"Organic" Farming and the True Cost of Food-A Small Farmers Perspective

[BronxBoy]

47. I am so glad you mentioned rural........

One of the things that saddens me about the framing of the whole organic conversation is how rural communities are increasingly being left out of this conversation. And if anything, they face twice the problems that underserved urban areas may face.

As gung ho as I am about this issue, I must admit I had certain misperceptions about rural communities. One of those was that if you lived in an rural community, by default you had access to fresh food. But many of my colleagues in the organic and local food movement quickly disabused me of that stupid notion. Many rural communities may have the land but may not have the resources to farm it effectively. And these communities are more likely to not have access to large chain stores than can fill in gaps in their diets than those in urban areas. I think it's really ironic that some of the most fertile states in the US have some of the most abysmal quality of life statistics in the country.

The second major problem for rural communities is that many of them are farming communities that can't even begin to take advantage of the growing organic movement even if they wanted to. They are too far removed from the urban markets where they can make decent margins on their crops by going direct to consumer and the prices they can get for crops are typically commodity driven with low margins. And there is a process of educating a lot of small conventional farmers that there are viable crops other than corn, soybeans and peanuts

A major concern among rural communities is the population drain of folks moving to urban centers to make money. The organic and sustainable movements are increasingly trying to deal with this disconnect through a variety of means.