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How Organic Is Your Fridge?
A couple of months ago, the first organic shop opened doors to the people living in this city. Curiosity and friends pushed my boyfriend and I to pay it a visit a month ago. We bought organic salt (by the way, do you know that the non-organic salt has several additives? For God's sake, we're speaking about a mineral, why does it need additives?), and looked around to see what's new. There are over 300 different certified bio products. The offer includes cosmetics, detergents and different organic foods, sweets (those of you who entered the eco-shop in Dyssekilde may remember the varieties of chocolates there. We have some of them here, too) and spices, including gluten-free foods. Besides domestic products, interested people can also find imported products from countries with tradition in organic food production, such as Germany, Italy, France and Austria.
Two days ago, I went back there and, after taking a short footage with the shop's name (Via Naturalia) I entered to check whether they allow me to shoot something inside for a short movie to put up here. As the manager was not there, they asked me for my phone number and said they'd call back within 24h to let me know. Predictable enough, nobody called back. So I was left with the short footage of their store banner.
Yet again, I still had to figure out a different way to use my flip sustainably. (it's a pretty cool and very easy to use gadget after the first couple of tries).
And I came out with a game.
But first things first.
Thanks to John Paull's 'Organics Olympiad 2007 - Perspectives on the Global State of Organic Agriculture.' (pdf) we already have data about organic food & farming. Based on twelve measures of organic leadership, the winners are:
- Australia with 11.8 million organic hectares.
- Mexico with 83,174 organic farms.
- Romania with 15.9 million certified wild organic hectares.
- China with 135 thousand tonnes of organic wild harvest produce.
- Denmark with 1805 organic research publications recorded.
- Germany with 69 members of IFOAM.
- China with an increase of 1,998,705 organic hectares.
- Liechtenstein with 27.9% of its agricultural land certified organic and a 10.9% 4-yearly increment of the organic share of its total agriculture.
- Mali with an 8488% annual increase in its organic hectares.
- Latvia with an annual 3.01% increase in its organic share of agricultural land.
- Switzerland with a per capita annual spend on organic produce of 103 Euros.
Knowing the ranking above, I took every little product in my fridge, checked its label (if any) to see where each comes from and made a general idea about how organic I really am.
Although I thought most of my food is locally produced, reality begs to differ .. a little bit, but still.
From 30 total products, 15 are Romanian, 2 are made in France, 1 in Turkey, 1 in Mexic, 1 in Liban, 1 in Greece, 1 in European Union (as written on the label, no country specified) and the rest no longer have labels. If I consider all others as made in countries not included in the top above, I get 16/30 , that is 53,3% organic.
How does your fridge stand?
P.S. Even if your country is not listed above, but you own locally grown products, they still count as organic.
Comments
I have had an idea, that I don’t know how realistic it is… In countries like Romania, lots of small scale farming is still more or less organical, even though the peasants wouldn’t bother to get a certificate. (Like you mentioned your grandmother’s jam in another post).
Do you think it would be a meaningful project to certify this small-scale farming as as organic. I am thinking that it would open up for a different kind of countryside development, keeping traditions alive and encouraging small scale agriculture, in stead of turning everything into agro-business.
Many people here are agriculturists because otherwise they wouldn’t be able to survive. So if they’d have to pay for an organic certificate, it would probably be beyond their possibilities for many.
Most of them don’t even think about exporting their products & they don’t consider themselves farmers either. They are happy when their neighbors buy from them, or when they can exchange some of their products with others (barley for meat for ex).
At the same time, many can’t afford buying a tractor, so more people from a village buy it & they use it together (similar to what Dyssekilde’s inhabitants use their cars).
On the other hand, industrial agriculture has decreased a lot after the fall of the communism. And most of the small scale farmers are (more or less) content with the way things are.
Even if investors come to turn everything into agro-business, I’m pretty sure there would still remain many villages that would go on like now. They can’t take away something that runs through people’s blood.
I don’t know what getting an organic certificate would imply. But I’m sure it should have a pre-phase aimed at educating small farmers. Because in their world, certificates don’t pay the bills & don’t fill empty bellies either.
Yes… maybe the certification should not cost anything, given that the farmer meets the definition of organic farming.
I was thinking this would be a way to let people continue living their life, but get better paied, and also in a more fair competition with commercial actors. But who would do all the work? I guess that is the problem.
I am totally with you Daniel, they would be better paid - and money would be one good reason for some of them.
On the other hand, better money is not what most look for. This local barter trade & selling they’re doing keeps them going. It’s very hard to explain, unless you see it (maybe you have in Moldova or Bulgaria, I guess there are similar groups in these countries, too).
For example, my grandma doesn’t sell anything. She never did. But every spring she goes and seeds the little piece of ground she has & when green onions come out, she gives some to everybody (relatives, neighbors, etc). Others send her flowers from their own garden, or carrots or a chop of lamb. My grandma lives in the city, so I can imagine that the same thing is 1000 times stronger in any village.
There are people who go to the doctor & pay their consultation with a chicken. It’s not out of the ordinary at all.
So basically, it’s not about the money, it’s about their habits & customs and lives.
’ * But who would do all the work? I guess that is the problem.’
With the bureaucracy in Romania, it lasts one year just to get your university diploma in original. I don’t know how long it would take to find & certify all small farmers.
Reading through comments my mind went back some 15 years when my grand parents still were alive. Everything was organic and noone called it organic .. It was just home made ..
It’s the same for villagers here. What we understand as organic, they eat as their daily bread & butter.