The Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York hosts its 27th annual conference. With the motto “Meals without wheels – revitalising our local, organic foodshed”, NOFA-NY aims to bring consumers and farmers closer together through demonstrations and education. The organisation welcomes organic gardeners and farmers, farmers interested in converting to sustainable methods, and consumers interested in supporting the development of organic farming in the region. Organisers of the annual conference promise more than 80 workshops and more than 75 exhibitors. For more details visit NOFA-NY’s website.

Here's cheers: Shake off the blues and raise your glasses to an organic year. Picture: dotw

It was in retrospect, to paraphrase Mr Dickens, the best of times. Slowly awaking to the scale of society’s environmental and health problems, more of us were taking a closer look at the source of our daily bread.

Who made it? Where was it made? What was it made with? Should I be eating it?

Organic was no longer a “hippy” term, but had become hip. Speciality stores were popping up all over the place. Hell, even the local supermarket had organic ranges. Organic had gone mainstream. 

With double digit growth year on year, the organic food sector – a fiesty David in the land of Goliath – was the envy of the rest of the food market.

And then came the Crash. Or Recession. Or Downturn. Call it what you like, depending on where you live and your circumstances, but there is little doubt 2008 knocked the stuffing out of more than the world’s banks.

As one financial institution after another crumbled around us, citizens previously preoccupied with the size of their bottoms were suddenly more worried about the bottom line. Can I afford to spend the extra to eat better? What if I don’t have a job tomorrow? 

By the end of 2008, many pundits, particularly those with interests vested elsewhere, were tipping the demise of the organic sector. “Ha! We told you it was just a fad, an elitist food concept designed to make the rest of us feel guilty about what we eat.”

So as we embrace the New Year, is that outlook as bleak as some would have you believe?

There is little doubt the industry has been affected. Those who regard organic as a discretionary spend, a “nice” thing to do if you’ve got the extra cash, were quick to cut back. It was certainly scary to see so many resorting to cheap fast “food”, seeing the multinational chain’s profits soar as falls were felt in healthier spheres.

But the doomsayers ignore the fact that for an increasing number of people organic is not an optional extra. The food they feed their families has become a number one priority. They would rather stint on new clothes or replacing the old telly than sacrifice the quality of their food. These people are not fairweather friends.

“The core organic consumers are sticking with their values,” the Organic Trade Association’s Barbara Haumann said recently. “They will shop around, or find other things they can cut.”

With soaring energy costs, the gap between organic and non-organic food prices has closed, as organic methods typically use far less energy in production and packaging.

There are certain organic products that will do better than others. In Australia, for example, business analysts IBISWorld tip a big year for organic dairy and chocolate, and a trend toward “greener” meat choices, such as chicken and pork, and ethical eggs. 

In the US, the American National Restaurant Association has put organic produce, wine and cocktails in its top 20 trends, with locally grown produce at the top of the list.

Outside the all-important consumer, there has also been a groundswell of support for organic among some big international players. 

In April 2008, the results of a six-year global investigation involving heavyweights such as the World Bank, WHO and UNESCO, concluded that the way most of food is still produced is simply not sustainable.

The International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development (IAASTAD), which involved some 400 scientists, government agencies and community groups, urged the world to abandon its reliance on petrochemical fuels and pesticides and embrace more sustainable farming systems. “Modern agricultural practices have exhausted land and water resources, squelched diversity and left poor people vulnerable to high food prices.” 

In October, the United Nations issued a report that showed, contrary to one of the common arguments put forward by organic opponents, organic farming can feed the world. In fact, Organic Agriculture and Food Security in Africa argued that it offered the best solution for food stability in that troubled continent. There were already signs of success – an analysis of 114 projects in 24 African countries found that yields had more than doubled in those that used organic or near-organic methods.

So while the best of times are behind us for the moment, we need not fear the worst. Double digit growth may be a thing of the past but the industry is still growing. This is simply another hurdle in what has already been a long and tortuous path for the organic movement.

Too many of us now know the importance of securing a better way for the future. We know what we eat today affects so much more than our bottom lines (and bottoms). Most importantly, more of us care enough not to abandon this particular food fight.

Here’s to a happy, prosperous – and sustainable – 2009.

They aren’t words you’d expect from the mouth of an organic food devotee but restaurateur Jesse Ziff Cool is no stick-in-the-mud.

She wants people to eat the best they can most of the time, but a little indulgence every now and then is just fine by her. “I call it my 80/20 rule,” she says. “I raised my kids that way and I tell everyone not to beat themselves up for occasionally wandering off the path. We’re only human after all.”

If anyone deserves the occasional “poison” (she favours gin, organic gin), it’s Jesse. An advocate of organic eating long before it became the flavour of the month, she defied those who said it couldn’t be done and operates not one, but three organic and sustainable restaurants in California.

Her approach to food is simplicity itself, a philosophy reflected in her latest cookbook, Simply Organic: A Cookbook for Sustainable, Seasonal and Local Ingredients: Choose the best quality produce you can afford at its peak and marry it with ingredients that let it shine.

Homegrown wisdom: Jesse Ziff Cool knows the value of fresh produce.

The affable cook (she’s not a big fan of the word chef) was born into an Italian-Jewish family whose lives revolved around good food.

Her parents and grandparents lovingly tended their backyard produce without resorting to pesticides, they raised and ate their own chickens, her father presided over a small supermarket in Pennsylvania where locally grown produce reigned, and home was always awash with the smell of something delicious brewing.

Not that she knew it then, but Jesse was already getting an education in the organic way.

At 27, she opened her first organic restaurant with her then husband Bob. To say it was a challenge was an understatement; they were repeatedly told a restaurant offering organic and sustainable produce was not viable, assuming they could even get hold of such fare to begin with. But Jesse persisted, even when she and Bob parted. More than 30 years on, she still has to pinch herself to think how far the organic movement has come – out of the fringes and into the mainstream.

“The local movement has been very important for organic too; it’s important to start with where you are, eat food that grows near you,” she says. “Of course if you live in upstate Maine that message from someone in California with its abundance of fresh produce can sound a bit mean. But we need to change the notion of what people think of fresh food.”

Jesse believes fresh produce canned and frozen at its peak is just as “real”, tasty and nutritious. “I still dry my own tomatoes and make pickles,” she says. “There are so many ways to make use of food in season for later in the year when it’s not available.”

And despite the global financial crisis already hitting sales of organic fare, Jesse is optimistic about the future. “Human beings are extremely impatient,” she argues. “But I’m more of a big picture person. When I think of what it was like when I started 35 years ago, I never imagined we would be where we are now. It’s so much more than a fad and in some ways, we’ve moved beyond organic, beyond local… it’s really about cooking and connecting. We’re getting back to thinking about the importance of fresh food, as well as the sense of community it brings.”

A big supporter of local farmers, who she describes as her heroes, Jesse believes this connection with where food comes from is vital. “You know I go to these farming conferences and these people are my real teachers,” she says.

“We need to nurture a real feeling for food and then take it another step further and cook for each other.”

Her two sons might not have been as keen on her homemade style when they were growing up, craving the junk food hits of their peers, but she’s proud to say as grown men they totally get it.

“My youngest, who is doing his PHD at Duke University, spends more money on food than anything else because he knows how important it is… he’s always cooking,” she says. “You know food plays such a vital role in our lives. We sit, we eat and we talk. We can stop doing that for a while but not for long or we start to suffer.”

Now a grandmother, Jesse sees her role as an advocate for the politics of food, for food justice as she calls it, as an ongoing one. She wants to see a fair price for the freshest, most sustainable food available – for farmers and consumers. And she’s in hot demand as a speaker on the topic.

She’s proud of the project she does with student teachers from Stanford University, showing them (and the children they bring along) the joys of growing food from scratch and cooking it in simple and enticing ways. She is also relishing a new assignment to get healthy organic food into the university’s hospital.

“I’m a very present person. I tend to do things and let them go, but my work is very meaningful. I get a lot out of it,” Jesse says.

She has also obviously put a lot into it. “I almost went bankrupt a couple of times… but because I came from humble beginnings I didn’t need a lot of money. You know, I had no clue about being a businesswoman and I’ve learnt a lot with some incredible people along the way,” she says.

“I wasn’t always perfect, my restaurants weren’t always perfect and I didn’t make money for a long time. My success has been in learning to hire people who are different and better than me. I’ve surrounded myself with talented people.”

She’s also refused to let go of a dream that many others thought was hippy-dippy at best, complete madness at worst. “To have something you believe in suddenly not be part of the lunatic fringe is wonderful. For it to be understood and embraced by more people is incredibly satisfying.”

For more on Jesse and her work, click here.

Choose well: Angela Crocombe wants us to think about what we eat. Picture: Aaron Pocock

When did food become so scary? Fruit and vegetables coated with pesticides. Dairy laden with colours and flavours. Fish riddled with mercury. Canola courtesy of genetically modified crops. It seems every day we read another reason not to eat something previously regarded as safe or healthy.

Throw in questions about the ethics of eating and suddenly heading to the shops takes on the appearance of a minefield. How has the cow that delivered your steak been treated; were those eggs from chickens caged one on top of the other; how many carbon emissions did those tomatoes emit on the way to your salad; is that fillet of fish from a sustainable source; were the coffee beans in your latte produced with exploited labour?

No wonder many of us just simply throw our hands up in the air and keep buying as before. But, argues ethical eating advocate Angela Crocombe, it is not that hard to do the right thing. She has been practising what she preaches for years.

“It does take a bit more effort in the beginning,” she acknowledges. “But once you find the brands and you’ve checked the labels and you know that this product is sustainably fished or doesn’t have any additives, or hasn’t come from too far away… it becomes second nature.”

The author, whose previous book A Lighter Footprint showed us ways to reduce our carbon footprint, spent months researching the topic for her latest release. Ethical Eating: How to Make Food Choices That Won’t Cost The Earth covers topics such as climate change, animal welfare, chemicals, packaging and organic farming, with easy-to-read chapters on different foods (meat, dairy, seafood, drinks etc). Angela hopes the book will give readers a greater appreciation for food and influence our shopping choices. As she writes in the introduction, “What we choose to eat is one of the most important decisions we make on a daily basis.”

She believes more people are thinking about the impact of their choices.  “Climate change is bringing a lot of these issues to the fore,” she says. “We have to make that information available to people there and make it easier for people to make environmentally sound choices.”

But hasn’t the global financial crisis put these concerns on the back foot? “I think with this whole financial crisis has been building up for years. It’s reaching some kind of nexus where people will wake up and start making major changes,” she argues. “(The financial meltdown) may well put the environment on the backfoot for a little while but this (environmental) crisis is far, far bigger and it encompasses everything about our society.”

Angela has long been concerned about what she puts in her mouth, turning her back on red meat from an early age despite her father’s insistence that her mother not cater for “the phase”. A vegequarian (someone who doesn’t eat meat, but eats seafood, dairy and eggs), the issue of eating ethically has come into even sharper focus now she is pregnant with her first child.

“Certainly what goes into my mouth and the baby’s, particularly for those first few years, is really, really important to me.” she says emphatically. “There are so many toxins that you can’t control so it’s imperative to control or minimise the ones I can.”

Health comes first

Angela believes it is important for mothers to take the lead in the ethical eating stakes. “Women are still the main food purchasers and preparers in the house so they are really important in terms of changing the perception of food for the whole family,” she says.

But who has time to read the labels in supermarkets and check for additives, country of origin, sustainable fishing logos and the like when they’re battling fractious children? “In your average supermarket now there are a lot more ethical options available to us… It is possible and very doable to do the right thing,” Angela says. “And to me you can give your child all the material objects in the world, but what really matters is that they have love and that they have good food going into their bodies to give them the best health.”

She thinks many people have their priorities all wrong. “A girlfriend of mine in the States, they’ve got three kids and they’ve got this enormous house and every object  a child could ever want,” she says.  “I went to the supermarket and was trying to encourage her and say, ‘here’s these organic bananas and they’re a really good price’. She was, “oh, no that doesn’t interest me, that doesn’t concern me’. And I think, ‘you’re so concerned about your children and giving them the right start, how can you not be concerned about what they put in their bodies?’.”

Many shoppers, though, would be put off by the added cost of ethical food choices?  “Eating a healthy diet is actually quite cheap.” argues Angela. “Lentils are cheap, fruit and vegies are much cheaper than anything that’s been processed and put in a jar. And even if you can’t buy all-organic by cutting down on or cutting meat out of your diet you can save LOTS of money. My thing is eat less meat, spend that bit that you’re going to save buying organic fruit and veg if you can, especially the ones that retain more toxins, such as apples and grapes… and really it shouldn’t cost any more than it was costing before.”

The power of choice

She acknowledges, though, that depending on where you live it’s not always easy to make the right choice. It’s all very well to buy organic or locally at farmers markets if you live near good suppliers, but if home is a remote town where everything is brought in by road or air, for example, it’s not so simple.

“It’s good to have general principles but not to beat yourself up about it because you’re going to feel guilty and then you’re probably going to give up and it’s going to become a negative thing rather than a positive thing that you feel good about doing,” she says.

“It is very difficult to be 100 percent ethical 100 percent of the time, but it is about awareness. And the more you can think about where something has come from and the implications of that the better off we all are… I think all of us need to be reminded that we do in fact hold a lot of power in our hands and do have the power to make a difference.”

But as crunch time moves mercifully closer and the smooth-talking senator looks ever more likely to take up the mantle of 44th president of the United States, Barack has the chance to embrace his inner farmer in a powerfully symbolic, yet practical, way.

On the road: The WhoFarmMobile takes its message to Times Square, New York. Picture: heyheygig

The WhoFarm Mobile, complete with organic garden on the roof, has been travelling the country drumming up support for its mission to make the next resident of the White House an organic man.

More precisely, the organisers of the White House Organic Farm Project, or WhoFarm, want their prez to commit to digging up a good portion of the White House gardens to create an organic haven.

They’ve created a petition to that effect, in which they argue such a farm would be a model for “healthy, economical and sustainable living everywhere”.

The farm would provide fresh food for the president, his family and guests to the White House, as well as for school lunch programs and food pantries in Washington DC.

The main man wouldn’t be expected to get his hands dirty – although no doubt a tilling of the soil would make a great photo opportunity. Rather, it is proposed that school children and those with disabilities work the farm to set an example of “hands-on learning”.

Sowing seeds of the past

The plants can’t be any old garden varieties; this is the White House, after all.  Instead, proponents want seeds taken from the heirloom varieties from the farm of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, as well as donations from generous farmers and home gardeners (GMO free, naturally).

And something good would finally come from the waste (non-verbal at least) generated from the White House, the US Capitol and the US Supreme Court. It would be turned into compost for the garden’s soil.

The duo behind WhoFarm, Daniel Bowman Simon and Casey Gustowarow, say Alice Waters gave them the idea for the project. The sustainable food icon has been talking about her desire to see the president eating from his (or her) own garden for a number of years, a topic she returned to in accepting her Global Environmental Citizen Award from The Harvard Center for Health and the Global Environment this year.

Daniel was there to hear it and felt strangely compelled to bring about her dream (which also included edible schoolyards, by the way).

WhoFarm has also earned support from prominent author Michael Pollan, who published an “open letter” in the New York Times Magazine to the “Farmer in Chief”, urging the incoming president to tackle the issue of food head-on and appoint a White House farmer, as well as a chef. “This new post would be charged with implementing what could turn out to be your most symbolically resonant step in building a new American food culture,” he argues.

It’s certainly hard to think of a better place for the new prez to bring about change than in his own backyard. What do you think?

Cool eats: Jesse believes fresh, organic ingredients make all the difference.

What are your favourite ingredients? Eggs; onion; bacon; avocado; great cheeses.

What do you always have in your fridge? Eggs; cheese; milk; yogurt; onions; smoked tofu; sun-dried tomatoes.

And in your pantry/larder? Canned organic soup (breakfast!); organic granola; flour; herbs; spices; canned tomatoes; organic chicken and vegetable stock.

What’s your after work standby meal? Eggs from my chicken, fresh herbs and veggies from my garden…maybe bacon or cheese.

What dish to you prefer to cook for those you love? Short ribs; organic chicken soup; meatloaf; fresh vegetables with olive oil/herbs.

What do you like to drink with friends? Martinis, then great wine.

What is your favourite cookbook? I used to list Joy of Cooking (by Irma S Rombauer, it has been in print since the 1930s). But, as of late, I am totally inspired by (Australian cooks) Donna Hay and Bill Granger’s books. Their food is very close in style to mine in the uncomplicated way their traditional style blends with little twists of bright, fresh, simple innovation. (Can I come to Australia and cook with them?) 

Where do you draw your inspiration for cooking? From my farmer friends.

And your secret foodie indulgence? Fresh, perfect gnocchi that are as light as cloud puffs with truffle oil, butter and parsley and a little shaved parmesan or sprinkle of chilli; or really good chopped liver; or really moist, buttery turkey stuffing.

But if not exactly mission impossible, it’s not an easy one. The recently elected president of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) not only has a powerful anti-organic lobby to contend with but the not insignificant matter of division within the organic movement itself.

“There is real disagreement and there are two main sides I can see,” she says. “Those who really believe that organic is the best way to farm and that if every farm converts to organic then there will be more organic products for retailers to sell. This side argues that fresh food is not enough to make organic sustainable. It doesn’t say you can do anything you want, but that you need to work with different types of companies, producers, retailers etc.”

Working together: IFOAM president Katherine DiMatteo urges unity.

Then there are those with a more political and social viewpoint. “They believe that organic is more than just the farming; it’s about social justice, small farms, about the corporate and global structure and changing global food cartels that have ruined the world. They want to keep out (of the organic movement) those who are a corporation, are mainstream, or who might make conventional products as well as organic. They argue organic should be about eating wholefood, not processed, whether it’s organic or not.”

Local movement

This split has resulted in a new movement in the United States (although it is also evident elsewhere) – the local movement; a campaign to buy local, support local producers, eat wholefood and reduce food miles.

While Katherine believes the movement is not a bad thing, as a long-time supporter of all things organic she is somewhat incredulous that it has been on the receiving end of so much money. “A number of foundations and NGOs have given a lot of money to persuade people to buy local or sustainable and change the way they eat – to the tune of millions and millions of dollars,” she says. “Millions have never been spent on organic, no-one ever wanted to fund organic. The funding for organic has come directly from those involved and only from outside when it’s related to other issues.”

Katherine  probably understands the different points of view better than most. She came to organic through the political and social movement of the late 60s and early 70s, a movement that was asking questions about the way we lived and was looking for alternatives. These “alternatives” included going back to the land, embracing wholefoods and shunning anything produced with synthetic fertilisers.

“Reading Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was a turning point for me,” she says. (Poetically, among Katherine’s innumerable awards is the Rachel Carson Environmental Achievement Award for outstanding contributions to the protection of the environment.)

Rise of organic

Like many in the academic world, Katherine abandoned her chosen profession (education) and moved to a rural area in Massachusetts.  She bought her food from a co-op, one she eventually ended up working for. So began a long journey down the path to a sustainable future, a journey that has seen her head up the influential Organic Trade Association (OTA), as well as help others bring their projects to fruition through the consulting company Wolf DiMatteo & Associates.

Although it might seem like a more recent development, she says there was a real awareness of organic issues when she first “went back to nature”. Life magazine even devoted a cover story to it.

But it took some time for it to take hold in the public conscience, building slowly through the 90s and really gaining momentum when the US Department of Agriculture implemented national standards for organic in 2002. “This was a critical point in the movement’s ability to go mainstream. It meant that organic wasn’t just the choice of a certain group of people and that it wasn’t unrealistic to believe organic was a practical way to farm.”

Of course, as organic produce started to find favour with the “ordinary person” in the street, more corporate heavy hitters moved into the game. And this is where the debate about what organic really means and who has the right to use the term took off.

As a former head of the OTA and now taking the helm at IFOAM, how does she straddle the organic divide? “We allow and encourage discussion to try to encourage the differing sides to reach agreement… to reach a middle ground. When an organisation can’t take a position on something it’s not a good thing, but at the end of the day if members don’t like that position, they will leave.”

Broad approach

Personally, she doesn’t believe that organic can survive without a broad approach. “If we don’t then we’re not really going to have major change, and that’s not just for the environment,” she says. “But the environment is my top priority, although that does not mean I dismiss the other values of organic.”

These values include:

• Good livelihoods for everyone, be they farmers, retailers or processors;
• Equal access to market opportunities;
• Equal access to the healthiest food possible;
• Adequate food supplies for everyone;
• A marketplace, banking and government policy that encourages entrepreneurial farms and individuals;
• Acknowledges the importance of cooperatives.

“Organic can partner with all these other values. But the different principles don’t have to become part of the same rules,” she says. “Indeed I would argue you don’t want governments to start legislating on the principles.”

Katherine argues it is even more important for the diverging groups to work together because of the power of the anti-organic lobby. “We’re trying to change how resources are used and who distributes those resources and the naysayers against organic are the ones who have all those resources. They are the ones saying ‘organic is fine for a small segment but that’s all, it won’t feed everyone’. It’s very difficult for grass-roots run organisations that don’t have the financial resources or even the science and, to a certain degree, media, behind them. It’s hard when you have to keep proving your point in the face of such powerful opposition.”

Strong appeal

Two things the organic movement does have in its favour might initially seem poles apart. “Basically what has kept us in the game is emotion, we have much more emotional appeal,” Katherine says. “And logic – logically we have appeal because it makes sense not to treat food with pesticides or damage the environment. Even people who don’t farm organically or who don’t buy much organic recognise it has very strong appeal.”

The biggest challenge for IFOAM is to maintain and grow awareness about organic globally. “We need to build awareness among farmers about the benefits of organic methods, to raise consumer awareness about the benefits of organic farming and all products that use organic ingredients, and work together with key organisations – those with whom we share values, be they farm or advocacy groups,” Katherine says.

“We also need to ensure we’re part of international policy to help direct the agricultural sector. We already work with FAO (the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization) and WHO (World Health Organization) and it’s important to be at their table and work with them for the future.”

Then, perhaps, organic can not just be a way of life, but the way of life.