[SustainableTompkins] [Fwd: The Organic Divide: Corporate Executives and Organic Community Hold "Dueling" Summits]

[northsheep at juno.com]

Joel, 
 
On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 10:39:27 -0400 Joel and Sarah Gagnon
<joel.and.sarah.gagnon at lightlink.com> writes:

> A rather sobering assessment from someone who characterizes himself 
> as an 
> idealist! 

It's true that many idealists manage to hold on to their ideals by
looking at reality through rose-colored glasses. That is the easy way,
but of course does not lead to effective change strategies. The
challenge, in my view, is to take a hard look at reality and retain the
ideals despite the conclusions one is often forced to draw, that magnify
greatly the difficulty of effecting lasting change. 

The predictable effect of potential money-to-be-made on 
> the 
> implementation of Organic Standards explains a lot of the pressure 
> to 
> dilute or constrain.  I don't see how that can be avoided, no matter 
> how 
> much a realist might have anticipated it, so I  confess curiosity as 
> to how 
> you would proceed differently.

A reasonable question. You are right, that the Organic Standards route
has unavoidable problems. We need to ask why. Isn't this just one example
of a larger pattern? Haven't most policies of our federal and state
political institutions been detrimental to the majority public interest?
My short answer is that as long as the present asymmetrical structure of
power exists in our society, political entities (and all mainstream
institutions - justice, media, education - the Cornells) at every level
will be forced mainly to serve moneyed interests. This is the lesson I
draw from our economic and political history. The only alternative source
of power I see is a mass movement, which is a much more difficult goal
than setting up Organic Standards.  

A country does not need to try historically ineffective marketplace
solutions if there is the POLITICAL WILL to redesign agriculture with
public policy that more directly transforms farming systems with a
balance of carrots and sticks, as for example has happened in Switzerland
and Cuba, two nations that seemingly could not be more politically
different. These countries have achieved far more than we have, without
an organic certification bureaucracy. 

A revolutionary mass movement: was the route Cuba took 45 years ago, that
created the political will for agricultural and many other
transformations. But how do we replicate that? Therein lies the rub. It
is difficult because it is a chicken and egg problem. How does one
achieve the political will without a mass movement? How does one develop
a mass movement when the main institutions that must be the instruments
of creating the requisite political consciousness on that scale have been
bent to serve elite class interests? And how does one change those
institutions without a mass movement? Historical examples of solutions
have required a long, active gestation period and/or a serious crisis. In
the United States the crisis is at hand; I foresee no lack of them in the
near future. But a society in crisis without a well-developed mass
movement could go in an extremely unhealthy direction, at least for the
majority of us. 

An interesting question might be, how are the Swiss creating such a
progressive agriculture with roughly the same power structure as us, and
no mass movement? Unfortunately the answer rests on a combination of
conditions that I find hard to imagine replicating here, but might
provide food for thought: 1) cultural values - they value quality (we
value quantity) and they value their landscape as a national treasure
more than we have ours; 2) because of their mountainous topography there
is a unique convergence between the goals of an ecologically healthy
agriculture and those of an extremely lucrative tourist industry; 3) the
Swiss political process is shaped by a distinctive political heritage - a
healthy balance between local (cantonal) and federal power; 4) actually
it's not quite the same power structure - there is a class hierarchy but
without the impoverished classes that we are saddled with. But that too
is a matter of cultural values shaping public policy regarding basic
rights to food, shelter, education, health care (as in Cuba, but without
the revolution!). 

Obviously there is much more that one could say on this subject. Here is
one last (not so trivial) tidbit. In Cuba the gestation period of the
mass movement took more than a century, and was given initial direction
by unusual culture heroes like Jose Marti. After working for a while in
the United States and studying our form of political economy, Marti said
that if this is what they (in gringolandia) call democracy, we have no
use for it in Cuba!

Karl North
Northland Sheep Dairy, Freetown, New York USA
     www.geocities.com/northsheep/
"Mother Nature never farms without animals" - Albert Howard
"Pueblo que canta no morira" - Cuban saying


> At 12:13 PM 6/22/07 -0400, you wrote:
> >Sustainable Tompkins,
> >
> >The lamentable state of affairs that has developed in the 
> 'organic'
> >agriculture business, of which the "dueling summits" report that 
> was
> >posted here is just one manifestation, was easily predictable by 
> anyone
> >who took the trouble to understand the nature of our economy, the 
> policy
> >framework that created and sustains it, and the characteristic 
> patterns
> >of behavior over time that the system generates. In fact those who 
> sought
> >this understanding did predict the present situation. This is not 
> a
> >criticism of the 'organic' community, many of whom are better 
> equipped to
> >comprehend the biogeochemical nature of the soil system than they 
> are of
> >grasping the sociological nature of our economy.
> >
> >The takeover by industrial giants of what started as a sustainable
> >agriculture movement was entirely characteristic of the historical 
> system
> >behavior in virtually every sector of our economy. Until the 
> movement
> >gets serious about understanding why these patterns of behavior 
> happen,
> >its attempts at solutions are likely to have counterintuitive 
> results. In
> >plain English, the results will repeatedly fall short of the
> >expectations.
> >
> >In this case for example, the appeal for unity with the same 
> corporate
> >giants that have created the problems, viewed from my understanding 
> of
> >the dynamics of power in the system, is like inviting foxes into 
> the hen
> >house. Another example I see in this report of the general 
> ignorance of
> >many of the idealists who started the movement is their initial
> >assumption that a summit sponsored (read controlled, shaped) by a 
> major
> >corporate merchandiser could possibly produce much that advances 
> the
> >cause of sustainability in agriculture or the food system.
> >
> >The report says that Fred Kirschenmann (with whom I have worked
> >organizationally on these and other questions) " referred to the 
> tension
> >the organic community is experiencing with the commercialization 
> and
> >mainstreaming of movement ideals and the need for the entire 
> industry to
> >move beyond this conflict if organic is to survive as meaningful 
> label in
> >the marketplace." What is the nature of the entire industry that he 
> wants
> >to get in bed with? This reveals a pathetic ignorance of the 
> structures
> >of power in that industry, as in the rest of our economy.
> >
> >It is also disappointing that so many of the idealists (I am an 
> idealist
> >too) still cling to the notion that the 'organic label' will save 
> the
> >movement. The NOSB, the institution mandated to create and protect 
> the
> >label is located in and controlled by the USDA. That is like 
> locating a
> >hen in a fox house. Like most other market-based solutions to 
> social
> >problems, the organic label has born results that are too little, 
> too
> >late. That is a historical pattern, generated by market forces, a 
> lesson
> >we need to learn and make a basis for strategy. I believe that 
> solutions
> >exist, but they need to be grounded in a better understanding of 
> how our
> >society works.
> >
> >Karl North
> >Northland Sheep Dairy, Freetown, New York USA
> >      www.geocities.com/northsheep/
> >"Mother Nature never farms without animals" - Albert Howard
> >"Pueblo que canta no morira" - Cuban saying
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