An Open Letter to Those Who Would Become
the "Organic" Bureaucrats

In reading the proposed federal rule for implementation of the Organic Food Production Act, I am greatly saddened and feel a deep sense of loss. It would be possible to argue that, in literally hundreds of ways, these proposed rules diverge from organic practice as it is currently understood. I can not imagine the potential wasted time and energy that would result from playing out these hundreds of arguments.

So I will attempt to make a more general criticism of the proposed rule. Mine is an argument about spirit. I do not expect it to be an argument that will carry much weight with the agricultural marketing service of the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture). But it is in the area of spirit where this tangle of twisted language, avarice and rationalization betrays the people--seen as consumers--, the farms -- seen as production units, and our part of the holy Earth Mother--seen as the area of federal jurisdiction.

Although I have been angered by this proposed rule, I will try to control my anger. I know that it is wrong to express anger in your world of cool prose and even cooler calculation. I know that when you dismiss things important to me as "insignificant", it is not done in anger. It is not my concerns that you are dismissing -- I realize that. You are only clearing away minor obstructions to exponential growth, to building an "industry", to the meaningful work that is the calling of people like yourselves.

The farmer-poet Wendell Berry has described the experiment of the last five hundred years with the words..."They didn't know what they were doing because they didn't know what they were undoing." I am tempted to go from this statement to a discussion of manners -- if it can be done without anger.

To those of us who have built this house, you have forced your way through the door and started rearranging the furniture...wiping your expensive, but dirty shoes on rugs our mothers made. But one person's bad manners is another's fix it and make it better. I guess we just don't understand why anything you look upon is yours to tinker with as you see fit.

But let me return to what I see as the spirit of organics. We have not sought to duplicate the "industrial" food system, which we see as set up to benefit food processors and wholesalers and those who sell agricultural "inputs" at the expense of all other stakeholders. We have tried to build a food web that emphasizes other things as important.

As an organic farmer I give thanks daily to the soil and its uncounted and unnamed diversity which is the foundation of all life. I will not ever find myself searching through the freaks of genetic manipulation for an improvement on that creation, even if you assure me that they are the finest products of man's infallible technology. Again, your flexibility exceeds my needs.

As a person who is part of a community that is my home, I give thanks daily for my neighbors...in all their diversity. To those who choose to buy food from our farm, I give thanks for their concern with how their food is grown. Their appreciation, their caring, their commitment to the health of the whole is a far greater reward than the amount of money that changes hands between us. I will never turn my back on them to adopt the methods of a watered-down, counterfeit "USDA organic"...with its promised greater efficiency and exponential growth.

In the press release that accompanied publication of the rule, Secretary Glickman stated,"I want to make it clear that these rules are not about creating a category of agriculture that is safer than any other." I can see this is a sensitive issue with many people involved in chemical-intensive agriculture. I know many of them feel attacked as being careless and irresponsible. I wish these charges were untrue and unnecessary. I wish no one had to feel attacked. I know the feeling of being attacked and I know it doesn't contribute to clear thinking.

We are living in the same land and I wish we could have a respectful exchange of views. But many things prevent this. We need to consider your feelings of being attacked and we have not always done so. You must also recognize that our growing customer base are people whose concerns you dismiss and whom you have called names.

But all of this is superficial. If it is true that only the most impolite among us yell names and accusations, it is also true that we have a much deeper criticism of each other. We disagree about the nature of reality about how the natural world works. This is the foundation on which all our other differences are built. These arguments will not be resolved by science or by bickering about safety.

In the past you have dismissed our views as unscientific-- denying, as you did so, that even science operates on assumptions (a world view) and that science is bound by the laws of the universe and cannot transcend them. In particular, we assert that the law of supply and demand has allowed a large demand for bad science to create a large supply, in spite of the occasional Rachael Carson that comes along.

If it is necessary for you to continue these denials, what can we do? If you must, in your own minds, place us outside of science, where are we left? If you insist you can only be comfortable by putting us in a box labeled "Myth and Superstition," we may accept. Having looked inside, we find you have thrown much of your spirituality and religion into this box as well.

Organic agriculture is not the accusation that you insist it is. Organic agriculture is based on a world view different than that of the chemical-intensive agriculture with which you are familiar. It seeks to establish a parallel food system. This is not threatening. Such a system already exists in Kosher food.

It is unthinkable that the USDA and the U.S. Congress would seek to nationalize Kosher food. It is unthinkable that they would declare rabbis as "unscientific". I can not imagine you trying to force anything on the Orthodox Jewish community in the way you are forcing ionizing radiation, genetically manipulated organisms and other synthetic garbage on us.

And why is this? Is it because Kosher is recognized as spiritually based? Or is it because the Kosher market is not growing at 20-30% a year? Is there greed mixed in with your need to control? You have forgotten the first rule of commerce -- the customer is always right. Don't blame us because we remember. Shame on you.

While it is true that the little mammals ate the eggs of the thunder lizards, they were not their enemies. No more so than the non-crop plants or the insects are my enemies or the enemies of my crops. No more so than I am your enemy or the enemy of the mega-agricultural corporations. The little mammals did not destroy the thunder lizards and we will not destroy you. It was the laws of nature and the turning of the Great Wheel that ended one era and began another.

The times are changing. Change with them.

Jim Moses lives in Leelanau County. He and his wife, Linda Grigg, have operated a certified organic farm since 1989. He is also a farm inspector for the Organic Growers of Michigan.

Return to the Index of Synapse 43, Spring 1998