The ideology of organic agriculture

During the 1960s and 1970s, organic farmers held a decidedly dim view of conventional farming trends and technologies, objecting to the increasingly heavy reliance of these systems on petroleum-based production inputs, especially in the form of pesticides and synthetic nitrogen fertilizer. Organic farmers were also concerned about ever-larger farms, larger and more expensive farm machinery, corporate farm ownership, specialized production schemes [such as crop monocultures and large confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and increased use of animal drugs], water resources, food quality and safety, personal health and safety, and the gradual decline of family farms, small rural communities, and localized food marketing and processing facilities. These concerns were not unique to organic farmers but were widely shared, in varying degrees, by most new agenda participants, some elements of the larger reform movement, and a growing number of consumersReference Knorr and Watkins¹⁰.

Having a clear sense of what could be done to help address these growing concerns would distinguish the organic farming movement from other elements of the new agricultural agenda. When consumers expressed concern about pesticide residues on food, organic farmers offered pesticide-free food; when the conservation community voiced concern over soil erosion and compaction, water pollution or loss of wildlife habitat, organic farmers insisted that their production systems minimized these impacts; when rural development advocates called for the revival of small rural communities, organic farmers noted the connections between small farms and viable rural towns. It would be decades before agricultural scientists and policy makers would begin to seriously explore the validity of these and other claims. However, many new agenda participants (and other reform groups) did come to accept and promote organic farming and its potential for addressing these problems and concerns.

Basic ideological concepts and core beliefs

Organic ideology: A two-edged sword

As organic farmers began to mobilize politically around the reassuring principles of their ideology (see below), conventional agriculturalists had begun to express a quite different set of reactions to the symbols and politics of organic farming. Many agricultural scientists and administrators, who were establishing professional careers and scientific reputations during the 1960s and 1970s, had been born and raised on farms much like those depicted in the expanding literature of organic agriculture. Memories of dawn-to-dusk work on these kinds of mixed crop–livestock farms collided with what they saw as little more than the romantic symbolism of organic farming. Armed with degrees from land-grant universities, schooled there in the latest scientific discoveries and engineering marvels, many agricultural scientists, understandably, were nonplused by the notion that these older, more diversified farm enterprise models deserved their support. Just as high technology was transforming other sectors of society, so too would it transform agriculture. The economic recession that began in 1974—and continued well into the 1980s—was widely attributed to the notion that the US had lost its competitive edge in high technology to Japan and West Germany. Instead of going back to an earlier farming model, US agriculture was being asked to help shore up America's technological competitiveness through the expansion of research in such fields as biotechnologyReference Buttel, Youngberg, Edens, Fridgen and Battenfield²⁶. There were also concerns about agriculture's ability to maintain productivity gains, which were showing signs of leveling offReference Cochrane²⁷. For these and other reasons, the conventional agricultural community believed that the age of specialized, high-technology, high-yield agricultural production had arrived, just in time to meet the needs of expanding US and world populations. The admonition to American farmers from Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz, to plant ‘fence row to fence row’²⁸, was emblematic of the day's conventional ideology.

However, there was more to conventional agriculture's opposition to organic farming than these kinds of macro-economic and technical issues. Many agricultural scientists educated during the 1960s and 1970s now held leadership positions within the agricultural research system, achievements gained, in part, from their own peer-reviewed research on the very same technologies now being criticized by (what appeared to be) non credentialed and overly zealous organic farmers, some of whom, it was believed, lacked previous farming experience or scientific training. Psychologically invested in the new technological paradigm, it was particularly difficult for such scientists and administrators to accept criticism from an agricultural constituency that, in their minds, simply lacked credibility. Moreover, the organic community's growing alignment with non agricultural constituencies (i.e., ‘new agenda’ groups favoring a liberal political agenda)—that had begun to seek access to scarce research dollars—made their demands all the more difficult to tolerate, or even comprehend.

Thus, the ideology that inspired and sustained organic farmers caused most within conventional agriculture to reject both the technology of organic farming, and its new agenda supporters. Had the ideology of organic farming been less powerful, less comprehensive, and perhaps less strident and uncompromising, it might have been less threatening to conventional agricultural scientists and other agricultural policy gatekeepers. Under these conditions, it is conceivable that conventional agriculture would have been more willing to explore the technology, per se, of organic farming (something scores of agricultural scientists would later do), as well as the ways in which these technologies might contribute to a more sustainable agriculture. However, as we learned some 50 years ago from EdelmanReference Edelman²⁹, it is often the symbols—and not the reality—that guide our reactions to matters involving both public and private institutions.

USDA's 1980 Report and Recommendations on Organic Farming

The organic farming community, in July 1980, received an unexpected boost from USDA with the release that month of its much anticipated Report and Recommendations on Organic Farming ⁹. Since June 1979, the USDA Study Team on Organic Farming, assembled earlier that year by Secretary of Agriculture Robert Bergland, had quietly conducted the first-ever USDA-authorized investigation of organic agriculture in the US. (The Study Team's methods and findings are discussed below.) Although the Study Team, chaired by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) soil scientist Robert I. Papendick, had kept a low profile throughout its year-long investigation, the Team's activities had been closely monitored by both the conventional and organic agricultural communities. Once the Report was released, most analysts, including members of the Study Team itself, would characterize it as cautiously supportive of organic techniques. Others in both these communities would exhibit polar-opposite reactions. The organic farming community expressed surprise, relief and incredulity, finding it difficult to believe that a USDA study of organic farming would conclude that organic systems displayed a number of positive agronomic and conservation characteristics. The conventional community would also express surprise and disbelief, but certainly not relief—it reacted negatively to the Report, as well as to the very idea that such a study would have been sanctioned, funded and conducted by USDAReference Berg^30, Reference Risser³¹.

These initial reactions to the Report would trigger an intensified debate, not only on the merits of organic farming but also on the consequences of conventional, chemical-based farming for the long-term sustainability of American agriculture. Ironically, the intensity of conventional agriculture's negative critique of the Report would prompt some leaders of the organic farming community to suggest that the word organic (which seemed especially repugnant to the conventional community) be replaced with such terms as biological, ecological, alternative, sustainable, practical, regenerative and even independent. This deliberate strategy of defending and advancing the principles of organic agriculture by introducing less threatening and in some cases more scientific-sounding words would have substantial, unintended consequences, not only for the evolution of organic farming over the next three decades but also for the larger debate about the future of American agriculture. This aspect of the history of organic agriculture will be considered later in this retrospective.

The Report's impact and life cycle

The 1980 USDA Report was a precipitating event for many of these developments, not the only causal factor. With or without it, the Zeitgeist of the era likely would have caused many of these changes to have evolved in some form. While the Report may have provided support for some new agenda demands, it did not create those demands; nor did it create the organic farming movement. Similarly, the problems and concerns associated with conventional agriculture, while noted in the Report, certainly were not caused by it. Clearly, however, the USDA imprimatur on the 1980 Report did help to catalyze, encourage and strengthen many of these initiatives.

For the new agenda groups, other reformers and a growing number of agricultural scientists (especially those trained in the more traditional agronomic sciences, as contrasted with the newer agricultural science fields of biochemistry, molecular and cell biology, and biotechnologyReference Buttel, Youngberg, Edens, Fridgen and Battenfield²⁶), the Report provided the outlines of a positive alternative agricultural model. Opponents and skeptics of conventional agriculture were no longer placed in the awkward position of simply criticizing conventional technologies, they could now mobilize around the findings and recommendations of the Report, and do so with an added measure of knowledge, confidence and legitimacy. A commentary in Countryside magazine in October 1980 seemed to reflect this new-found hope: ‘… [I]n view of the ideas and insights of the USDA report, one cannot help being more optimistic that, as U.S. agriculture seeks to solve its problems of soil depletion and excessive chemical use, it will turn to the answers offered by organic agriculture as a means of building a sustainable agriculture’⁴².

In fact, pro-organic groups initially would rely heavily upon the USDA Report for ideas, and as a source for scientific legitimacy in support of their policy proposals. Over the next several years, however, its influence waned. Countless new reports and scientific conference proceedings, even several new peer-reviewed journals, would provide credible, more current and much more diverse sources of information in support of these policy activities. The substitution of the word sustainable—in place of the word organic—over the decade of the 1980s also would hasten the Report's declining visibility and influence. Even those scientists and policy makers who felt comfortable using the word organic could no longer ignore the liabilities of its negative scientific and political symbolism. Finally, the definition of organic agriculture set forth in the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 (and implemented in 2002, see below) effectively denied any use of the word organic except for the purposes set forth in that legislation. Once the word organic had been legally defined in federal law (to facilitate and encourage the marketing of organically grown food), its continued use as a descriptive term for the more general agronomic and environmental meanings and purposes discussed in the USDA Report would have been disruptive and confusing. Thus, by the end of the decade, the 1980 Report would be eclipsed by these multiple developments and the new language they fostered. Despite its declining role, many of the activities highlighted below—for the most part, under the banner of sustainability—continued to reflect elements of the Report's findings and recommendations, not to mention the ideology of organic agriculture.

Capitol Hill and organic farming: The early push for legislation

Led by Representative Jim Weaver of Oregon and Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, a small contingent of Congresspersons responded quickly to the legislative opportunities created by the 1980 USDA Report on organic farming. Initially, these supporters took steps to ensure the inclusion of organic farming language in the 1981 Farm Bill. That language called for establishing ‘integrated multidisciplinary organic farming research projects designed to foster the implementation of major recommendations of the US Department of Agriculture's Report and Recommendations on Organic Farming, July 1980’⁵⁰.

The following February, Weaver introduced his initial organic farming bill, the Organic Farming Act of 1982 (H.R. 5618)⁵¹. Weaver hoped his bill would become the legislative vehicle for implementing the authorizing language included in the 1981 Farm Bill. According to Weaver, expanded research on organic farming was justified by ‘the skyrocketing cost of energy, petro-chemically-based fertilizers, and pesticides. More importantly, there is a growing concern about the dramatic soil erosion and nutrient depletion often associated with many conventional farming practices’Reference Weaver⁵². Weaver's bill required the Secretary of Agriculture to ‘establish 6 pilot projects, taking into consideration the Report and Recommendations on Organic Farming, United States Department of Agriculture (July 1980) …’ (H.R. 5618, Sec. 4, (a))⁵¹. These pilot projects were to develop science-based information on a range of organic farming methods such as crop rotations, green manures, and other technologies and management techniques needed ‘in making the transition from conventional chemical-intensive methods of farming to methods of organic farming’ [H.R. 5618, Sec. 4, (a) (1) & (2)]⁵¹.

In April 1982, Senator Leahy introduced companion legislation in the US Senate. After months of internal staff debate, Leahy opted to call his bill the Innovative Farming Act of 1982 (S. 2485)⁵³. The Senator and his staff had concluded that using the word organic in the title would not only have guaranteed the bill's defeat, but denied it a fair hearing as well. With the exception of a different title, however, Leahy's bill mirrored the Weaver legislation, defining organic farming precisely in the same way it had been defined in the 1980 USDA Report. Despite the bill's ‘innovative’ title, the purpose of Leahy's legislation was clear. The USDA opposed this legislationReference Soth^54, Reference Moyer⁵⁵, and neither bill would pass.

These defeats marked the beginning of a 7-year hiatus in early congressional efforts to advance organic farming legislation using the word organic. Not until 1989, when Senator Leahy introduced a bill dealing with a national certification program for marketing organic products (see below), would the word organic headline any congressional legislation. The search for more creative language to advance organic methods would now challenge the supporters of organic agriculture on Capitol Hill.

The political landscape: New (organic) realities

By 1983, 3 years after publication of USDA's organic farming report, political reality had replaced the climate of optimism among organic farmers and the new agenda groups which had accompanied its release. While the agricultural community could no longer ignore the negative externalities of conventional agricultural production practices, or the early 1980s groundswell of accelerating demands for changes in food, agriculture and environmental policy—circumstances that might have opened new pathways for promotion and use of organic methods—opposition to organic farming from conventional agriculture and the Reagan Administration was unyielding. Despite accumulating evidence of ground and surface water contamination from agricultural chemicals^56, Reference Hallberg⁵⁷, increased levels of soil erosion and declines in soil productivity^58–Reference Gibbons and Wilson⁶⁰, adverse effects of technology and farm policy on trends in farm structure⁶¹, increasing pest resistance to pesticides⁶², links between human illness and routine use of antibiotics in animal feedReference Holmberg, Osterholm, Senger and Cohen⁶³, rising energy prices, and the continuing severity of the farm economic crisis, Secretary Block's USDA could see no role for organic farming in American agriculture.

Instead, the conventional agricultural community insisted that these issues were being addressed through modification of existing technologies, and development and adoption of new ones. Biotechnology, precision agriculture, conservation tillage, improved soil tests, integrated pest management (IPM), best management practices (BMPs) and better ways to handle environmental threats from CAFOs were among the solutions offered by conventional agriculture. The Administration, agribusiness, most farmers and most agricultural scientists appeared to be solidly in agreement with this set of prescriptions. By 1983 the organic community had come to realize that it would need a new legislative strategy if it hoped to include its voice and its technologies in the national debate over the future of US agricultural policy.

Against this backdrop, in the spring of 1983, Weaver and Leahy jointly introduced the Agricultural Productivity Act of 1983 (H.R. 2714⁶⁴; S. 1128⁶⁵), legislation that called for a number of familiar-sounding, organic-type program initiatives. While the word organic was conspicuously absent in this legislation, it nonetheless authorized twelve 5-year-long on-farm studies ‘for the purpose of examining the effects of the transition from—(A) farm practices which rely on synthetically compounded fertilizers, pesticides, growth regulators, livestock feed additives, and tillage practices which fail to control erosion; to (B) farm systems which rely on legume and other sod based rotations, the efficient use of crop residues, green manures, off-farm organic wastes and … nonchemical or biological methods of weed and pest control’ [H.R. 2714, Sec. 5, (a)]⁶⁴. Both bills also called for data collection on 12 farms that had used alternative systems for five or more years. Other provisions authorized cost-share payments for intercropping of legumes, and directed USDA to assess the availability of extension materials related to alternative methods and to recommend research that would help farmers better understand low-energy farming methods. Sponsors and supporters were cautiously optimistic about the prospects for passage of this creatively worded organic legislation.

An August 3rd House subcommittee hearing on H.R. 2714, chaired by Rep. Weaver, reinforced this sense of optimism: the only formal testimony in opposition to the bill came from USDA. According to Clare Harris, Acting Administrator of Cooperative State Research Service, the Department was ‘sympathetic to the purposes’ of the legislation, but could not support it because ‘much of this work is currently underway; the bill would impose overly restrictive requirements on the conduct of such research and the costs are excessive’ [p. 48]Reference Harris⁶⁶. This would be the Department's essential argument against the bill, and other later versions, for the next several years.

Witnesses testifying in favor of H.R. 2714 gave a variety of predictable reasons for supporting the bill. However, the testimony of Patrick Madden, the Penn State agricultural economist who 5 years later would become the first coordinator of USDA's Low-Input Sustainable Agriculture (LISA) program, seems especially telling. Madden called the bill's objectives ‘admirable, well worth pursuing, and attainable’ [p. 78]Reference Madden⁶⁷, which he had prefaced by the following: ‘I am pleased that the term organic farming does not appear in the act, because the term is laden with emotional content that gets in the way of useful discussions and actions’ [p. 76].

That a prominent supporter of organic farming would publicly acknowledge that the word organic had itself become an obstacle to progress on low-input farming illustrated just how sharply the political climate surrounding organic agriculture had deteriorated in just 3 years. What was not known in 1983, however, was that any national policy effort designed to support the investigation of organic technologies—regardless of the language used—would be met with determined opposition from various elements of the conventional agriculture community, including major input suppliers and commodity organizationsReference Moyer⁵⁵ [pp. 140–146]Reference Beeman and Pritchard⁶⁸. This pattern can be seen in the legislative and administrative history of the USDA's LISA program, authorized in the 1985 Farm Bill, as well as in the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) program, authorized in the 1990 Farm BillReference Madden⁶⁹, and in the controversy surrounding a major NRC report released in 1989, entitled Alternative Agriculture ⁷⁰.

With respect to the Agricultural Productivity Act itself, opponents of this legislation would hold it in abeyance until 1985 when some of its features were incorporated into the 1985 Farm Bill in Subtitle C, Title XIV, as ‘Agricultural Productivity Research’⁷¹. It would be three more years before any funds were appropriated to implement this provision as USDA's LISA program. By then, some 8 years would have elapsed since release of the 1980 USDA Report on organic farming, the initial impetus for this protracted legislative effort. The word organic was not included in Subtitle C, and the LISA appropriation in 1988 was for a mere $3.9 million, a tiny fraction of total federal agricultural research funding. Still, most supporters of organic/sustainable/low-input farming considered LISA a noteworthy step in the right direction. They were already planning for the 1990 Farm Bill fight, the next major legislative opportunity to advance what many were now calling sustainable agriculture.

Organic/sustainable agriculture in the 1990 Farm Bill

As preparations for the 1990 Farm Bill began, organic producer and certification associations, along with the quickly expanding organic wholesale, retail, processing and distribution industries, were focused on the creation of a national certification program for organic foods and other products. The Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) (S. 2108)⁷², introduced by Senator Leahy in early 1990, provided for establishing a USDA ‘organically produced’ label for products meeting a strict set of national standards and guidelines. As Leahy said when this legislation was initially introduced in late 1989 (S. 1896)⁷³: ‘Since goods labeled organic often sell at premium prices, the temptation to misuse the word is great … A national organic certification program will ease problems in interstate commerce’ and ‘give farmers a commercial incentive to alter the way they farm’⁷⁴. Not since 1982 had national legislation dealing with organic farming actually used the word organic to denote its character and purposes. To avoid consumer confusion, the bill prohibited all other uses of the word organic. Ultimately, the OFPA became part of the 1990 Farm Bill; however, disputes between the organic industry and USDA, and disagreements within the industry itself over the meaning of specific provisions of the bill, would delay its implementation until 2002 (see the following section on Organic Certification).

Meanwhile, as use of the word organic shifted toward legally defined, commercial purposes, other supporters of organic technologies had begun to use words such as sustainable, alternative and low-input when promoting the use of organic methods to address issues such as soil erosion and water quality, and to lower farm production costs. Groups supporting organic-type technologies for these more traditional purposes had reason to be optimistic as the 1990 Farm Bill rolled into view. Bolstered by the growing popularity of the 2-year-old LISA program (LISA had faced strong opposition from agribusiness and some land-grant university scientists and administrators during its startup phaseReference Madden⁶⁹), its supporters were determined to broaden and refine its scope and impact. Since passage of the 1985 Farm Bill with its historic swampbuster, sodbuster, conservation compliance and conservation reserve measuresReference Malone⁷⁵, a number of new ideas for incorporating various organic-type methods (such as crop rotations) into conservation and commodity policy had been advanced, some in the form of legislative proposals^{76, 77}. Moreover, since passage of the 1985 Farm Bill, there had been a constant flow of articles and reports documenting the need for a more environmentally sound agriculture, as well as evidence that low-input methods could contribute to the goal of sustainability.

When the 1990 Farm Bill⁷⁸ had (finally) passed both houses of Congress, sustainable agriculture supporters were pleased—although not entirely—with the results. Those who had fought for the expansion of programs featuring organic-type technologies could point to the following successes. The LISA program had been reauthorized, along with a companion federal-state matching grant program to help states expand sustainable agriculture. Additional authorization was included for extension agent training and development of technical publications designed to help farmers adopt sustainable practices. The Bill also authorized research on ‘integrated management systems’ aimed at developing environmentally sound crop and livestock systems.

Beyond these research and education provisions, the 1990 Farm Bill allowed farmers, for the first time, to plant environmentally beneficial, nonprogram crops on up to 25% of their commodity crop base acres, without losing any of the farm's historic commodity crop base. Also, a pilot Integrated Farm Management Program Option was included under which farm program participants could develop 3- to 5-year sustainable farm plans that authorized planting of resource-conserving crops on their commodity base acres, as well as the right to use a portion of that set aside for commercial haying or livestock grazing. Calls for incorporating these kinds of flexible, environmentally friendly practices into commodity policy had been a major goal of organic and sustainable agriculture advocates for many years.

Sustainable agriculture and public policy: Competing definitions and agendas

Yet despite these noteworthy organic/sustainable agriculture policy accomplishments (as outlined above), close observers of the 1990 Farm Bill process had reason to be concerned. Within the Bill's overall context, with exception of the organic certification measure, these policy gains could best be described as marginal: most traditional agricultural research priorities and price support policy remained in place, and some within the low-input, sustainable agriculture community were beginning to wonder if use of the word sustainable for advancing organic-type technologies had begun to backfire. As the Farm Bill debates unfolded, it had become increasingly clear that multiple definitions of sustainable agriculture had confused and frustrated lawmakers. Early efforts by Representative George E. Brown, Jr, Chairman of the Research Subcommittee of the House Agriculture Committee, and many others, to make the low-input, organic-type version of sustainability the overarching organizing principle of the 1990 Farm Bill⁷⁹ had fallen far short of expectations. Brown's notions of sustainable agriculture would have to compete with those of USDA and agribusiness. By 1990, conventional agriculture had staked a firm claim on its own version of the symbolically powerful notion of sustainability.

Throughout the debates on the 1990 Farm Bill, sustainable agriculture became a political football on the largest stage in agricultural policy. Groups that would have been urging adoption of organic policy options 10 years earlier were now using the word sustainable to push in that direction. Meanwhile, other elements of the organic community seemed poised to create a popular and highly visible national certification program for organically grown food and other products. While this initiative may have seemed misguided and somewhat threatening to conventional agricultural interests, these traditional policy gatekeepers simply could not allow the organic community to claim sole ownership of ‘sustainability,’ a term laden with implications for the future of US agricultural policy. This struggle for control of the symbolic uses of sustainability for political purposes was not new, its broad outlines had been evolving throughout the 1980s. The 1990 Farm Bill debates simply provided a public venue for exposing how this issue would play out in the face of specific policy disputes, not merely in symposia and conferences—settings where sustainable agriculture had often provided the language needed to gloss over policy differences, and seemingly reduce tensions, between conventional and organic communities.

The 1990 Farm Bill debates over how best to define sustainable agriculture were not new. The history of agriculture includes many thoughtful perspectives offering valuable insights and guidance for understanding the importance of sustainability and addressing its multifaceted characteristicsReference Bennett and Chapline^80–Reference Leopold⁸². While these commentaries have a long, important history, growing signs of agriculturally induced environmental degradation and rapid changes in farm structure—trends that had become increasingly evident by the late 1970s—made the search for more precise definitions of agricultural sustainability, and better understanding of its parameters and requirements, seem increasingly urgent. Over the past 30 years there has been a commendable response to this challenge from the academic communityReference Beeman and Pritchard^68, Reference Worster^83–Reference Thompson⁸⁵. Despite the scope of these and other efforts, however, to this day there remain large areas of ambiguity and disagreement, both with respect to definitions, and even more importantly, to the actual technologies and systems best suited for achieving sustainability³⁶. No wonder that the US Congress, in the throes of trying to pass a hotly contested farm bill, would become frustrated with these definitional ambiguities and be forced to compromise over a number of key provisionsReference Youngberg, Schaller, Merrigan and Allen⁸⁶.

Sustainable agriculture gets two definitions

When the farm bill process began in early 1990, proponents of reduced-input, organic-type technologies fell in line behind the definition of sustainable agriculture included in the bill as reported by the Senate Agriculture Committee, a definition that borrowed heavily from the 1989 NRC report, Alternative Agriculture ⁷⁰. According to the NRC Committee:

Not surprisingly, USDA, commodity groups and agribusiness firms strongly opposed the Senate Agriculture Committee's definition of sustainable agriculture, which sounded eerily similar to the definition of organic farming developed by the 1980 USDA Study Team on Organic Farming [p. 9]⁹. Conventional agricultural groups had managed to derail legislative support for organic farming in the early 1980s and were not pleased to see those ideas re-emerge, first in the guise of an NRC report on ‘alternative’ agriculture, and now once again as the centerpiece of sustainable agriculture in the 1990 Farm Bill. Using the word organic for certifying foods produced for the niche organic market—quite small in 1990—was an entirely different matter than allowing notions of organic agriculture to infiltrate and influence major farm bill provisions with the potential to affect the broader outlines of US agricultural policy and practice. Conventional agriculture would insist upon use of the definition of sustainable agriculture promoted by USDA: an agriculture that is ‘environmentally, agronomically, and economically sound over long and short periods’ [p. 304]Reference Youngberg, Schaller, Merrigan and Allen⁸⁶, but which did not embrace the notion of reducing the use of purchased inputs. Much of the farm bill debate would revolve around the differences between these two definitions.

Ultimately, the definition of sustainable agriculture—a mere paragraph of text in an enormously complicated, 700-page bill—‘became one of the most significant and controversial issues of the 1990 Farm Bill. The definitional dispute fueled weeks of debate and, ultimately, a battle on the floor of the Senate that required every Senator to record his or her vote on which definition should become the law of the land’ [p. 304]Reference Youngberg, Schaller, Merrigan and Allen⁸⁶. On one side were those who argued that purchased, synthetic inputs could and should be reduced, and that doing so would benefit farmers, the environment and the general public. Opponents of this view contended that agricultural chemicals had been of enormous benefit to American production agriculture, and that the goal simply should be their more careful and efficient use. When agreement on a single definition for sustainable agriculture could not be reached, Congress would be forced to settle the matter by including both definitions in the bill's research title, authorizing research programs under each definition.

Organic agriculture in 1990: A look at its altered status

By 1990, organic agriculture in the US—as evidenced by the politics and provisions of the new farm bill—had reached a crossroads. One road was labeled ‘certified organic,’ an approach to farming and marketing that seemed to be gaining visibility, acceptance and support, especially from the consumer community. The goals of those taking this road were clear: most producers had accepted the definition of organic farming included in the OFPA, and were hoping for better and more predictable economic returns; organic foods processors, wholesalers, retailers and certifiers were on the cusp of creating a whole new industry, one modeled along the broad outlines of the conventional food industry that many on this road had come to reject. While no one on this road could have envisioned precisely where it would lead, or how difficult it would be to resolve the many disputes that lay ahead, most travelers were filled with a sense of hope, excitement and accomplishment. At long last, organic agriculture had arrived: it had achieved governmental agenda status; it would now be certified; it was becoming an important, legitimate, national and international industry; its role and purpose in society had been resolved; it would soon be given a seal of approval from USDA, its staunchest critic just a few short years before. Travelers on this road now had sole, legal possession of the word organic. While some had accepted federal standards reluctantly—warning that a single set of formal national standards would accelerate the industrialization of organic agriculture, water down its agronomic principles and erode its basic philosophical tenets—overall the future looked clear and bright. For most of the travelers on this road, it was a heady, albeit somewhat unsettling, moment in the history of organic agriculture.

Meanwhile, travelers on the other road—now labeled ‘sustainable’—comprised of those farmers, scientists, policy makers, new agenda groups, and other organic advocates who had come to embrace and support a less-pure form of organic agriculture, were left to ponder how this new, legally defined, market-focused organic program would affect the many traditional issues of concern more broadly throughout US agriculture: soil and water quality, soil erosion, wildlife habitat, social justice, farm worker safety, energy conservation, efforts to improve net farm income, and rural community development and family farms. These were the issues, after all, that had energized large segments of the expanding organic farming advocacy community throughout the 1980s. Now such advocacy would be conducted largely within the framework of sustainable agriculture, even though there seemed to be a great deal of confusion about what that word meant. Many of these travelers were quick to recognize, for example, that there were large-scale farmers—using heavy amounts of purchased inputs and monocultural cropping systems—traveling with them on this same road. Moreover, there were disquieting indications that promoters of agricultural chemicals and the newly emerging field of agricultural biotechnology would be traveling with them as well. They also noticed that this road was much wider and more crowded than the one labeled ‘certified organic.’ These proponents of organic-type technologies worried that their own beliefs would be overlooked amid these competitive, confusing and crowded conditions.

In fact, in a single decade, the politics of agriculture had greatly altered the definition, meaning and purposes of organic farming. The earlier idea that organic farming techniques might be incorporated into conventional systems, thereby reducing costs and helping to address various environmental concerns, was no longer widely discussed. Apart from their use on certified organic farms, organic technologies were now labeled sustainable and obliged to compete for recognition and support with an impressive and expanding collection of conventional agricultural technologies. Organic agriculture was now traveling exclusively on a road labeled certified organic. While this was, in many ways, an enormously positive and widely supported accomplishment, it did not greatly alter the overall agricultural political, environmental or structural landscape. Proponents and practitioners of organic farming—both certified and non certified—would still need to compete for scarce public resources (e.g., research, education, marketing and promotional support) with a myriad of emerging conventional technologies, all now claiming the mantle of sustainability, a powerful political symbol no longer reserved for use by organic, ecological and other low-input farming adherents. Proponents of conventional agriculture were now well positioned to continue propelling agriculture along the same energy-intensive, high-technology and high-cost structural trajectory it had been on since World War II, only now with the added advantage of being ‘sustainable.’ The consequences of these new institutional, definitional and political dynamics would soon become obvious to the supporters of organic agriculture, regardless of which road they had chosen—or had been forced to choose.

Organic farming and marketing: The early years

As noted previously, the ideology of organic agriculture, even as late as the 1960s and most of the 1970s, had little to do with certification and marketing of organically grown products. While organic farmers of this period did, in fact, sell some of their products as ‘organically’ grown, these transactions were mainly based upon relationships of personal knowledge and trust between farmers and consumers situated in what sociologists call dense local networks, not upon legally defined certification criteria. These early producer–consumer connections were the forerunners, at least in part, of what many now refer to as ‘civic agriculture,’ a term popularized by the late Tom Lyson a number of years agoReference Lyson⁸⁷. Organic farmers of this era were motivated more by ideological factors—respect for nature, enhancing soil quality, improved health, environmental concern, community development, personal independence and the like—than by the desire for price premiums or other forms of financial gain. Well into the mid-1980s, many organic farmers continued to sell their products into conventional marketing channels, due largely to the lack of suitable and conveniently located organic wholesale and retail outlets, and a poorly developed certification and processing infrastructure. According to the results of The New Farm survey conducted by Rodale Press in 1979, in connection with USDA's organic farming report, ‘… only 20 percent of the organic and combination respondents received a premium price for organically grown products. Only 6 percent of the totally organic farmers reported receiving a premium price on all of their organic products’ [p. 18]⁹.

Beginning in the early to mid-1970s—largely in response to increasing consumer demand for pesticide-free food, and the enhanced marketing potential represented by this trend—the number of organic grower associations expanded rapidly. The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association was organized in 1971 and claims to be the oldest such group in the US. Formed in 1973 as an information and support group for organic farmers, the California Certified Organic Farmers, one of the nation's first certification organizations, began to certify organic farms in the mid-1970s. In the Northwest, a group called Regional Tilth with chapters in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Northern California, was formed in 1974 as a farmer support and information organization, but did not launch a formal certification program until 1982 when the Willamette Valley chapter of Oregon Tilth began to certify organic growers. By the early 1980s there were estimated to be some 35 such grower support and information groups active in 29 states [p. 18]⁹. A handful of these largely grassroots, grower-based organizations either had certification programs in place or were beginning to consider developing them.

By the mid-1980s a number of private firms also were beginning to enter the field of organic certification. The entry of private, for-profit firms, coupled with the steady growth of not-for-profit, grower-based certification programs and the involvement of a handful of state-sponsored programs, had, by this time, begun to create numerous problems for the fledging organic marketplace. According to DiMatteo and Gershuny, by then ‘there were multiple state laws and differing definitions of organic, conflicting standards among the handful of certifiers, and frustration among processors in finding consistent, reliable sources of organic products’ [p. 254]Reference DiMatteo, Gershuny and Lockeretz⁸⁸. This ad hoc assortment of programs was ill designed to serve the certification and marketing needs of an industry that seemed poised for a period of relatively rapid growth. Indeed, organic agriculture had reached the point where it needed a more formal, recognizable, nationwide organizational structure acceptable to the disparate and increasingly contentious farmer and business interests within the overall organic communityReference DiMatteo, Gershuny and Lockeretz⁸⁸.

The Organic Foods Production Association of North America (OFPANA) was formed in 1985 to address these needs. (The group's name was changed to Organic Trade Association in 1994.) However, due to continuing distrust among certification organizations, farmer-based groups and various business interests, OFPANA's overall goal of creating a national certification program with increased reciprocity among individual certification programs would fail. The frustration associated with this unsuccessful, multi-year, private-sector effort to establish a national organic standards and accreditation program, coupled with the surge in demand for organic food following the 1989 Alar incident (highlighted on the CBS television program, ‘60 Minutes,’ February 26, 1989), set in motion the prospect of turning to the federal government as the venue of last resort with the authority and resources to create and enforce a comprehensive national program of organic certification and accreditation.

Organic Foods Production Act: Formal provisions and some key issues

The OFPA of 1990, Title 21 of the 1990 Farm Bill⁷⁸, provided for establishment of the National Organic Program (NOP) to be housed in USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service. The Bill also provided for creation of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), composed of 15 industry representatives to be appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture and charged with ‘development of standards for substances to be used in organic production,’ the so-called National List. The NOSB was also authorized to ‘provide recommendations to the Secretary regarding implementation’ of the legislation. NOSB membership represents a cross-section of industry and consumer interests, including farmers, processors, retailers, environmentalists, consumers, the science community and one certifying agent. The OFPA required the development of national standards for organically grown agricultural products in order to assure consumers that products labeled organic, both raw and processed, would conform to the standards proscribed in the legislation and rules, and would have been certified as such by third-party certification agencies, accredited by USDA. The Act stipulates that the NOP is a marketing program, and that neither the Act nor its regulations are intended to address issues of food safety or nutrition. Producers and processors of organic products with less than US$5000 in sales per year are exempt from certification. The law provides for civil penalties against persons who knowingly sell or label products as organic that do not conform to NOP regulationsReference Johnson⁸⁹.

When these deliberations began in the late 1980s—under the leadership of Senator Leahy and his key staffer (on the issue of organic agriculture), Kathleen Merrigan—most participants were hopeful, but also wary of where this process might leadReference Fromartz⁹⁰. Some questioned the entire enterprise. The notion of transferring formal control over the sensitive matter of organic production standards to the federal government, especially to USDA, which had long championed high-tech conventional production systems, seemed misguided if not totally unthinkable. While many taking this view may have recognized the potential benefits of national standards, they simply could not support shifting control over the meaning of organic to an institution that had often ridiculed organic systems. For some, psychologically, this alone made the move to a USDA-controlled standard a ‘tough pill’ to swallow. Moreover, many feared that lodging authority for the meaning of organic within USDA would provide the so-called ‘big boys’ (those who often had little sympathy for the established characteristics and philosophical tenets of organic agriculture) with undue access to the reigns of conventional power, thus fostering a ‘slippery slope’ to weaker standards and the erosion of time-honored organic principles.

On the eve of the program's implementation, one such dissenter, Eliot Coleman, long-time organic farmer and advocate, expressed his opposition to federal standards with these words:

While Coleman's sharp-edged assessment almost certainly reflected a minority view within the organic community (after all, details of the NOP and the National List had been thoroughly debated and approved by the NOSB, a panel representing a cross-section of the organic industry), his perspective, nonetheless, illustrates the policy orientation and emotional intensity of a substantial segment of organic participants at that time. In his article entitled ‘Beyond organic,’ Coleman argued that the federal definition of organic, and the regulations promulgated to implement it, no longer represented the fundamental characteristics of organic agriculture. Thus, it would now be incumbent upon those who did understand and respect those principles to redefine organic, and thereby reclaim and perpetuate its true meaning and value. ‘I encourage all small growers who believe in exceptional food and use local markets to use the word “authentic” to mean “beyond organic.” With a definition that stresses local, seller-grown and fresh, there is little likelihood that large-scale marketers can appropriate this concept’ [p. 3]Reference Coleman⁹¹.

Later in 2001, the phrase ‘beyond organic’ would be popularized by Michael Pollan in a New York Times article in which he questioned the nature and direction of the so-called Big Organic (industrialized) version of the organic industry, while extolling the virtues of the more traditional, Little Organic (small-scale) version of organic farmingReference Pollan⁹². Several years later, in his popular book, The Omnivore's Dilemma, Pollan further developed these themes, describing favorably, for example, the farming methods and philosophy of a well-known small-scale organic farmer from Virginia, Joel Salatin, while painting a somewhat less-than-flattering image of Whole Foods, as well as of Gene Kahn, who in 1990 had sold his company, Cascadian Farms, to Welch's (acquired later by General Mills where it would become Small Planet Foods), and as a result had become the ‘poster child’ for those organic pioneers who had chosen to embrace the industrialized version of organics over its more traditional formsReference Pollan⁹³.

Kahn had been among the 69 farmers interviewed in 1979 by members of the USDA organic farming Study Team. At that time, Kahn's farming and marketing operation fell squarely into the ‘Little O’ version of organic farming. Given Kahn's role within the organic farming movement of the 1970s and 1980s, many found it hard to accept his decision to become part of ‘Big O’ organics. Kahn defended his actions by arguing that the benefits of organic agriculture (e.g., reduced use of synthetic production materials, cleaner food and improved farm worker safety) were so important that no opportunity to extend its reach and impact should be overlooked, even if that meant allowing large corporations to enter the field.

Big O, Little O, and Beyond Organic: The evolving structure of organic agriculture

The accelerating growth in the sale of organic foods and other organic productsReference Dimitri and Oberholtzer⁹⁴ over the past two decades has been accompanied by equally dramatic shifts in the structure of organic farming and marketing, including the emergence of many new product labels. These changes appeal in varying degrees to the multiplicity of producer and consumer sectors that comprise the overall organic community. Clearly, for example, there is a great deal of consumer and producer support for the ‘Little O’ version of organic agriculture in the US. The dramatic rise in numbers of farmers’ markets and various types of community supported agriculture (CSAs) over the past decade or so confirm the growing popularity of these largely traditional marketing structures, and the familiar farmer–consumer connections that they and other local marketing arrangements afford. Data collected by Adams and SaloisReference Adams and Salois⁹⁵ would seem to suggest a rising tide of consumer interest in simply buying more farm products directly from local producers, whether or not these local operations are certified organic. These researchers contend that this ‘locavore’ trend correlates strongly with passage of federal organic standards, and indicates a growing desire among consumers for a return to a time when organic was more closely associated with small farms, community support and deeper notions of sustainability. Data reviewed in their study show that organic is no longer as strongly linked to these traditional notions as it once was, and for that reason many consumers have come to favor local over organicReference Adams and Salois⁹⁵.

While the data and analysis presented by Adams and SaloisReference Adams and Salois⁹⁵ are persuasive, the fact remains that even a casual stroll through any Whole Foods Market (or any Walmart or Costco, for that matter) reveals a great deal of support for ‘Big O’ organics as well. Indeed, the meteoric rise of ‘Big O’ (industrialized) organic agriculture over the past 10–15 years, coupled with the simultaneous surge in the more traditional, smaller-scale forms of ‘Little O’ organic farming and localized marketing discussed by Adams and SaloisReference Adams and Salois⁹⁵, suggests an even larger point: the once mono-structural and ideologically homogeneous character of organic agriculture, including its practitioners, advocates, consumers and other adherents, has evolved into a highly pluralistic and complicated system of agronomy, marketing, economics, politics and consumption.

While more in-depth studies are needed to sort out the causes and implications of these alterations in the structure of organic agriculture (and consumer responses to them), this much seems relatively certain: many of these changes are the product of broad socioeconomic influences and would likely have occurred with or without the introduction of federal organic standards. Current tensions between and among advocates of ‘Big O,’ ‘Little O,’ and ‘Beyond Organic’ systems of farming and marketing may well be unavoidable at a time when the organic industry faces the challenges of establishing its role and configuration within the broader context of a rapidly changing society, especially one inclined to welcome (if not demand) ever greater and more specialized consumer product choices. While structural transformations of the kind occurring presently within organic agriculture will produce individual winners and losers, overall, as organic agriculture (regardless of its multiple forms) continues to attract support among consumers and the broader public, the collective good is likely to be substantial. As that process unfolds, the ideological and institutional diversity characteristic of today's organic agriculture (though painful for many organic participants) may prove to have been an essential element in the long-term growth of the overall organic industry.

Sustainable agriculture

The word sustainable did not appear prominently in early debates regarding the costs and benefits of either organic or conventional agriculture. Instead of claiming that organic farming deserved governmental support because it was sustainable, the 1980 USDA Report and Recommendations on Organic Farming simply characterized organic systems as having the potential to help conserve ‘soil resources and the environment’ [p. v], or possibly to address ‘energy shortages, food safety, and environmental concerns’ [p. iii]⁹. In summarizing the basic tenets of organic agriculture, the Report concluded that ‘… organic farmers seek to establish ecologically harmonious, resource-efficient, and nutritionally sound agricultural methods’ [p. 9]. In the period surrounding its publication, the notion of sustainability had not yet become agriculture's dominant verbal endgame, and the word sustainable had not yet emerged—as it soon would—as one of the most coveted, ubiquitous, symbolically powerful and politically charged words in the agricultural lexicon.

It was not until the word organic became the target of elevated and sustained attacks from the conventional agricultural community that organic proponents began to substitute other terms (including sustainable) in place of the word organic, to make organic farming more palatable to the agricultural scientific and policy-making communities. During this linguistic transition, it is important to remember that it was the terminology that changed, not the technology. Throughout much of the 1980s, as the labeling of organic technologies shifted toward the word sustainable, advocates of organic farming and those members of the science community sympathetic to organic approaches seemed relatively comfortable using these words more or less interchangeably. By the end of the 1980s, however, the science community, facing mounting peer pressure and continuing USDA and industry criticism of organic methods, had gravitated almost exclusively to use of the word sustainable. Meanwhile, the organic community began to focus its attention more heavily on organic certification and other aspects of the organic foods marketplace, with sustainability becoming only one of several reasons why consumers chose to support organic farming. Thus, throughout much of the 1980s, but especially during the first half of that decade, use of the words sustainable and organic, two of agriculture's most symbolically powerful terms, were viewed as somewhat synonymous by members of the organic community and those agricultural scientists and policy makers most concerned about the negative externalities of conventional agriculture.

These developments did not go unnoticed within conventional agricultural circles. Once the organic farming community—and a distinct minority of scientists and policy makers—began to suggest that organic technologies were sustainable, and that conventional technologies were not sustainable, proponents of conventional approaches vigorously entered the sustainability debate. The specter of organic technologies emerging as one of agriculture's best hopes for achieving sustainability represented an even larger threat to conventional agricultural interests than did the expanding organic foods marketplace, which remained quite small prior to passage of the OFPA in 1990.

By the late 1980s, the conventional community had begun to marshal its considerable resources in defense of chemical production inputs, precision agriculture, reduced tillage, biotechnology, large specialized farms including CAFOs, and other conventional methods. Proponents insisted that these technologies were now more necessary than ever in the quest for sustainability, which, under the conventional definition, emphasized the challenge of feeding a rapidly expanding world population. The launch of USDA's LISA program in 1988 added to these tensions. The idea of linking sustainability with low inputs was repugnant to conventional agriculture. The phrase, ‘Low inputs mean low outputs,’ became a common refrain as conventional agriculture sought to associate its high-input technology with sustainability. This issue, as noted earlier, came to a head in the 1990 Farm Bill debates. Efforts by the conventional agricultural community to discredit organic and other low-input approaches, and to emphasize the importance of ‘efficient and prudent’ use of farm chemicals, biotechnology and other conventional practices in achieving a sustainable agriculture, has been a central theme in agricultural policy debates for most of the past three decades.

Meanwhile, the organic community has sought to expand the meaning of sustainability to include not only environmental, ecological and nutritional benefits, but also issues such as social justice, farm worker safety and security, animal welfare and a more balanced farm structure, emphasizing the role of small farms and healthy rural communities. Much of the impetus to move ‘beyond organic’ revolves around these kinds of issues, and may be seen in the growth of new certification programs and product labels¹⁰². For example, a five-step animal welfare rating system for meat and other livestock products, announced in 2010 by Whole Foods Market and developed in coordination with the nonprofit Global Animal Partnership, would allow consumers to better understand where and how farm animals are raised. The highest rating would go to those producers whose animals spend their entire lives on the same farm¹⁰³.

The NRC recently characterized agricultural sustainability as ‘a complex, dynamic, and political concept that is inherently subjective in that different groups in society place different emphasis …’ [p. 5] on the various goals typically used to help define it³⁶. According to the NRC, these goals include:

• • Satisfy human food, feed and fiber needs, and contribute to biofuel needs.

• • Enhance environmental quality and the resource base.

• • Sustain the economic viability of agriculture.

• • Enhance the quality of life for farmers, farm workers and society as a whole [p. 4].

Unfortunately, broad, goal-type statements such as these invite multiple arguments in defense of almost any combination of agricultural production methods, leaving the critically important concept of sustainability at the mercy of competing political, ideological and market forces. Thus, from a purely political perspective, organic agriculture (along with other low-chemical approaches) has lost its early, and nearly exclusive, claim on sustainability, a word that may at some point—if it does not already—hold even greater symbolic appeal to the broader agricultural community, and perhaps even to society in general, than the word organic.

The importance attached to sustainability by the conventional agricultural community may be seen in its determination to include conventional production technologies in various efforts to develop a certified label for sustainable agriculture. In late 2010, for example, the conventional agricultural groups involved in a 2-year-old process to develop a national standard for sustainable agriculture, convened by The Leonardo Academy, resigned from the Committee. In explaining the resignations, the American Soybean Association (ASA) cited ‘serious systemic limitations and chronic biases that are inherent in the structure that The Leonardo Academy has set up for this initiative’¹⁰⁴. The ASA further alleged that … ‘the Committee is dominated by environmental groups, certification consultants, agro-ecology and organic farming proponents. These groups have neither the vision nor desire to speak for the farmers of mainstream agriculture who produce more than 95 percent of the food consumed in or exported by the United States.’ The Association further noted that it ‘… supports developing a progressive definition of agriculture sustainability that encompasses profitable, intensive production and encourages consumer acceptance of biotechnology enhanced products and satisfies food, feed, fiber and biofuel needs’¹⁰⁴. Should conventional agricultural interests be successful in shaping and promoting into the marketplace a sustainable label (54 commodity and other conventional farm groups also withdrew from the Academy process¹⁰⁴), it would represent an enormously important public relations achievement, enhance the image of conventionally produced foods (that would be labeled sustainably produced), reassure conventional farmers, confuse policy makers and consumers, and pose an important barrier to the expansion of organic foods and farming.

As the organic community moves ‘beyond organic’ by broadening the definition of sustainability, similar claims by conventional agriculture can be expected to increase. Evidence of this emerging trend may be seen in the promotional literature and outreach of the relatively new Association for the Future of Agriculture in Nebraska (A-FAN). This nonprofit organization was formed by a number of conventional agricultural groups in the state: Nebraska Cattlemen, Nebraska Corn Growers Association, Nebraska Farm Bureau, Nebraska Pork Producers Association, Nebraska Poultry Industries, and Nebraska Soybean Association. Its website stresses that A-FAN's purpose is ‘to assist farmers seeking to make responsible changes to their farms to remain economically viable and environmentally and socially responsible, and to share with Nebraskans a truthful representation of farm life and the connection between it and Nebraska's economic and social well-being’¹⁰⁵. A-FAN spokespersons, unveiling the group on RFD-TV, stressed repeatedly the commitment of its farmer members to animal safety and welfare, as well as to other commonly used indicators of agricultural sustainability¹⁰⁶.

As long as the technologies and systems needed to foster a sustainable agriculture are debated and contested, American consumers will be left to sort out what is likely to be an ever more complicated marketplace of symbols, labels and certification programs, as well as competing claims regarding the sustainability of various products and technologies. Meanwhile, agricultural policy makers will face an equally confusing set of choices when considering how to apportion increasingly scarce dollars for agricultural research, education and other forms of support.

Public agricultural research

Public agricultural policy and farm structure

For the past several decades, organic farming advocacy has been conducted against the backdrop of a larger debate over how American agriculture should be structured. Successful organic farming operations have long been associated with small- to mid-sized, family-type, mixed crop–livestock farms, particularly for farms located in the Midwest agricultural heartland. The intensive management required of organic farming operations largely accounts for the belief that smaller farms generally may be more compatible with organic systems. In sharp contrast to this farm enterprise model, however, trends in US farm structure—farm size expansion, specialization, intensification, and mechanization—especially since World War II, have combined to create a relatively ‘non-organic’ overall farm structure, one consisting of ever-larger, more specialized farms, reliance upon heavy and widespread use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, monocultural cropping systems, and separation of crops and animalsReference Youngberg, Buttel, Bezdicek, Power, Keeney and Wright¹²⁸. One result of these trends has been the gradual decline in numbers of family, or mid-sized farms (numbers of small farms have increased during this period), in what many have called the ‘disappearing middle’ within the overall structure of US agriculture. These technological, economic, political and social forces continue to drive American agriculture in the direction of an increasingly ‘non-organic’ farm structure.

These structural issues must be addressed at a time when some organic proponents have begun emphasizing the survival of mid-sized farms as both a technological necessity and an ethical imperative, not only for the future of organic-type systems, but for the future of the planet as well. Fred Kirschenmann, for example, argues that the industrial character of US farm structure, relying so heavily upon relatively inexpensive, nonrenewable resources, has overlooked the importance of social and human capital, resulting in … ‘a disastrous effect on the nation's “independent family farmers”’ … the kind of farmers needed to … ‘meet the challenge of sustaining a food system that can provide adequate amounts of food for an increasing human population in the face of peak global oil production, degraded soils, depleted fresh water supplies, and more unstable climates’ [p. 331]Reference Kirschenmann and Francis¹²⁹. The plea for preserving a solid core of mid-sized farms is not, he writes, a ‘matter of “saving the family farm”’ [p. 331]. Rather, it is because these are the kinds of farmers who possess the … ‘ecological and cultural wisdom and commitment required to restore the physical and biological health of our soils. They are the farmers who owned their land, lived on their land, were intimately related to their land, and planned to pass it on to future family members—all factors that nurtured a culture of caring for the land’ [p. 330]. Despite the urgency attached to reversing (or at least stabilizing) the loss of mid-sized farms, by Kirschenmann and other proponents of organic farming, success in altering this and other interrelated trends in US farm structure is far from certain.

While many organic food consumers and other supporters of organic agriculture, including growing numbers of scientists and analysts, may view organic systems as a way to foster a more decentralized, less industrialized and more sustainable farm structure, others see the matter quite differently. A recent article in Foreign Policy magazine entitled ‘Attention Whole Foods shoppers,’ by Robert Paarlberg, a well-known analyst of food and agriculture policy at Wellesley College, undoubtedly reflects the views of many within the conventional agricultural community. According to Paarlberg, ‘If we are going to get serious about solving global hunger, we need to de-romanticize our view of preindustrial food and farming. And that means learning to appreciate the modern, science-intensive, and highly capitalized agricultural system we've developed in the West. Without it, our food would be more expensive and less safe’Reference Paarlberg¹³⁰.

Paarlberg is not alone. For most of conventional agriculture, the relatively ‘non-organic’ farm structure now in place throughout US agriculture represents a positive, even stunning, technological and policy achievement. Meanwhile, many supporters of the industrial model continue to view organic agriculture, as Paarlberg phrased it, as ‘preindustrial food and farming’Reference Paarlberg¹³⁰. The many substantial efforts over the past three decades to enhance the scientific understanding and image of organic production systems has failed to convince most conventional agriculturists, many of whom continue to regard organic farming in much the same way it was viewed (and dismissed) decades ago. The following passage captures this sentiment:

The views of PaarlbergReference Paarlberg¹³⁰ and HaddadReference Haddad¹³¹ illustrate a critically important point: The controversy that has raged around organic versus conventional agriculture for the past several decades transcends arguments about the benefits and costs of various technologies and farming systems per se; much of the debate revolves around the issue of farm structure itself. In fact, the structure of American agriculture produces winners and losers. The growing scale and specialization of US farm structure favors a wide array of chemical and farm machinery companies. The ability to capitalize farm program benefits into the value of farmland provides an economic advantage to large landholders. Monocultural cropping systems benefit those companies that manufacture and sell synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Vertically integrated CAFOs benefit large-scale feeders, meat packers and poultry processors. A more ‘organic’ farm structure, on the other hand, one characterized by widespread use of legume-based crop rotations, integration of crops and animals, smaller and more decentralized processing and marketing facilities, smaller-scale machinery and larger numbers of small and mid-sized farms, would greatly alter the mix of winners and losers in US agriculture. The stakes are high for the beneficiaries of the current relatively ‘non-organic’ farm structure, and they can be expected to fight hard to keep in place those policies that have helped shape it.

US farm structure has evolved along with various socioeconomic and political issues, including but not limited to: agricultural commodity, tax, credit, and research and education policies. Relatively low energy prices (at least until recently), rapidly rising land prices and the competitive nature of farming have often exacerbated a cost-price squeeze for producers, adding to the pressures (and opportunities) to expand the size of their operations and improve margins through enterprise specialization, intensification and mechanizationReference Youngberg, Buttel, Bezdicek, Power, Keeney and Wright¹²⁸. The broad outlines of these institutional and policy dynamics may be seen in the following highly abbreviated sketch.

Inflationary land markets have encouraged farmers (especially those well-capitalized with access to credit) to expand their operations through purchase of additional land. Attractive interest-deduction policies have also supported farm-size expansion. Mechanization, which has accompanied the trend toward larger farms, has been encouraged by investment tax credits and accelerated depreciation schedules. Enhanced mechanization has helped to reduce labor costs, while farm-size expansion has allowed the costs for fixed investments to be spread across more acres or other specialized production enterprises. The switch to more specialized monocultural cropping systems and the elimination of crop–animal forage systems, on most farms, is largely responsible for the intensified use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Monocultural cropping systems such as corn, soybeans and wheat require use of these purchased inputs to provide crop nutrients and control pests. Taken together, these alterations in farm structure and management have helped to free farmers from the confining aspects of mixed crop–livestock operations, making current trends attractive to many farmers. As one Midwest wag put it several years ago: ‘Farmers around here work really, really hard—two months in the spring and two months in the fall.’ This comment by a large-scale producer in Illinois serves to reinforce the notion that current US farm structure enjoys widespread support among many, if not most, large-scale farmers, and from the input supply industry that supports them.

Agricultural commodity policy has also tended to favor larger farms specializing in monocultural cropping systemsReference Dobbs¹³². Although commodity policy is incredibly complicated and has undergone numerous changes since the ‘modern’ era of farm policy was first advanced during the New Deal, two recurring features of commodity policy, crop bases and crop yields, have endured (with some modifications) and often have influenced farmer decision-making regarding what crops to grow and how intensively to grow them. Essentially, the larger the crop base (on any eligible commodity crop such as corn, wheat or cotton), and the larger the proven per-acre yield of any such commodity crop, the larger the payment received by the individual producer. These two variables have acted as direct incentives for farmers to establish relatively large program crop acreage bases, to maintain those established bases at levels consistent with individual farm plans and farm program strategies, and to generate maximum yields on those acres, in part through intensive use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. Moreover, compared to crop–livestock operations, wherein at least a portion of certain commodity crops such as corn may be fed to farm animals, it is somewhat easier to prove crop yields per acre in monocultural cropping systems. In the latter case, crops are marketed through local elevators or other commercial outlets, thus providing farmers with weight slips as proof of yield.

Finally, the accelerating wave of farm consolidations and other changes in US farm structure in the years during and following World War IIReference Hurt¹³³ continue to have a negative impact upon contemporary debates regarding the nature of modern organic farming. During this transitional period, the number of farmers who left the farm in search of employment in nearby towns and villages (even large cities) increased sharply. Employment opportunities outside of agriculture expanded rapidly after the War, and the prospect of 40-hour work weeks, paid vacations and a regular pay check appealed to many farmers, especially when compared to the financial uncertainty and endless work associated with the small, confining, relatively primitive crop–livestock farming enterprises characteristic of that era in the US agricultural heartland. During this period, the now familiar corn–soybeans (and Miami) crop rotation, often the subject of light banter around today's rural Midwestern coffee shops, would have seemed fanciful. The lingering images from this period of large numbers of small-scale farmers leaving the farm at a time when much of agriculture was still relatively ‘organic,’ when such systems were being replaced with the chemical technologies that later would come to dominate American agriculture, have continued to distort perceptions of modern organic farming. The reluctance of conventional agriculture to acknowledge the scientifically documented agronomic, ecological and performance characteristics of contemporary organic farming, or to consider ways in which these modern systems could be more widely and productively integrated into the overall structure of American agriculture, continue to pose an important political barrier to the expansion of organic farming in the US, as well as in many other regions of the world.