Local or Organic? I'll Take Both

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The child's happy expression, as she took another bite, testified to the pleasures of freshness, taste and feel. Sam Fromartz had said, "I raise the question in my book, as organic gets bigger, as it mainstreams, is it going to lose what gives the consumer a sense that the food is really different?" At another stand, Grace Darde appraised some bulging bags of spinach. "The big stores, I don't like the way they sell organic. There's too much water. It's as if there's no life in it anymore," Darde said of the greens she shops for. Nearby, Benjamin Heller was also buying greens. "I don't shop at Wal-Mart. I prefer small, neighborhood stores to big stores. I don't even think of local versus organic. I buy local—in season, in summer—because it's better, for the most part," Heller said.

There are no Wal-Mart stores in New York City, so it's arguably easy to say one doesn't shop there. Meanwhile, demand for local food is so great that this summer, the Greenmarket, a project of the Council on the Environment of New York City, added 10 new farmers' markets, making a total of 45 throughout the five boroughs. Many of these new markets are sited in low-income neighborhoods that have had little or no access to fresh local foods, and some farmers are accepting electronic benefit cards, an ATM version of food stamps. Local food is a growing trend nationally, as well. From 1994 to 2004, the number of farmers' markets nationwide grew from 1,755 to 3,706, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"Given the choice, I usually go local," Pollan told The Green Guide in an interview. "It often is organic, even if not certified, and you can always ask the farmer." (The cost of organic certification can also become burdensome for a small grower.) "Plus, local supports so many more values that I care about: preserving the agricultural landscape near where I live, keeping farmers in the community and energy conservation," he said.

Pollan, however, agreed with Donna that the expansion of organic acreage to satisfy Wal-Mart's 4,000-store demand will benefit the environment and human health. "It's a good thing because organic will not be an elitist food—people will have access to it who never did before. And it will educate. Many people don't know what organic is," Pollan said. But then he struck a cautionary note: There's also "how they drive the price down to 10 percent above conventional food, which is itself already too cheap," he added, explaining that conventional food would be much more expensive if the environmental and health costs of pollution, soil depletion and processed foods were included.