22 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY january 12-18, 2023 www.montereycountyweekly.com or peat, rather than soil at all—on large, industrial-scale farms, even organic ones. “Not to insult larger corporations, but they are in it because there’s a shitload of money,” Zamora says. “They’re just piggybacking on this label, organic. “I can sell things for more than Driscoll because people understand how I am treating the soil, and how I am treating my employees.” He sees that as proof there is hope for a broader, system-wide change: “It will change when the consumer gets the education and information on what is happening.” • The idea of educating consumers— who Chapman prefers to call “eaters”—is part of the guiding principle at an upcoming symposium on Jan. 17 that will precede the annual EcoFarm conference in Pacific Grove. Zamora, Chapman and Dixon are three of the 12 speakers in a lineup described as “TED-style talks,” and each will riff on the dysfunctional food system—specifically, the shortcomings of the USDA organic label—and how to fix it. (For the Real Organic Project, this is a preview of its bigger, all-virtual 2023 symposium, scheduled for two Sundays, Feb. 26 and March 5, with more than 50 speakers.) EcoFarm is hosted by the Ecological Farming Association, now in its 43rd year, making it the oldest organic farming conference west of the Mississippi. The conference packs days with a range of sessions on big ideas (“Uniting the World Organic Movement,” “The Global Consolidation of Seed Ownership: Should We Be Concerned?”), more technical topics for farmers (“Organic Orchard and Vineyard Management Under Drought Conditions,” “Developing Commercial Tomato Varieties With Superior Flavor”) and financially focused panels (“Tools for Succession Planning,” “How to Tap Into Federal Funds on Your Farm/Ranch”). A number of Spanish-language sessions—and Spanish-language interpretation for all keynotes—are designed to make the conference accessible to a wider farming community. Policy discussions give farmers a chance to learn how to engage, hopefully before they wind up with tractors and pitchforks at the next NOSB meeting. EcoFarm draws an audience primarily of farmers trading tips and ideas. The Real Organic Project symposium is for farmers as well as the general public. Keynote speaker Paul Hawken, an organic food entrepreneur turned author and ecological thinker, says he’ll be mostly listening to the farmer-speakers—the people on the front lines of growing food, real organic food, every day. But he’s also thinking about systems, including consumers in this confusing world of labels. “Consumers don’t want to buy things that kill things, they want to buy organic. But what is organic, now?” Hawken says. “What you have seen is a takeover of the USDA organic standards by big business.” • A successful entrepreneur, Hawken is no stranger to business. He founded Erewhon, one of the first notable natural foods companies in the U.S., in the 1960s. In 1979 he cofounded gardening supply purveyor Smith & Hawken. In 2009 he founded a solar energy company now called Energy Everywhere. And he created the country’s first organic certification organization, Organic Merchants, well before the National Organic Program existed—intended primarily in his Erewhon days to root out fraud through inspections. That list of credentials is a long way of saying that Hawken is not inherently suspicious of profit motivations. “I make a really big distinction between commerce and capitalism,” he says. “Commerce is sacred, it goes back 10,000 years. When Lewis and Clark got to the Northwest, the Native Americans there had shells from Patagonia. Those exchanges were about trust—credit, ‘pay me later,’ is a belief and trust. These values are innate to being homo sapiens. That’s who we are. “‘Capitalism’ is not capitalism—it would include social capital, natural capital—every single form of capital. We’re talking about financial concentration.” Hawken is interested in seeing farmers succeed in business. Profitability for a small farmer is good news for the resiliency and productivity of a farm, he says. But he is specifically interested in seeing small, family farms continue to thrive, and he dismisses claims that small, organic farms can’t feed the world as rubbish. “When I started in the organic food business in the late ’60s, the thing that was always thrown at us was, ‘if we all farm that way, children will starve.’ This is a lunacy that has been propagated by Monsanto and other industrial agriculture companies, the idea that if we don’t farm using industrial methods, the world will starve. “First of all, industrial agriculture only feeds 30 percent of the world; the other 70 percent is fed by small farmers. Most of what industrial ag does is create commodity crops to feed animals in CAFOs, which is just an abomination.” In his 2021 book Regeneration: Ending the Climate Crisis in One Generation, Hawken writes about the forces underlying and reinforcing this consolidation, but also suggests paths to get out of it. (The book examines not just food, but a series of systems—like marine protected areas, building adaptations in urban settings and renewable energy—that offer example-heavy ideas for practical, attainable solutions to the climate crisis.) Hawken is the author of eight books, including The Ecology of Commerce, which is widely taught at business schools. He’s a sharer of ideas, and he sees reason to be hopeful—in part because big corporations are catching on, which means the odds for regenerative farming to really take hold are good; it’s less likely to be just growers providing relatively highpriced food to upscale customers, but the people growing raw ingredients for everything at a range of price points. In 2021, Nestle budgeted $1.3 billion to transition 20 percent of the farms providing its raw ingredients to regenerative agriculture by 2025; the company is working toward 50 percent by 2030, and ultimately toward all 500,000 farmers in its supply chain. “Why do they want to do that? Because they are pragmatic,” Hawken says. “They want a supply chain that is going to work 20, 30 years from now.” Similarly, Walmart has pledged to transition 50 million acres to regenerative farming by 2030. “If the two biggest food companies in the world are doing this, it’s not some wingnuts out there in Vermont,” Hawken says. “This is where it’s going.” Hawken expects some amount of skepticism from longtime organic farmers about the big companies getting involved, but in Hawken’s take, it’s ultimately about solving the climate crisis—and the big suppliers stand to really help advance that cause. “Nothing is successful if we lose our planet, if we lose the living conditions that allow us to be a civilization—and I’m not being apocalyptic. This is learning, it’s school—and if we skip school, it will be an apocalypse. Nature is school.” Real Organic Project presents “Stories from the Front Lines” at 10am-5pm Tuesday, Jan. 17. In-person at Asilomar Conference Grounds, 800 Asilomar Ave., Pacific Grove or virtually. $100/in-person; $40/livestream. realorganicsymposium.org/ecofarm. More information, and video of past symposiums, is available at realorganicproject.org. 43rd annual EcoFarm conference happens Wednesday-Saturday, Jan. 18-21 at Asilomar Conference Grounds. $820/full conference with meals; $545/full conference without meals; day rates available. (240) 552-9195, info@eco-farm.org, eco-farm.org. Paul Hawken believes transitioning away from industrial agriculture is not just an environmental imperative, but offers other benefits: “The opposite of regenerative agriculture is eliminative agriculture. You’re eliminating things that create taste and nutrition. You’re also eliminating a culture.” “Industrial agriculture only feeds 30 percent of the world; the other 70 percent is fed by small farmers.” Flash Gordon Murray:G reenBiz
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