Organic agriculture has made major progress in the promotion of better farming practices. And that is a lot to be proud of. The challenge now is to transfer the whole world’s food production system into something that is truly sustainable.
Year 2001, I founded the magazine, The Organic Standard with spread news and analyses of issues related to organic standards, certification, accreditation and regulations. In 2013 the ownership of the magazine was transferred to the editor, Nuria Alonso. Nowadays the journal is published by The Alliance for Organic Integrity and Biocertificacion SL, still with Nuria as the editor.
For the 200th issue I was asked to contribute some reflections, which follows:
In 1983, we founded Samodlarna, a cooperative for selling organic vegetables into mainstream supermarkets in Sweden. Already from the start we had an embryonic quality assurance mechanism with a simple set of standards and controls. In 1985, we founded KRAV which formulated standards, had a mark and certified organic production. The initial regulation was a one page contract with the standards on the back page. As inspectors we recruited a merry band of farm advisors, farmers, musicians and activists.
Over the years, the organization became a lot more professional and I proceeded to work with the development of the IFOAM organic guarantee system where I was the founding President of the International Organic Accreditation Services 1997 and later on the IFOAM President 2000-2005. Parallel to this I worked as an international consultant, mostly developing organic certification in a number of countries. The Organic Standard, founded in 2001, was part of this effort to improve the organic guarantee. It was intended to spread news and analyses of issues related to organic standards, certification, accreditation and regulations. It also wanted to encourage discussions within that field. As such I believe it has been quite successful and I am happy that it is taken care of also today.
The development of standards and certification has been very useful for the organic sector and there are parts of the world where this is a task that still needs priority. But we also have to realise that the whole guarantee system takes an enormous amount of resources and energy, resources and energy which could be used for other purposes. The guarantee system ensures that each producer is audited every year. But who will ensure that all producers get an advisory visit, or that producers are helped in their marketing efforts?
Standardization is somewhat contradictory to the values of the organic movement, which heralds diversity. Diversity is the driver of evolution. There is surprisingly little understanding of this paradox within the organic sector. Excessive standardization, stymies development and will leave organic behind other, more flexible, concepts. I see many new agroecological and regenerative farmers turning their back on organic because they see it as over-regulated. Many small organic farmers opt out of certification because of high costs and hassle and the value of certification is debatable if you engage in direct marketing. (Our small farm is still certified but I would say it is mostly because it would be strange if the founder of KRAV was no longer certified). Participatory Guarantee Systems are in some way an expression of “back-to-the-roots”.
There are diminishing returns on the ever-increasing demands and procedures. All the standards, regulations and procedures added over the past decades have added little extra credibility, while increasing the complexity and costs considerably. For sure, the standards and certification systems need development, but development should not always mean more procedures – it could also be the opposite: to get rid of unproductive procedures. To trim down the system might be a task as admirable as it was to expand it.
The developments of the organic certification system is today driven by the actors who have a vested interest in it, such as the standard-setters, certification bodies, government bureaucrats and consultants; not by the farmers, food producers, consumers and the trade they are supposed to serve. With the loss of agency and ownership of those doing the actual work, the risk of fraud increases and their very important role of promoting the system is considerably weakened.
Organic agriculture has made major progress in the promotion of better farming practices. And that is a lot to be proud of. The challenge now is to transfer the whole world’s food production system into something that is truly sustainable. To take on this challenge we need to be brave again, as the early organic pioneers were. We need to have vision and we need to look ahead, beyond the narrow constraints of the certified organic market place.
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I looked up the last editorial I wrote in 2013 and note that one of the three important issues I mention was:
Certified organic is a tool for penetrating anonymous mass markets as it is here that certification has its main role. In many mature markets, however, the appeal of that market is vanishing. Producers and consumers alike seek new relationships and those relationships are as much part of the future organic agenda as the production itself. Traditional third party certification may play a very small role, if any, in those new emerging relationships.
Those new relationships have been very much my focus the last years with an emphasis on what I often call relationship food.
Coincidentally, next week I will participate in the Organic Summit in Copenhagen. I will be in the session A Pioneer Perspective: European Organic Agriculture the Last 50 Years together with Renate Künast, former German Minister of Agriculture (The Greens), Patrick Holden, founder & director of Sustainable Food Trust, organic farmer and Per Kølster, former chairman Organic Denmark, brewer.
Probably that will inspire another article…
Teaser image credit: Organic vegetables at a farmers’ market in Argentina. By Nsorensen at English Wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Olybrius using CommonsHelper., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12663722