Organic Lettuce--Will Factory Farms Take
Over Organic Agriculture?

USA: ORGANIC FARMING SPROUTING BUSINESSES
April 22, The San Francisco Chronicle

In "The Salad Bowl of the World" the organic farming revolution is blooming.
Nearly 11,000 acres of Salinas Valley farmland, arguably some of the world's
best, are being reconditioned for organic farming certification to keep pace
with health-conscious American consumers' growing appetite for organic
produce.

Organic farming is still a niche in the fresh produce market, but the
transition from a small, family farming operation to big business is making
some organic pioneers uneasy.

"It's growing so fast, there's no way to get a finger on it," said Ray Green,
who supervises the organic food production program for the California
Department of Food and Agriculture. More than 2,300 companies have
registered to try some aspect of organic farming in California. Nationwide,
there are 8,000 certified organic farmers, and the movement has attracted
adherents in every state, according to the Organic Trade Association of
Greenfield, Mass.

"When we started growing organic, it was considered a communist conspiracy
to overthrow the food chain," said Brian Leahy, executive director of
California Certified Organic Farmers, the Santa Cruz organization that has
certified 100,000 acres of state cropland for organic production. "Now, for
a company to have a full-service line, it has to have an organic component."
Grounbreaking Partnership: Nowhere is that more apparent than at Salinas'
Tanimura and Antle, the nation's biggest independent lettuce grower, which
has partnered with Earthbound Farm of San Juan Bautista, the No. 1
grower/shipper of organic produce. Their partnership marks a giant step
toward consolidation of the organic food market, which not so long ago was
strictly the domain of small family farmers.

"We're pushing organics where it hasn't gone before," said Myra Goodman, a
Manhattan native who, with her husband Drew, founded Earthbound 17 years
ago with a 2.5-acre Carmel Valley berry patch. Earthbound now markets its
products in all 50 states, with Miami, New York and San Francisco as the top
markets. It pioneered organic packaged salads, a field in which it claims a
70 percent market share.

Adding the year-round production capacity of 2,850 acres of high quality
Tanimura and Antle cropland in the Salinas and San Joaquin valleys and in
Yuma, Ariz., "takes the pressure off us," Goodman said. "We're growing 20,
25 percent a year, and we need to project where to get (produce) from. The
supermarkets around the country wouldn't be carrying organics if the whole
supply was a bunch of small growers.²

³People like us getting into it has kind of raised the bar a bit," said
Steve Bassi, farming superintendent for Tanimura and Antle. "It's good for
the land, and it'll save us money."

Tanimura and Antle is a vertically integrated "seed to salad" family firm
with a reputation for innovation, such as wrapped lettuce, the introduction
of "broccoflower" and "Awesome Greens" salads for kids. It tinkered for
several years with aspects of organic farming, such as composting and using
beneficial insects instead of pesticides, before taking the plunge and
committing some of its best farmland to it.

Right Thing At Wrong Time: Several commercial growers in California
experimented with organic farming in the late 1980s but gave it up because
organic foods hadn't penetrated public consciousness and the financial
returns were insufficient to justify the reduced yields from organically
grown crops.

"It was the right thing at the wrong time," Bassi said. Now, with organic
farming growing exponentially, "the (supermarket) shelves are getting
bigger, and organic stuff consistently gets a higher price."

"What started out as a bunch of hippie farmers has turned into a real
industry," said Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, who as a California assemblyman
authored the organic farming act, which set the state's standards for
certification, in 1990. That act is the model for the federal regulations
promulgated in February that took effect on Friday. They will be implemented
over the next 18 months and lead to formal certification of organically
grown crops by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Despite organic farming's explosive growth, organic produce accounts for
less than 2 percent of California's farm production, and the ultimate size
of the market is anyone's guess. Some supermarkets, such as the 141
operated by Raley's, including Nob Hill and Bel Air, push organic crops
and make them a centerpiece of their produce departments. Others let
the customers drive shelf space allocation.

"We'll respond as the demand warrants," said Safeway spokesman David
Bowlby. "Over the years it has increased because of people's knowledge
and awareness, but (demand) varies from store to store."

Cloudy Future: Even with the organic farming movement in robust health, the
future is cloudy for some of its earliest and most dedicated practitioners.
"With organic agriculture going mainstream, it's eventually going to have
the same problems that conventional agriculture has," said Stacy Clary of
the Organic Farming Research Institute. And organic farmers don't think
they're receiving the help they should from the University of California.
"UC isn't getting it yet that it's not a fringe movement," Clary said.
Overproduction, a chronic problem in conventional farming, looms as a
problem for organic farmers as well. "If you can grow it, you can
overproduce it," said Leahy, who believes that "money will consolidate the
market for organic food and drive small producers back to the farmers
markets."

"The organic industry is going to be dominated by less than 10
grower/shippers in the next decade, so small growers are going to have to
re-create themselves," said Warren Weber of Point Reyes Station, who has
been farming organically since 1974. "Farmers markets are one outlet, but I
don't know if they're large enough to absorb the production."

Weber is seeking to retain the small grower's niche in the face of what he
believes to be the inevitable consolidation of the organic farming industry
by organizing Marin Organic, an aggregation of small organic food producers
in Marin County, which will emphasize regionality in marketing its products.
Leona Hoods, executive director of the National Campaign for Sustainable
Agriculture in New York, bemoans the trend toward "factory farming" of
organic produce but acknowledges that "it's going to have a significant
beneficial impact on the environment."