Local or Organic? I'll Take Both

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A Patchwork of Values

"Sometimes, though, local versus organic is a false choice--sometimes you can't find organic, or the local choice is bad," Pollan said. Fromartz argued that local and organic not only cannot but should not be mutually exclusive. For one thing, each represents such a tiny fraction of the food market. For another, in Organic Inc., he profiles a small southeastern Minnesota farm that sells locally, but also ships its tomatoes 600 miles to a Whole Foods distribution center in Chicago, to be sold at their stores throughout the Midwest. In other words, it's possible to do both.

In the "Big Organic" chapter of The Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan criticized Whole Foods' "supermarket pastoral" signage that waxes poetic about small family farms and happy chickens and cows, while the reality is often the industrial feedlot rather than the pasture, and produce that "comes primarily from the two big corporate organic growers in California..." This resulted in an e-mail exchange with John Mackey, Whole Foods CEO, in which Mackey vowed to let individual store managers do more business with local farmers, and to provide a $10 million loan fund for small farmers. "I'm very impressed by the steps they've taken. Since Mackey's letter, I've talked with produce managers in a few Whole Foods stores and the rules of buying have changed," Pollan says. And, he pointed out, now that Wal-Mart has entered the mix, Whole Foods will "need to distinguish themselves from cheap organic. With local, they can."

Small farms can also distinguish themselves and are doing so, by delivering on values that go beyond organic. "Other concerns are coming into play and will be reflected in labels," says Fromartz.

For example, the Association of Family Farms is developing a new seal for food produced by small family farms. "Consumers are wanting to know where food comes from, rather than distance," says Fred Kirschenmann, Ph.D., an organic farmer and distinguished fellow at the Leopold Institute for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. The institute is helping develop the seal with the National Farmers Union and the Food Alliance, which will serve as an independent third-party certifier that standards are met. Criteria will include environmental stewardship, humane animal care, fair labor standards and ethical business standards. The new seal will provide "full transparency to bring food from farm to table with values consumers want to support," Kirschenmann says.

As shoppers, we're lucky. We're being courted by producers big and small, and we have a plethora of choices. From them, we can fill our baskets with foods from a variety of labels, farms and retailers that reflect the colorful patchwork of farm fields. All we have to do is stay informed and follow our values as well as our own good taste.