Photo: USDA
For years, organic food has been among the fastest-growing segments in the US food market—which is exactly why mega-corporations like General Mills and Coca-cola have bought their way into it. Yet for all the growth and all the marketing heft brought to the table by these giants, organics still make up just 4 percent of US food sales. And in in the field, organic ag has even less of a toe-hold—of the 922 million acres of US farmland, just around 5 million acres are organic. Italy alone, barely larger than the state of Arizona, has 3 million acres under organic cultivation.
Is organic food bound to be just a niche market to be leveraged by big companies? Or does it organic ag present a big-picture, fundamental critique of the current food system—and can it expand out of its current niche?
I’ll be discussing these meaty questions next week with some really smart people at the South by Southwest Eco conference in Austin, in a panel moderated by urban farmer and magazine editor Jason Mark of San Francisco’s Alemany Farm and Earth Island Journal. Other panelists are Erin Flynn of Austin’s Green Gate Farm and Don Carr of the Environmental Working Group. The panel, called “Good Food: Turning Popularity into Power,” takes place Thursday, Oct. 4 (details here). If you’re in town, stop by.
