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Re: SMALLFARM-MG> Organic Produce
As long as we live in a mass society, with huge concentrations of people in
crowded urban areas, a depopulated and economically oppressed countryside,
coupled with global corporations, mass merchandising, marketing and
education, we will live in a highly regulated environment. This type of
bureaucratic overcontrol has been around since Roman times, if not earlier,
and will certainly persist into the far distant future. In many ways this
type of societal self-regulation is analogous to the metacontrol exerted by
the common mind of the hive over its individual members: the common good of
the whole overrides the welfare of the part.
For those who wish to avoid the consequences of participating in hive-type
living with the rest of the teeming multitudes, there do exist plenty of
nooks and crannies, microniches that will support an "alternative" lifestyle
and approach to doing business. Organic agriculture has provided many such
niches for generations. Choosing to live outside the mainstream requires
innovative thinking, perceptive analysis and a willingness to almost
completely disregard common sense in a search for universal meanings and
values. You must also know what the opposition is up to.
As organic agriculture wins more acceptance in the marketplace, it will be
transformed from its current artisanal level of agronomic craftsmanship into
just another branch of multinational megabusiness. But I believe that
will still be an improvement over current agribusiness practices, which are
poisoning the whole planet, and it will also leave lots of room for farmers
to develop personal relationships with their customers that will lie outside
of the reach of the bureaucrats. Perhaps all we really need is a new,
unowned, word to describe what it is that we do!
Jeff Gold
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