Imports or local organic fresh fruit and vegetables?

Here is an article on the various issues around imported or local organic fresh fruits and vegetables, taken from an organic diary of mine in the examiner farming supplement. One issue amongst many, not addressed, that I've thought of since, is embedded food miles.

Local food is often posited as the alternative to organic food. People now love to say that local is better, and better for the environment. There is some truth in this, but it's a skewered picture. That's because local food has _embedded_ food miles in it. I.E. local food, unles sit's produced in an organic manner, is produced using a range of agri-chemical inputs .The construction of these inputs uses up massive ammounts of fuel. Synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides etc, all need copious ammounts of fuel in their construction phases. So even if the food is local, the baggage it carries is enough to give it jetlag.

This is obviously seperate to issues around the pollution and reduction in biodiversity levels caused by these products. Then of course there's the whole issue of pesticide pioisonings in 3rd world farm labourers. Simply put, that doesn't happen on organic farms, it happens on conventional ones.

For more on the latter, see http://www.panna.org/
and specifically, if you have the stomach for it............

http://www.ejfoundation.org/pdf/whats_your_poison.pdf

None of this is to take away from the fact that local, seasonal, organic fresh fruits and vegetables is the preferred option. It's just to challange the naievity of positing local chemically drenched and imported organic as equal, or the local as somehow always better..........

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According to Bord Bia, the fruit and vegetable sector is increasing it�s market share all the time. Sales are now approaching �1 billion, with fruit sales alone increasing by 8% last year. Along with this, recent research from the UK has shown that many consumers use fresh fruit and vegetables as an entry point into organics in general.

In the above context, one of the most controversial issues for the organic sector is the importation of vegetables from far-flung places. There are many arguments for and against the practice.

�If I didn�t have the imports, customers just wouldn�t come into me� Jonathan Haslan tells me up straight. He runs the Organic Store in Birr, Co.Offaly. His family also farm organically, and produce the award-winning Mossfield organic cheeses. While he�d prefer to sell as much Irish produce as possible, he feels that most of his vegetable customers in the shop think organic first, Irish second.

I asked him if he saw any gaps in the market, where Irish produce could supplant imports: �Native Irish apples, new potatoes and salad leaves, they are the three areas I think could provide opportunities for Irish growers. I know that when I get in salad leaves, they sell out in a day, but if they don�t sell quickly they�re gone off. So you really need that product fresh and local�

Elmer Koomans O� Reilly runs Golden Goose, the certified organic greengrocer in the Milkmarket, Limerick. He has also been a biodynamic grower in Ireland for years, and currently operates as an organic fruit and vegetable wholesaler. So he�s well positioned to understand the dynamics of the emerging market for organics.

�I general, I try to source as much Irish organic stuff as possible. And a lot of my customers are very interested in getting Irish organic. But I have to say, it is not all bad news with imports. For example, when myself and others were selling imported organic cauliflower, we helped to create the market for an Irish organic cauliflower. Irish producers could see that it was selling, that there was a market for it. The customers, once they tasted it, didn�t want to go back to the conventional. So now I can source an Irish organic cauliflower for a good part of the year. I couldn�t a couple of years back.�

Not everyone is as sanguine about imports however.

Jason Horner grows organic vegetables in Clare, selling through shops and at Ennis farmers� market on a Friday morning.

�Speaking for myself I don�t sell any imported organic stuff at my stall, even in Winter. I just don�t agree with it. I think it�s the death of the whole thing, really�.

Jason sees the large-scale imports as coming from a system very close to the conventional system, with liquid feeds, organic fertilizers and a different approach to producing.

�The whole mentality is changing. I get calls from guys trying to sell me organic fertilizers with a string of numbers, but that�s not my mentality.�

�I pity anyone joining in now� he tells me. �You have the price of land in particular as a problem. Even specialising in something like salad leaves, you are putting all your eggs in the one basket so to speak. If you get hit with Aphids or something like that, you�ve got no chance�

Then there�s peak oil and food miles: �I mean if we don�t have a local organic vegetable infrastructure built up, when it becomes too costly to ship and fly them around, what will we do? And of course it flies in the face of what organic means to me, to be polluting to eat imported organic veg�.

While the state, through Bord Bia and the Department, pushes for bigger horticulturalists to changeover to organic and to supply the multiples, many feel that this is unlikely to happen. The conventional sector is too specialised, and perceived risks too high.

Jason sees the small guy in the vegetable sector as important for a variety of reasons. �You are more connected to the community, to your customers. It�s also more challenging to grow a wide variety of produce, and the taste quality is far superior, my customers tell me anyway�

How exactly the organic fresh fruit and vegetable sector will balance integrity and variety remains to be seen.

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