USDA Organic Production Survey Tells the Story

The USDA recently published a 160-page report on the results of their Certified Organic Production Survey (COPS).  Questionnaires were sent to 9140 certified farms with an impressive 76% response rate. The bottom line? The biggest certified farms are getting bigger.

The report placed the value of organic products at $3.53 billion with 10% of farms generating 70% of sales. A total of 8 mega-dairies in Texas produce 15% of the nation's milk supply - more than the 465 dairies in New York, Vermont and Maine combined and 50% more than the 397 dairies in Wisconsin.

143 certified organic farms produced nearly 20 million broilers in 2011. 60% of those sales come from only 9 farms in California.

In egg production, 375 certified organic layer farms had sales exceeding $275, 000,000. Missouri ranked second with only 7 layer operations while Indiana ranked fifth with only four.  [Blank spots in the numbers obscure the examples of extreme concentration in the state of Michigan].

It only takes a trip to the grocery store to see California's 60% domination of the organic vegetable and fruit market. If you add Arizona, Oregon and Washington it represents 4/5 of all the organic vegetables grown in the United States. The only state east of the Mississippi that comes close to approaching the production of these western states is Florida, with New York a distant second.  California and Washington state combined produce 90% of the national organic fruit market.

So what does this story tell? To me, it says that there is a lot of monoculture going on.  Organic "inputs" are being substituted but we're still contributing to loss of soil, water and diversity - in other words,  the natural resource base on which life on earth depends.

What's the moral of this story?  Get busy producing, preserving and purchasing local food from small, diversified farms with closed loop systems.  "Industrial organic" is there to serve in the interim and as an entry point for newbies. But it is part of the journey, not the destination. It can never measure up to the quality, flavor and connection ensouled in consciously-raised local food. I purposely avoided the o-word (organic) here because I believe that inputs purchased from conscious local vendors are preferable to outsourced organic inputs.  It's the "slow food" way of growing the infrastructure necessary for a sustainable, local food economy and an incremental move in the right direction that keeps pace with consumer education, rising fuel costs and demand.

Organic certification and outsourced food will never out-perform local food's biggest output: connection. This is where the power to restore land, health and community lives.