Chrzan, "The American Omnivore’s Dilemma"

8/3/2019 Chrzan, "The American Omnivores Dilemma"

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Food and Foodways, 18:8195, 2010Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 0740-9710 print / 1542-3484 onlineDOI: 10.1080/07409711003708561

The American Omnivores Dilemma:Who Constructs Organic Food?

JANET CHRZANUniversity of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

In the process of starting a farmers market I have been confronted

with many differing ideas about organic and sustainable food,

from sources as varied as farmers and regulatory agencies to con-sumers and market volunteers. Each person seems to have a com-

pletely different working concept of organic food, how it is grown

and what it means for personal and public health. Furthermore,

the word organic, as popularly constituted, has absorbed many

meanings which arent strictly related to the process of creating or-

ganic goods or even the regulatory characterizations of the word-

as-label. This is a first attempt to grapple with my experiences arising

from the establishment of the farmers market working with farm-

ers, farm advocacy groups, local regulators, and consumers and my

observations of the often-contradictory perspectives of the various groups interested in the production and consumption of organic

foods. Additionally, I provide a brief summary of some of the areas

of food practice and belief surrounding organic food use that may

provide anthropologists with fertile areas for further research.

In 2007 I started a not-for profit producer-only farmers market in a suburbantown outside of Philadelphia; twelve local farmers provide vegetables andfruits, eggs, cheese, and a wide variety of meats, breads, and even soap. The

purpose of the market is to provide locally grown fresh foods, to encourage vegetable intake, and to support the livelihoods of local farmers. On thefirst day of the market a woman loudly berated me for not having organicfood for sale. I looked at her in some confusion and explained that twoof our four fruit and vegetable producers were strictly organic (and onecertified), one practiced IPM (Integrated Pest Management), and only one

Address correspondence to Janet Chrzan, Ph.D., Department of Anthropology, Universityof Pennsylvania, 323 Museum, 3260 South St., Philadelphia, PA, 19104-6938, USA. E-mail:

[email protected]

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was conventional; all meat and dairy was pastured and raised humanely.She then told me she thought the market was a fraud and that she wouldnever come back. I asked her to tell me what she wanted to see in a farmersmarketwhat were her standards for organic? She looked at me in confusion

for a moment and stomped off. I thought Id never see her again, but the nextweek she was standing in line to buy from the only conventional vendor inthe market; she has returned every week, always buying her conventional,non-organic yet locally grown produce.

I use this event as a starting point to explore discourses about foodproduction and consumption in light of what is erroneously called the or-ganic movement and to highlight areas of cultural misunderstanding aboutfood production that could provide rich material for future anthropologicalfieldwork. The distance between understandings about food production ofproducers, regulators, and consumers is profound, and public dialogue is

not correcting these lacunae. This article is the result of several years ofparticipant-observation among farmers market patrons and vendors, con-

versations with participants at sustainable and organic farming conferences,and active interaction on nation-wide listservs of farmers market, sustain-able farming, and food policy advocacy groups. In addition, a number ofinterviews with key activists occurred and of those, three primary informants

were chosen for use.In order to encourage future research on these topics among anthro-

pologists, I elucidate the primary stakeholders in this so-called movementand examine where areas of understanding, discourse and practice agree

and where they are in opposition. Consumers, farmers, government andnon-governmental organizations, certification agencies, and food manufac-turers are invested in the promotion of the concept of organic food buteach group defines the word organic differently, which results in a lackof understanding between groups as well as an inability to create culturallymeaningful systems of regulation and authentication for organic foods.

CONSUMERS

Consumers seem to be the easiest group to typify, although there is muchconfusion among them in knowledge and conceptualizations of organic.

Among shoppers at the farmers market, the concept of organic is poorlyunderstood except by a small minority of committed food and farming ad-

vocates. Most people I talk with do not understand the process of organicgrowing, nor do they understand what organic means as a regulatory mech-anism. When queried they are usually unable to define organic except assomething vague that doesnt have chemicals or is better for you. Theydo believe, however, that they should buy organic, but often for very un-

realistic reasons. Mothers tell me they buy organic because my children


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The American Omnivores Dilemma 83

have allergies or because Im trying to make sure my family is healthy.I also sense, through comments made about the appropriateness of shop-ping behaviors, that mothers are competing to demonstrate caring behaviorsthrough the serving of organicsthat to be a good (middle-class, suburban?)

mother is to shop at Whole Foods or the farmers market rather than at thelocal conventional supermarket.Research demonstrates that the lifestyle consumer and educated or-

ganics consumer are very different entities; the latter is likely to belong to afood advocacy group, is more knowledgeable about organic processes andpossesses a sense of agency in relation to food choicewhile the formermay or may not buy organic and local or sustainable based on convenience,price, and some often-vague concept of what the word organic means tothem (Yiridoe et al., 2005; Demeritt, 2006; Reed and Holt, 2006). Accordingto the Hartman Group, approximately 66% of U.S. consumers buy organic

products at least occasionally, with 21% forming a core advocacy group. Afurther 21% are mid-level buyers, with 13% defined as periphery (Demeritt,2005). Core buyers understand the certification process and that the organiclabel represents a process from farm to table. Midlevel buyers associate or-ganics with product quality, whereas the periphery confuse the term withideas such as natural, associate organics with alleviation of risk, and questionthe value and authenticity of the certification process (Demeritt 2005(a andb), 2006; Lockie et al. 2006).

In the wake of recent food scares caused by lack of USDA regulatoryoversight peripheral buyers increasingly associate organic with safety and

cleanliness, much as the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval reassured the1950s housewife. The Hartman Group has found that organic now meansmany things to many differing groups of people:

Our most recent research reveals that as consumer involvement withorganics has grown, we encounter an ever-expanding body of inter-pretations, understanding and practice all focusing around the notionof organic. Currently were finding that many consumers rely on or-ganic as shorthand for a variety of attributes, including better tasting,

healthier, more real, less processed, fresh or local. Others relyon organic products as a means of addressing a multitude of food al-lergies and fears, rational or otherwise. Still others equate organic withnotions such as sustainable. (Demeritt 2007).

Academic research confirms these framing categories; the average consumerthinks of organic as healthy, tasty, and better for their bodies and the worldas well as free of risk factors (Robinson and Smith 2003; Chang and Zepeda2005; Prigent-Simonin and Herault-Fournier 2005; Donald and Blay-Palmer

2005; Lea and Worsley 2005; Yiridoe et al. 2005; Roe 2006).


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Christopher Fullerton (Director, Consumer Division Pennsylvania Asso-ciation for Sustainable Agriculture) and Jessica Greenblatt Seeley (DeputyExecutive Director, Food Routes Network) both describe consumer behavioras dominated by a concern with making the right choice. Fullerton states

that people are concerned with choosing the right foods for themselves andespecially for their children. They usually have little knowledge of the largerissues of farming process, environmental impacts, or holistic theoretics butare interested in doing the right thing and organics allows them an easy andidentifiable way to do so (see Chang and Zepeda 2005, for a similar finding

with Australian consumers). This observation is in accord with conversationsparticipated in and overheard at the farmers market; many consumers equateorganic with a measure of safety but are not precisely sure what organicmeans, although the materiality of the dichotomously framed organic vs.conventional categories are meaningful because they conflate with moral

contrasts such as good or bad and healthy or unhealthy. It is, for manyshoppers, simply a shorthand label that allows for a truncated yet reassuringsystem for channeling food choice.

In summary, most consumers at the farmers market usually view or-ganic as a thing, not a process or idea. A food is seen as dichotomouslyorganic or conventional but why the food is organic is not precisely un-derstood. Certification is valued because it resolutely defines the product,but not a single queried customer could explain the certification process or

what, exactly, certification means. While the more sophisticated core con-sumers do understand the processual elements of organic food production,

they make up a relatively small percentage of the overall food and organicfood market.

FARMERS

For farmers, organic is a process. Farmers cannot answer if something is or-ganic except by explaining how their processes adhere to farming activityon a spectrum from industrial to small scale biodynamic. This spectrum

and the processes attached to particular practices are delineated by certifica-tion categories and the preferred methods of the farmer. In contrast to thedichotomies perceived by consumers, farmers recognized nuanced shades ofpractice in relation to farming philosophy, soil needs, crop types and avail-able and/or preferred market niche. Perhaps most importantly, small-scalePennsylvania farmers recognize that organic farming is not simply the with-holding of specific chemicals and those biotic choices create sociological,ecological, and economical differences for farming families and communi-ties.

Jessica Greenblatt Seeley, the Deputy Executive Director of Food Routes

(a farm-to-consumer advocacy group) and a member of a Pennsylvania


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farming family, asserts that many farmers in Pennsylvania shift to organicproduction because it allows them to adopt a family farming model andincrease farm receipts. Transitioning to organic production with direct andshort-chain local sales allows farmers to integrate family workers and to use

mixed-production models, often incorporating direct sales and other formsof economic diversification (personal communication, October 2007). As thefarmers in Leslie Durams studyGood Growing: Why Organic Farming Worksexplain, organic CSAs and short-chain sales models allow for higher realizedand received prices but also require more labor: We are up to a buck apound with the CSA, give or take, and a lot of vegetables go out of here fortwenty or thirty cents a pound wholesale (Duram 2005: 102).

The organic farmers I work with indicate that their farms simply wouldnot be economically viable without organic production and the selling chan-nels (direct, short-chain, local, and premium) it allows. Mike Nelson, the

farm manager of a midsized (400 acres) IPM New Jersey vegetable, fruit, andhoney farm shifted to IPM and direct sales when farm prices became toolow to operate without loss. Each year, he adds more farmers markets; hismodel allows for farm survival in an area where land values have skyrock-eted. Similarly, Lisa and Ike Kirschner raise organic fruit trees, vegetables,and manufacture value-added products for direct sales specifically so theycan maintain an agricultural life, home-school their son, and produce su-perior food products. Though they practice organic principles, they are notcertified because the cost is high in relation to the size of their farm andbecause they have created a strong direct sales market without certification.

For these farmers, choosing to farm is a lifestyle and vocation and they seeorganic (or partly organic) farming as a means to maintain an agriculturallife while nurturing land, family and community.

Small scale organic and IPM farmers consider their farming practices tobe very differentand far more holistically organicthan the large farmsthat supply the bulk of the national certified organic market. Much of theorganic food purchased by Americans is produced on farms that are sub-sidiary productions of even larger conventional farms. As Guthman (2004),Pollan (2006) and Fromartz (2006) chronicle, large farms might choose to

segregate a portion of their fields to produce an organic crop in order toboost overall receipts without adopting organic practices for the majority oftheir acreage. Because much of the farmland used for large operations isrented, there is little impetus to practice the holistic organic farming princi-ples that conserve soil quality and biotic interdependencies (Guthman 2004).

As a result, the farmers in Pennsylvania more typically perceive that real dif-ferences between farming practices are tied to scale, since large farms areunable to farm as intensivelyor as sustainablyas can smaller producers.Furthermore, since certification is not necessary to build a strong consumermarket in a direct sales environment, farmers define their farming style by

descriptions of process rather than by certification.


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In summary, farmers perceive organic production to be a process anda continuum rather than a dichotomously defined object determined by acertification process. For this reason they see little need for certification,especially if their farms are small and their direct-sale chains robust. Farmers

are also critically aware that customers usually dont understand growingprocesses and are confused by explanations about farming. Farmers becomedisheartened when, after explaining farming philosophy and practice andlisting the precise economic and scaling reasons why a particular farm isntcertified, a customer responds with a comment such as so you arent reallyorganic, are you? For this reason a better understanding of the culturalgap between object and process in organic food production would be anadmirable project for anthropologists.

NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS (NGOs)

Most NGOs view organic food as both a process and an object becausetheir involvement is linked to both the processes of production and reg-ulation and to the various certification steps that create the thing that isdistributed, marketed and eventually purchased. Because their sphere ofaction spans the entire production process, many non-governmental orga-nizations are involved in advocacy and education in organics. They rangefrom consumer-oriented entities such as the Organic Consumers Associa-tion, Local Harvest, and Organic Exchange to farmers associations such asthe Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture, Northeast OrganicFarming Association, the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, and theOrganic Farming Research Foundation. Bridging organizations include tradeassociations such as the Organic Trade Association, the Midwest Organicand Sustainable Education Service, the Organic Center, and the InternationalFederation of Organic Agriculture Movements as well as a large number offarm-to-school and farm-to-institution advocacy groups.

Farmer-oriented groups such as Pennsylvania Association for Sustain-able Agriculture (PASA) offer educational programs, producer networking

opportunities and direct supply chain support in the building of farm to con-sumer structures through Buy Fresh Buy Local branding campaigns. Tradeassociation entities such as the Organic Trade Association (OTA), the In-ternational Organic Accreditation Service and Organic Processing Magazineare business-to-business organizations that promote trade in and distributionof organic products; as might be imagined, their goals are often seen to besomewhat antagonistic by the consumer organizations. As Marion Nestle out-lines in What to Eat, the Organic Trade Association is not a group of back tothe land farmers but is dominated by companies such as General Mills, whichis understandable given that growth in sales in organics has been constant at

20% per year for several years (Nestle 2006:37). In part, the tension between


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organizations is tied to the differing interpretations of the nature of organics;members of groups, such as PASA, that embrace a more process-orientedapproach view the actions and goals of trade associations that promote large-scale sales via dichotomizing certification labeling with suspicionin part,

I would venture to hypothesize, because the consumer-sales focused lan-guage and strategies of the latter diverge from the conception of organics asa process.

These organizations provide primary educational services to consumers,farmers, traders and grocers of organic foods. Some of them have enormouspower to mobilize citizen-consumer action and others shape the structure ofdistribution networks and retail opportunities. While the consumer groupspromote awareness, education, and distribution of preferred products anddefend organic standards against industry tampering, organizations like PASA

work to build direct sales and business-to-business markets for farmers, and

OTA and IOAS focus on influencing government agencies to alter nationalstandards in order to guarantee certification and presumed increased profitsfor their industries. What is remarkable about this particular food sector isthe level of consumer advocacy; buyers of organic products are passionateabout their commitment to defending standards and supporting a fair andjust organics marketplace. Probably no other grocery sector has the samelevel of committed supporters with real power in pocketbook politics.

The range of advocacy goals is extensive and, at times, contradictory.The Organic Consumers Association has been able to mobilize hundredsof thousands of consumers to write letters in support of specific standards

and provides information updates on perceived threats to guidelines posedby proposed National Organic Standards Board changes to labeling laws.

A consistent message from consumer groups is that the certification pro-cess is corrupted because food companies are pressuring the NOSB to relaxstandards to allow more food products to be labeled organic. Because ofthese messages, increasing numbers of concerned organic and sustainablefood shoppers doubt the reliability and authority of the NOSB labeling pro-cess, and are switching from the purchase of certified products to direct,short-chain and face-to-face food-buying networks. In other words, indus-

try pressure to relax certification standards compels engaged consumers tolearn more farming, food production, and distribution, and thus to beginto view organic food purchases with a set of value metrics that activelypromotes a process-oriented understanding that privileges short-chain, pre-sumably transparent, distribution networks. Many customers at the farmersmarket tell me that they have switched from buying certified organic foodsat Whole Foods to locally farmed non-certified products, because I knowI can trust these farmers. Since there is widespread belief that the organiccertification regulations have been watered down, faith in the legitimacy andauthenticity of the USDA certification process has been damaged, further

propelling consumers into alternate the short-chain and direct market. As a


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result, a better understanding of how the public discourse of advocate NGOshas affected consumer awareness of food certification and farming practices

would be a good project for anthropologists.

CERTIFICATION AGENCIES

Most consumers do not understand the certification process. They oftenassume that farms are inspected by the government although they rarelyknow what those inspections mandate nor do they understand that muchof the certification process is non-governmental and independent. Indeed,one of the problems with the certification process is that it is independentand must be paid for; this alone keeps many small-scale farmers from beingcertified.

Although many state or national governments and farming organizationshave organics guidelines, a uniform code is necessary if national and inter-national trade is to be encouraged. While a number of earlier organizationsexisted in Europe and the United States, it wasnt until 1972 that IFOAM (theInternational Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements) formed to bringconsistency to guidelines by providing accreditation to promote consumertrust and trade cooperation. As trade in organics has grown, independentgovernments have moved to regulate standards independently of overarch-ing global trade associations, which has lead to breakdowns in consistencyof standards as well as trade disagreements between nations.

The international certification symbol most likely to be familiar to con-sumers is that of Quality Assurance International (QAI), which certifies foodproducts for sale in the USA. Domestic certification companies usually be-long to the Accredited Certifiers Association which fosters education andstandards development with producers, processors, and governmental agen-cies. According to Jessica Greenblatt Seeley, a former employee of Penn-sylvania Certified Organic, third-party certifiers work independently of thegovernment to provide the inspections and paperwork that allow a farmto use the USDA-regulated terms Organic or Organically Produced. It is

the presence of these intermediary entities that create a bind for small pro-ducers because the certification process requires an annual fee, often basedon gross sales, and many smaller farms either cant afford or perceive thatthey cant afford certification. While this may limit their capacity to sell togrocery chains, many of the smaller producers feel that direct sales promotea face-to-face authenticity that surmounts the certification procedure.

Certification agencies work with producers and regulators to craft rea-sonable and workable guidelines for organic production and processing. Tothem, organic food is both an object and a process; they are intermediariesbetween producers and consumers and wield considerable capacity to affect

positive and negative practices within certification. There has been particular


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interest in the certification of foreign-grown food after recent food scares in-volving spinach and Chinese pet foods alerted many consumers to holes inthe inspection and quality assurance pathways. Another concern is that costof certification creates a roadblock to economic security for small-scale farm-

ers in the developed and developing world. According to Sasha Courville ofISEAL Alliance (Courville 2006), this has prompted IFOAM to suggest thatgrower cooperatives could be certified in place of individual farmers; byusing a sampling strategy and relying on group self-governance certification,costs for individual farmers could be lowered to allow for penetration intoglobal markets. This provides another rich field for anthropological research,since so many practitioners are already in situ in agricultural areas. Explo-ration of the perceived risks and benefits as well as analysis of the barriersto cooperative certification could assist small farmers around the world andbetter elucidate how the global organics market can best be regulated for

quality and to promote consumer trust.

GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS

As stated in the previous section, national and regional governments havecrafted independent standards for organic certification. Here in the UnitedStates, the Organic Foods Production Act was introduced as part of the1990 Farm Bill and mandated the creation of a fifteen member NationalOrganics Standards Board (NOSB) that provides recommendations to theNational Organic Program Standards (Winter and Davis 2006). The NationalOrganics Program regulates organics certification, processing and labeling.

A concern of many in farming and food businesses is lack of consumerknowledge about labeling requirements and meanings. While informationabout labeling exists on the USDA website and is available in many otherplaces, few consumers take the time to understand the organic labelingprocess. This is an area in which increased funding for educational outreachmay help to re-legitimate the USDAs role in the certification process in theminds of consumers. Given that many consumers drawn to organics are

seeking a safer food supply because of recent regulatory failures, a betterunderstanding of the role of third-party certification agencies in inspectionand labeling may improve public perception of USDA competence as wellas define areas where regulatory processes are insufficient.

One of the more interesting elements in the governmental support oforganics is ATTRA, the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Ser-

vice, which is part of the National Center for Appropriate Technology andfunded by the USDAs Rural Business-Cooperative Service. ATTRA pro-

vides educational services to farmers and information for short-chain, di-rect, and business-to-business development of the organics marketplace.

Funding ATTRA at a higher level would help to ease the suspicion that


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consumers harbor toward the USDA and its organic regulatory structures,allow for addition education of farmers and consumers, and assure a bet-ter regulatory environment though enhanced compliance in production andprocessing.

Other controversies exist within the USDAs organic program. Thereis tension among the various consumer groups about the makeup of theboard and fear that NOSB members would privilege food industry desiresrather than consumer preferences in crafting recommendations. The USDAfrequently recommends changes to the codes disapproved by the OrganicConsumers Association, such as proposals to include non-organic processingchemicals in processed food items. Predictably, the consumer groups writeletters to the USDA protesting such actions and the USDA and NOSB respondby approving the recommendations. There is a strong belief among commit-ted organic consumers that the government has incrementally weakened the

original standards, thereby causing distrust of the certification process andof governmental capacity to safeguard organics in general (Amaditz 1997;Giannakas 2002). Anecdotal evidence from farmers market shoppers indi-cates that some U.S. consumers also believe that European organic standardsare strong and trustworthy (Ive repeatedly been told to look for the Euro-pean certification stickers at fancy food shops, since European organics arereally organic). This indicates that it might be beneficial for the NOSB andfood manufacturers to move toward concordance with European standardsin order to boost trade, if doing so is possible.

Anthropologists could find fertile areas of exploration in an examination

of how differing groups of organic producers, processors and users perceiveand utilize governmental programs such as NOSB, NCAT and ATTRA. Inparticular, a robust examination of governmental practices may be of realservice to the food industry as a whole, since it is unclear whether the UnitedStates government view organics as a process or an object; for instance, theactions of the NOSB cause many consumers to accuse the government ofacting in the interest of large food conglomerates to lessen the requirementsof certification and thus indicates that the government envisions organic foodas an object subject understandable through dichotomizing labeling. On the

other hand, the presence of ATTRA indicates that support for organic farmingas a process is also a part of governmental understanding. Clarifying the gov-ernmental understanding of organics may help producers and consumers as

well as government agencies bridge the gaps between their conceptual mod-els of the role of organic food in the larger food system, as well as encouragethe development of workable and less-contested certification standards. TheUnited States needs a trusted certification program in order to build organicmarket share within the nation as well as provide opportunities for farmersand food processors to sell US food products abroad. Identifying where andhow mistrust has developed will aid farmers as well as eaters and improve

farm revenues.


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THE FOOD INDUSTRY

The food industry has moved heavily into organic food distribution, althoughit prefers to externalize the risks of farming and retail by focusing primar-

ily on processing and distribution. Because the food industry encountersorganic food items after certification and must distribute and market in or-der to drive consumer sales, it is reasonable to argue that it conceptualizesorganics as a thing defined by dichotomized certification categories. Whilespace does not permit a thorough discussion of the food industrys effecton organic production and sales, suffice to say that independent organicfood producers and grocery chains are heavily courted by food industry gi-ants in order to increase sales receipts and provide higher-end product linedevelopment opportunities. According to Philip Howard of Michigan StateUniversity (personal communication, October 2007), consolidation has oc-

curred on two levels: organic food companies have been purchased by largerfood companies and small food chains have been absorbed by larger con-

ventional and/or organic chains. Consolidation has a number of outcomes,including the development of national brands and a virtual lock-down ofdistribution networks. The latter development is contributing to a decreasein organic food startups as smaller and independent producers are deniedgrocery shelf space. However, consolidation is also leading to a revival ofgrass-roots marketing venues such as regional co-ops, CSAs, buying clubsand farmers markets which provide small-scale venues for producers seekingto establish themselves in particular market niches.

Given the rise of the local and short-chain market, the future control oforganic food sources by large-scale companies is debatable. However, they

will most likely respond by further moving into distribution of value-addedorganics products, if they find such items sell. We may very well witnessa continued growth in the local market for unprocessed whole foods withthe concomitant development of national chains in value-added processedorganic foods.

CONCLUSION

The organic food market is currently in flux, with standards, practices, mar-kets, and consumers shifting rapidly. While there has been an enormousincrease in demand for organic food there has also been a parallel dimin-ishment in consumer faith in organic labeling and certification processes.Many food systems analysts and activists speak of the need to increase con-sumer awareness and education about organics standards and processes;Phil Howard asserts that consumers need to be aware of the weakening oforganics regulations as well as the need to support smaller producers who

are in danger of losing market share due to industry control by larger food


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producers. Jessica Greenblatt Seeley sees a need for more education for farm-ers as well as consumers, and points to a critical need for increased supportof ATTRA to teach new and transitioning organic farmers. Chris Fullertonargues for more consumer awareness of certification processes and for more

citizen and consumer input in creating and enforcing standards. All thesesuggestions point to a critical need for awareness, education, and a strength-ening of community and citizen control over development of standards andorganic enforcement practices. It also calls for a better understanding of howeach protagonist in the organic food system views what is being produced;the division between object and process is stark and needs to be elucidatedbetter in order to reach agreements that will increase the safety of the do-mestic food production system as well as the perceived authenticity of theorganic food certification process.

It is not surprising that the lack of trust in the certification process has

led to a diminishment in consumer faith in certified organics among mid-level and core consumers. Indeed, consumer behavior presages a collapse ofthe standardized organics market as savvy consumers increasingly turn to di-rect and short-chain markets for food purchases (Holt 2005; Demeritt 2007;Howard and Allen 2006; Molyneaux 2008). As consumers become disen-chanted with organic practices due to a perceived dilution of standards, theybecome more aware of the processes of organic production leading themto abandon the construct of organic food as a object in favor of a more con-textualized and comprehensive frame of organic food as process (personalcommunication with farmers market customers 20072009; Giannakos 2002;

Moore 2006). Interaction with farmers and small-scale producers intensifiesthis shift in knowledge and understanding, causing even greater demandfor local and directly sourced foods. The battle over the value and meaningof certification has been lost, according to many consumers (Howard and

Allen 2006; Moore 2006), and they have chosen to shift purchasing decisions,leading to the exponential rise of the locavore movement.

To return to the puzzling actions of the organics advocate who pur-chased from a local conventional farmer at my farmers market, her behaviorcan be understood in the framing shifts that have occurred in the perceived

authenticity of the organic food market. In the minds of many concernedconsumers, organic food is no longer the standard for food safety and envi-ronmentally sound food production methods. It is a short-chain, face-to-facemarket that provides real, authentic, and safe foods via a direct con-nection with the farmers; the state and federal organic regulatory process isoften considered to be ineffective and inauthentic. Consumers are shifting toregional and (presumably) more transparent food sourcing options in hopesof increasing food safety, decreasing food miles and carbon footprint, andrebuilding the health and viability of local farming economies. Many foodadvocates now envision the food system embracing a localized sustainable

paradigm rather than an organic model.


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For anthropologists, these shifts in consumer belief and behavior pro-vide fertile fields for research. The concepts and beliefs articulated by organicfood users are contradictory and tied to systems of morality and citizenship;use and action is contested by each group and even within groups. The ab-

sence of consistency is linked to confusion in public discourse about regu-lation and consumption and to widespread consumer lack of understandingabout processes. There is a wide gap between organic food as thing andorganic food as process which renders even face-to-face explanatory dis-cussions between farmers, regulators and consumers difficult and contested.The resultant confusion causes fears about food and the safety of the overallfood system and damages trade relationships. Identifying the cultural lacu-nae and mapping the belief systems of each stakeholder group would be aan excellent anthropological project that could lead to far better food andfarming education for United States consumers, farmers, regulators and food

processors, as well as a more transparent and safe national food supply.

NOTES

Many organizations discussed in this article have excellent Web sites. Forfurther information about each group, the URLs are provided:

Accredited Certifiers Association (ACA: http://accreditedcertifiers.org)International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (http://www.

ifoam.org/)International Organic Accreditation Service and (http://www.ioas.org/)Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture (www.ag.iastate.edu/centers/

leopold)Local Harvest (www.localharvest.org)Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (http://www.mosesorga

nic.org/)National Organics Program (http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop/indexIE.htm)National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service (http://www.attra.org/)Northeast Organic Farming Association (http://www.nofa.org)Organic Center (http://www.organic-center.org/)Organic Consumers Association (http://www.organicconsumers.org/)Organic Exchange (www.organicexchange.org)Organic Farming Research Foundation (http://ofrf.org/index.html)Organic Processing Magazine (http://www.organicprocessing.com)Organic Trade Association (http://www.ota.com)Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (http://www.pasafarm

ing.org/)Pennsylvania Certified Organic (http://www.paorganic.org)

Quality Assurance International (QAI: http://www.qai-inc.com)


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