approved!)
The "pandora's box" of organics, according to Harry, are chemical residues from previous farming practices. Oregon Tilth has done 10 years of research showing chemical update by food grown organically. Most disturbing is the concentration of old chlorinated hydrocarbons (the family of chemicals including DDT) in plants like winter squash - large plants that spend a long time on the field.
With only a trace amount of the chlorinated hydrocarbons chlordane or dieldrin in the soil, you'll find a concentration four times as high in winter squash flesh and eight times as high in the seeds. Because of this, Oregon Tilth won't certify farmers who grow squash or even potatoes in contaminated soil, but nothing in the official organic standards actually forbids it.
Durable Food Systems
Harry sees two major problems with agricultural chemicals. First of all, we'll soon reach a point where petroleum (used to make many agricultural chemicals) is too expensive to obtain. Second, they pose enormous harm to human health (not to mention the health of all other life on earth).
The very minute levels of pesticide intake over and over again over a period of time are triggers for all sorts of health problems. For example, fluorine, perchlorate, chlorides, and other chemicals lead to hypothyroidism. Working in health care, I can attest to the high frequency of hypothyroid in our population. We also use fungicides, which ultimately deplete calcium and magnesium levels in the soil by killing the fungus that holds those minerals.
Even the old, passe pesticides like chlordane, dieldrin, and DDT will be out there for hundreds of years. They get in the water, they blow around in the dust in the air. "It's there, it's everywhere," says Harry. "It's even in polar bears." Not to mention the currently used pesticides like atrazine. In the midwest, atrazine "even comes down as rain."
Still, the government's official definition of sustainability permits low pesticide use. It promotes IPM - integrated pest management - as environmentally friendly. Universities then adopt IPM as "sustainable agriculture." Fortunately this hasn't been popularized, but Harry prefers to steer clear of the term "sustainable" all the same. He calls for "durable food systems."
A durable food system will be prepared when the oil runs out. Neighborhoods can organize among themselves, planning their gardens and fruit trees to feed themselves, then contracting out with local growers for what they cannot produce themselves.
I asked Harry if he thought we needed more grant programs to help such organization get off the ground. He didn't sound too enthusiastic. "The grant game is a game," he told me. Near Harry, community organization took two women going door to door. "That's the hard work," Harry said, "and nobody ever pays to do it."
About the current food system, he said, "We have a warehousing and trucking system, we don't have a food system." Organics are still basically less than 5% of the market, and much of it comes from the third world. He'd like to see us adopt a system that produces 20-30% of our food locally, then work up to 50%.
It's Our Generation's Turn
Harry feels that his generation had its chance to make its mark on the world already - and he thinks they especially blew that chance over the eight years of the Bush administration. "Part of the tragedy of this whole process is that we still think the position of commander in chief is relevant. It should be criminal to run an army." I can't agree more.
On farms, he advocates a mentoring system in which the current generation of farmers can transfer its knowledge (and land) to young people. In Washington, he's rooting for Obama. Whether or not he knows anything about agriculture, he's a leader and an organizer. "The way people are turning onto him shows that people are hungry for a real leader." After eight years of Bush's crimes, of course they are.
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