Organic Food vs Reality: Mike Devlin On Why the Price Tag Is Still Out of Reach

Remember when this was all the rage? You couldn’t move for the stuff because everybody was eating it. No, not then — I mean a hundred years ago. Farmers, markets, and consumers were all in on it. Until they weren’t.

Big corporations moved in, profits needed to be made, costs needed to be streamlined, people had to be fed. But then it all came back (which is the time period you were initially thinking of when you read the first sentence). By then we — in the first world at least — had become so used to having everything all the time, and at stupidly low cost, that we forgot how people used to eat: healthier, cheaper, and only what was in season.

“Ooh, I do fancy some asparagus tonight, Tracy.”
“Don’t be stupid, Hank, it’s January.”

The trouble was that to replicate the dinner table of a century ago meant sky-high prices. Sure, for the most part the produce tasted better, was healthier, and certainly looked more normal, but that price tag? It was now only for the more affluent among us, meaning the vast majority had to continue eating crap.

So let’s look at organic food: what it is, the laws behind it, why it’s so expensive, and whether it will ever become mainstream again.

We’ll start with the law first, as that will by definition lead on to what organic food actually is. Much like one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, or one man’s good night out is another man’s locked-up-for-the-weekend, the law depends on where you live and what you can and cannot do. Organic food — and calling it “organic” — is dictated by these laws, and for the most part (and we’ll be looking at the USA, Europe, and Japan) they are all pretty similar.

So similar, in fact, that an agreement called the Equivalence is used when distributing from one region to another. But, as you would imagine, there’s a catch: one man’s trash is also another man’s trash; we just occasionally slap a “treasure” label on it.

The EU has the most stringent laws: barely any non-organic additions allowed in processed foods, limited antibiotics permitted only for the welfare of animals, and a minimum of 95% organic ingredients. Japan uses the same ratio but has a list of permitted non-organics that won’t affect that 95%.

The USA has similar rules but not to the same extent. They have three levels of “organic” (100%, 95%+, and 70%+), but any of these sold within the EU can display an organic label. Even the 100% tier in the US allows more non-organics than the EU would accept. However, the US does not allow antibiotics of any kind. Still, they will put an organic badge on an EU product as long as the differences aren’t too different — which seems to be the general principle across all territories.

You’re already confused, I can tell. You thought organic meant organic, didn’t you? You silly person, you.

Now, there is the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), which is global, and its role is to update, unite, and lead global organic standards. It helps and advises territories on what is and isn’t allowed — much like the UN does with laws and agreements. So you can imagine IFOAM possesses just as much power as the UN does.

Let’s confuse things even further, shall we? Soil Conversion is a law that states how long a field must be under organic principles before a farmer may harvest organic produce from it. In the US and Japan it is three years, and in the EU it is two. That means the field(s) must be left alone completely for that time before any harvest can be considered organic. Japan has the highest standard, followed by the US and then the EU — although the EU is equivalent to the US for “higher perennials” (woody plants with long lifespans).

However, pesticides are where the rankings flip. The US is far more flexible than the other two, with Japan coming out on top.

That’s the law bit done with — mostly — so what is organic food? Imagine, if you will, that you live in rural France and own an allotment (yes, nice thought, I know). You grow your own veg and fruit and it’s more organic than the most organic thing on the planet; Mother Nature doth verily shine her majesty upon thee. There’s a farmers’ market in the village twice a year and you’ve had a bumper crop, so you decide to sell it.

The EU will not allow you to label, advertise, or even verbally call it organic, and you will be heavily fined if you do. The produce is organic, but without a licence it legally isn’t. The same is true in Japan.

The US, however, cares not, because you’re not about to break the $5,000 annual sales limit. “Sure, ma’am, call it what you will… wait, is that a USDA label? Your arse is going to jail.”

So, as with most things in this world, it is only organic if someone with a badge tells you it is.

Then we come to the cost to the consumer. After reading all of the above you will no doubt appreciate that this all costs a lot to set up, and to obtain the correct accreditation before you’ve even pulled your first peach from the tree.

Then you have ongoing costs to maintain that accreditation and everything related to it. This isn’t a case of throwing down a few seeds and some manure mixed with whatever that big scientific word is on the packaging. Oddly, that’s probably the cheapest part. Add in the costs of extra human labour, natural fertilisers (which go through rigorous testing), and of course the soil conversion period where large parts of the farm sit doing absolutely nothing for years…

Throw in lower yields, crop rotation to keep the soil healthy, plus the fact that organic farms tend to be smaller with less access to distribution, and you start to wonder whether paying three times the price for that onion is actually quite cheap, all things considered.

So is there anything that can be done to reduce costs?

AI. Yup — that thing that will at best enslave us all and at worst kill us in our sleep is apparently the answer. Small robots can perform labour-intensive tasks such as weeding, and small, inexpensive drones fitted with sensors can easily detect anomalies in the field. A better, cheaper, more efficient distribution network that is affordable for smaller farms — plus longer contracts with sellers — will also drastically reduce costs. Consumers also need to get back into the habit of not having fresh asparagus in January. It’s really not going to kill you, Hank, to wait.

And things are changing. Slowly. Unfortunately, in the modern world it has been drilled into us that organic is a premium product, and therefore costs more. A case could be made that no matter how much costs fall, companies will always market it as “better” (which it often is), and “better” equals a higher price — and more profit.

One thing I will add to end this — something that will blow your mind… those organic fertilisers. You’d think they were manufactured to the same high standards as the food they help grow — the food you then consume. Well, you’d be wrong.

Sure, you can’t just throw anything into them, but the rules don’t mind quite as much if you do, so long as those things aren’t arsenic, lead, cadmium, and the like. You’re not technically eating it, you see, so it couldn’t possibly be held to the same standards.