What does organic mean in practice?

August 12, 2008 4:51 PM

What does "organic" mean in practice?

Let's say we're talking about what Canada or the US think "organic" means in 2008. What can I expect the difference to be between the production methods of organic and regular milk, meat, eggs, wheat, sugar, coffee, bananas, etc.?

I'd specifically like to know the difference in practice, both for industrial operations and small farms. I'm assuming that practice differs from the ideal, but feel free to correct me.

posted by parudox to Food & Drink (22 answers total)

I recall reading an article that says there is no FDA regulation of use of the word organic. Put there is a USDA organic label that has some regulations.

This page seems to back that idea up.
posted by hamhed at 5:07 PM on August 12, 2008

The USDA has some regulations for organic, though I seem to recall that there are some complaints about what it allows (I worked there for a few months, though I was only aware of this as a topic of cafeteria conversation). But IIRC, there are a lot of circumstances where the use of the word isn't regulated - it might even just be the USDA label that's regulated. So it varies, much like kosher labels vary.
posted by spaceman_spiff at 5:18 PM on August 12, 2008

Kosher labels have a lot less variance than 'organic'. That is to say, the different versions of Kosher labeling (kosher, kosher for Passover, etc) have very specific meanings.

In Canada and the USA, 'organic' can mean anything from 'grown without chemicals or medication on land that hasn't had any chemicals used on it in 25 years' to 'we put it in a green box and didn't add a chemical preservative'.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 5:23 PM on August 12, 2008

Rather then speculating why don't you guys actually This looks like the site that has the actual regluations. It seems rather confusing though, this is the set of rules for retailers for example, and here is a power point presentation.
posted by delmoi at 5:40 PM on August 12, 2008 [1 favorite]

Oh here is a list of 'policy statements' that probably dictate what can and can't be called "organic".
posted by delmoi at 5:42 PM on August 12, 2008

In practice "organic" means "more expensive". It may not mean anything else, however; fraud is common.
posted by Class Goat at 6:15 PM on August 12, 2008

Here's the Canadian situation for "organic"/"organique". It's currently being phased in, but as of December 14, 2008, producers won't be able to label as "Canada Organic" anything that doesn't meet the CFIA standard.
posted by mendel at 6:18 PM on August 12, 2008

not "organique" mendel, it's "biologique" or just "bio" in French.
posted by zadcat at 6:22 PM on August 12, 2008

Response by poster: To summarize: Canadian organic agriculture standards are here and organic product standards as of the end of 2008 are here; delmoi gave links to the USDA standards. Neither the US nor Canada do the actual certification themselves.

This doesn't quite answer the question of what happens on the farms, and to what extent it differs from standard practice.
posted by parudox at 6:44 PM on August 12, 2008

I've organic gardened for about 15 years and to me it means compost as fertilizer, and no pesticides or herbicides. I might use an occasional fungicide on seeds, but nothing on plants.

I doubt this is how it's defined in industrial or large scale practices, but some smaller farms I know of are trying to do the same thing.
posted by Toekneesan at 6:45 PM on August 12, 2008

It depends. There are different certifying agents accredited by the USDA. However, agents like Oregon Tilth or CCOF also have their own, more restrictive standards. So you can buy things that are USDA certified organic, and you can buy things that are also certified CCOF or OTCO that have been held to higher standards. Here's a list of organic certifiers with information about their reliability.
posted by oneirodynia at 6:47 PM on August 12, 2008 [2 favorites]

This doesn't quite answer the question of what happens on the farms, and to what extent it differs from standard practice.

So, is your question actually "how is organic farming different from conventional farming?"
posted by oneirodynia at 6:48 PM on August 12, 2008

Response by poster: oneirodynia: Sort of. I wrote "in practice" because I am under the impression that there are ways to adhere minimally to the organic standards in such a way that the methods aren't that different from conventional methods. On the other hand, maybe organic standards for certain foods don't really differ from what is normally done. Are organic bananas grown any differently than normal ones?
posted by parudox at 7:01 PM on August 12, 2008

There's some good stuff about this in Michael Powell's Ominvore's Dilemma starting on page 154. If you Search Inside This Book from the Amazon page, a search for "Organic Define" or "154" should bring it up.
posted by Toekneesan at 7:02 PM on August 12, 2008

Second Omnivore's Dilemma. The whole center of the book is dedicated to answering this very question.
posted by smackfu at 7:02 PM on August 12, 2008

It's true that the FDA doesn't really have a position here and that the USDA's definition isn't particularly rigorous. But individual states, particularly California, have passed regulations with a definition.

You can read about their regulations here.
posted by valkyryn at 7:08 PM on August 12, 2008

Well, they are grown very differently depending on the crop, and how much pesticide and fertilizer is normally used on the conventional crop. Instead of just spraying with insecticides, organic farmers have to utilize integrated pest management systems relying on beneficial insects and the pants that attract them, proper application of fertilizer and water, and resistant crop species; as well as organic pesticides. Techniques such as cover crops and crop rotation are required in organic farming as soil and nutrition management practices, due to the fact that organic farmers can't rely on just dumping fast acting, soluble fertilizers onto plants. Many organic fertilizers and green manures require a healthy soil with active decomposers (bacteria, fungi, microorganisms, insects, invertebrates) in order to be made available to the plant. These decomposers are usually not active in conventional crop soils due to heavy pesticide use and poor to non-existent soil management or monocropping. There's a lot more reliance on preventative measures for all these things as well as stress management, since there are very few quick fixes in organic farming. This is true of small and large scale operations.

Organic farms are inspected annually by certifying agencies, as well as dealing with a rigorous application process and significant paperwork throughout the growing season. There are many PDFs on the CCOF site about organic system planning, and the application and certification process.
posted by oneirodynia at 7:31 PM on August 12, 2008

Oh, and the transition to organic from conventional farming takes several years, due to new soil management to build healthy, living soil; learning to manage weed infestation; new cultural requirements for organic plants including greater attention to optimum planting dates, more appropriate irrigation methods, and cover crops (crops growing alongside the main crop which add nitrogen to the soil or some other benefit); and finding new markets and dealing with the inevitable decline in crop yields. So there are significant adaptations that farmers need to make in many ways.
posted by oneirodynia at 7:40 PM on August 12, 2008

Response by poster: Thanks for your answers so far, especially oneirodynia.

You guys are right about the Omnivore's Dilemma — the chapter on Big Organic is exactly about this. (Some of that chapter can be found in an article of Pollan's from 2001. His other stuff is probably also worth reading.) However, I'm hoping to find sources in addition to Pollan.
posted by parudox at 8:22 PM on August 12, 2008

I'm an aggie and I live with someone who works with organic poultry. Of course, the feed has to be certified organic, etc. in accordance to regulations, but otherwise it varies. Meat chickens in large commercial organic operations need to be kept for longer before slaughter because they grow more slowly since producers can't use additives like antibiotics. Most of these operations use the same breeds that are used in conventional operations, despite issues with them. For example, commercial breeds are bred to have huuuuuge breasts/chests and as they get older this becomes a handicap. Large commercial organic producers are always going to oppose any regulation that might necessitate actually keeping them outside because these birds are pretty much evolutionarily unfit for anything except eating. My roommate told me a story yesterday about how someone tried to keep such a flock outside and during a storm they were blown over and drowned in puddles of rain because their chests were so heavy that they couldn't get up.

In contrast, small producers operate pretty differently. They usually keep less specialized breeds and often they are "heritage" breeds that are more robust for pasturing, use their flocks for both meat and laying, and differentiate their product. A farmer I worked with keeps Araucana chickens that lay blue eggs, which sell for $7 a dozen despite the fact that they taste about the same. Heritage breeds are often more hardy, but less productive. They are intelligent enough to live outside and forage for themselves. A problem in Illinois is that during the summer, production of pastured poultry is seriously impaired by heat, which causes the chickens to molt and stop producing eggs.

Small producers are also different because they are allowed some slaughter exemptions that allow them to produce their birds on the farm rather than in commercial slaughterhouses. Whether this is better or worse is a matter of debate, but I certainly prefer to eat birds that have been slaughtered where they lived, which seems to be less stressful than being trucked miles and miles to die in a strange place.

Cattle is a lot more complicated and I don't think I personally have enough expertise, but there are some similarities to poultry in the issue of heritage/commercial breeds and pasturing. The organic milk regulations were and still are controversial (an interesting court case to read is Harvey v. Veneman). In some cases, it's not worth it for small producers to go organic with larger livestock because they can make the same amount of money just labeling things as pastured, which to many educated consumers is worth more anyway.

As an aside, now I live in Norway and while some things are similar, some "ekologisk" foods are different. For example, the organic milk I buy here at normal stores is pastured and unhomogenized and well....surprisingly cheap compared to what I'd have to pay in the US, where that stuff can only be found at specialty stores. There is plenty of conventional milk (and about 50 types of fermented milk), but I love being able to just pick up that milk whenever I want.
posted by melissam at 1:52 AM on August 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

You might be interested in a presentation from a friend of mine, who did her master's thesis on the perceptions that people have about different words related to egg production. Scroll down to The Consumer and the Egg.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:26 AM on August 13, 2008

Peter Singer's The Ethics of What We Eat also has some very good descriptions of what actually happens on farms, both organic and conventional.
posted by decathecting at 5:40 PM on August 13, 2008