The Organic Center's "Mission Organic 2010"
by Kara DiCamillo, Newport, Rhode Island 
on 01. 6.07
As we flip through magazines and read through the news, very rarely do we catch headlines or articles about our little state of Rhode Island. So imagine the surprise when we found out that The Organic Center is located in our little state. Discouraged by the fact that organic food is still only 2% of the total food sales in the United States, the organization launched Mission Organic 2010, a campaign to get the message out about health and ecological benefits of organic food. The purpose is to convince consumers that if they increase their organic consumption just 10% by the year 2010 (that’s 1 out of 10 items in a grocery cart), pesticides will disappear from 98 million daily servings of drinking water and antibiotics and growth hormones from 20 million daily servings of milk. On their site, consumers can sign a pledge and get a start kit, make a donation and learn about developments in the food industry. Via ::body+soul ::Mission Organic 2010
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I figure every little bit helps, and buy organic whenever I can....
Today I bought a can of Amy's organic chili, some organic celery, organic pasta sauce (tomato, garlic, etc), a couple of organic avocados.
I bought a few others things (apples, veggies) that weren't organic, but I went for the most local stuff I could find.
Yummy!
Growth in sales of organic food has been 15 percent to 21 percent each year, compared with 2 percent to 4 percent for total food sales. That's enouraging!
However, the problem of the 2000 mile organic salad remains. More than just organic, we need to encourage LOCALLY grown organic. Yes, chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides are detrimental, but so are the residual effects of petrochemical pollution that result from shipping organic foods from far away places all over the globe.
See http://NWAlandscape.blogspot.com/ for more on organics and sustainablity.
Organic is good. Let's not make "the perfect be the enemy of hte good"...adding the "local" criterion is asking a lot and may in the end not be desirable as an absolute criterion. Local climate and growing conditions vary and some people would be confined to a very restricted diet and set of nutrients if they were to get super-religious about ONLY eating local food particularly in the winter.
It's true that sometimes big organci trumps local-and-non-sustainable - it really depends where you live. In New England, local is generally more sustainable, with the exceptions of some orchards. The farms in the area are of necessity fairly small and diverse, in comparison with the mega-farms of the Midwest.
I have enjoyed seeing the interest in the eat local movement, in particular the spread of the eat local challenge. One error that I think has been made, though, is in presenting the issue as a question of avoidance. Rather than discovering local food, the emphasis can be on avoiding long-distance food. I don't know many people who want to give up bananas forever or olive oil, etc. People hear about these challenges, and tend to think it's not for them. But the Maine Food Network has it right - their challenge is to get people to spend a certain amount of money each week on local food - say ten or twenty dollars. That's encouraging; people like farms and farmers and they like the idea of supporting their local economy. Local is hugely important, but I believe Michael is right that, if presented in the wrong way, it can be offputting to people. The rewards, however, are greater if people can be lead to interest in local food - increased food security, a stronger local economy, a stronger sense of community, and increased transparency of food production.