>
> --- In [email protected], "authfriend" <jstein@>
> wrote:
> >
> > The New York Times magazine has an interesting article
> > on the pros and (mostly) cons of the Wal-Martization of
> > organic food. Excerpt:
> >
> >
> > Wal-Mart will buy its organic food from whichever producers can
> > produce it most cheaply, and these will not be the sort of farmers
> > you picture when you hear the word "organic." Big supermarkets
> want
> > to do business only with big farmers growing lots of the same
> thing,
> > not because big monoculture farms are any more efficient (they
> > aren't) but because it's easier to buy all your carrots from a
> single
> > megafarm than to contract with hundreds of smaller growers.
> > The "transaction costs" are lower, even when the price and the
> > quality are the same. This is just one of the many ways in which
> the
> > logic of industrial capitalism and the logic of biology on a farm
> > come into conflict. At least in the short run, the logic of
> > capitalism usually prevails.
> >
> > Wal-Mart's push into the organic market won't do much for small
> > organic farmers, that seems plain enough. But it may also spell
> > trouble for the big growers it will favor. Wal-Mart has a
> reputation
> > for driving down prices by squeezing its suppliers, especially
> after
> > those suppliers have invested heavily to boost production to feed
> the
> > Wal-Mart maw. Having done that, the supplier will find itself at
> Wal-
> > Mart's mercy when the company decides it no longer wants to pay a
> > price that enables the farmer to make a living. When that happens,
> > the notion of responsibly priced food will be sacrificed to the
> > imperatives of survival, and the pressure to cut corners will
> become
> > irresistible.
> >
> > Up to now, the federal organic standards have provided a bulwark
> > against that pressure. Yet with the industrialization of organic,
> > these rules are themselves coming under mounting pressure, and
> > forgive my skepticism, but it's hard to believe that the lobbyists
> > from Wal-Mart are going to play a constructive role in defending
> > those standards from efforts to weaken them.
>
>
>
> I think this is an example of why we shouldn't always count on the
> government to give us "good" regulation: it can always be subject to
> the whims of lobbyists.
>
> If there was an organic-industry standard board or something
> whereby -- I don't know -- people with a reputation for determining
> proper organics could sit on such a board, then THEY could set the
> standard and not the government.
>
> Then Wal-Mart would have to play by their rules.
>
> Can't blame Wal-Mart for trying to bring down prices and squeezing
> their capitalist suppliers and capitalist growers.
The Maharishi Organic ratings people assign 3 separate ratings: us organic, european
organic, and Maharishi Organic, which combines the requirements of hte first two plus
various vedic thingies. I understand there's other independent rating systems out there
also.
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