Sunday, March 14, 2004

Organic methods start taking root

By JIM HAUG
NEWS-JOURNAL BUSINESS WRITER

DAYTONA BEACH – Hold the pesticides and skip the artificial preservatives. The organic revolution is taking root in Volusia County.

Dave Fedor, a citrus farmer in DeLeon Springs, became the county´s first certified organic grower in August.

In DeLand, an organic-food restaurant called The Chic Pea opened in February.

Within two years, the membership of the DeLand Organic Co-op, a buying club, has grown from 12 people to 70 families.

What´s happening locally is a reflection of national trends. The market for organic food has grown by 20 percent annually since the mid-90s. Sales are expected to reach $30 billion in 2007, according to the Organic Trade Association.

Organic agriculture is a system of farming that emphasizes maintaining the soil and replenishing fertility without the use of synthetic chemicals or pesticides. The U.S. Department of Agriculture established standards for organic farming in 2001.

Considering the United States has a $460 billion food industry, the trend is just starting to bud.

Fedor, who has a 4-acre orange grove, called himself “small potatoes” compared to the big orange growers. But he is making more money since he can charge premium prices for organic oranges, he said.

“The demand is bigger than the supply,” said Pauline Copello, the owner of the Lucky Market Garden, an organic farm in Barberville.

Unlike Fedor, she is not certified yet. The certification process takes up to three years as the soil must be “bleached” clean of pesticides and synthetic chemicals.

But Copello said she follows organic practices. She supplies organically grown salad greens, herbs and cabbage to local markets and restaurants like Chic Pea; La Crepe En Haut, a French restaurant in Ormond Beach; and Love Whole Foods in Ormond Beach.

“You can´t beat her arugula,” said Sherry Sorentino, the assistant manager of La Crepe. “We get it the day it´s picked.”

The whole idea of French cooking is to use fresh, in-season food that´s produced locally. “It´s good to know where your food is coming from,” Sorentino said. “People in Pennsylvania died last year from eating green onions grown in Mexico.”

Aficionados say the organic food has a superior flavor.

“It´s amazing how good food can taste without poisons on it,” said Marty Mesh, the executive director of Florida Organic Growers, based in Gainesville. “What a concept.”

While the Organic Trade Organization states there is “no conclusive evidence” that organically grown foods are more nutritious, organic food lovers called it a no-brainer.

“I always felt if you spray something on vegetables to kill the bugs, then how can it be good for you?” said Fedor, an organic grower of Florida navel oranges.

Lynn Dunn, a co-founder of the DeLand Organic Co-op, thinks the chemicals used in conventionally grown food can have unintended side effects. As a child, she believes, her breasts developed prematurely because she was drinking milk from cows injected with growth hormones. Links between bovine growth hormones and premature development in children and breast cancer in adults have been called “unsubstantiated in the scientific literature” by a Food and Drug Administration spokesman, but research is ongoing.

Because it is not produced in the same volume as conventional food, the organic food is going to be more expensive, organic food sellers said.

In a one day-price comparison, a pound of organic potatoes at Love Whole Foods cost $1.49 compared to 99 cents a pound for nonorganic potatoes at Publix. Love´s organic tomatoes sold for $3.49 compared to $2.99 for non-organic tomatoes at Publix.

Peggy Van Cleef, a buyer for Love Whole Foods, said the store gets a new shipment of organic produce daily. Most of the organic produce comes from California.

Franchesca Sellas, who owns the Chic Pea with her husband, Paul Sellas, estimated 40 percent of their food is locally produced. They get their eggs from Grandmother´s, an organic farm in DeLeon Springs.

The restaurant, at 442 E. New York Ave., also prides itself on using only “shade grown” coffee. That is coffee grown under the canopy of the rain forest, which is allowed to remain as the habitat of animals.

Dana Venrick, a horticultural consultant at the University of Florida Agricultural Extension Service in Volusia County, is encouraging organic farming because it does such a good job of replenishing and “mineralizing” the soil. Organic farming is much more labor intensive.

“If you want to get the weeds out, you cannot put herbicide on them,” Fedor said. He spends three hours a day deweeding his orange grove.

Organic food is not a convenience food either. Franchesca Sellas tells customers of Chic Pea to be prepared for a longer than usual wait because “nothing is premade.”

“We are definitely slow food,” she said.

What is Organic?

Organic agriculture is an ecological production management system that promotes biodiversity, biological cycles and soil biological activity. It´s based on minimal use of off-farm inputs, and uses management practices that restore and enhance ecological harmony.

Organic is a labeling term that denotes products produced under the authority of the Organic Foods Production Act. The principles for organic production are to use materials and practices that enhance the balance of natural systems and that integrate the parts of the farming system into an ecological whole.

Organic agriculture practices cannot ensure products are completely free of residue. However, methods are used to minimize pollution from air, soil and water.

Organic food handlers, processors and retailers adhere to standards that maintain the integrity of organic agricultural products. The primary goal of organic agriculture is to optimize the health and productivity of interdependent communities of soil, life, plants, animals and people.

Source: The National Organic Standards Board

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