There is a lot of consumer confusion around the term “Organic.” Understandably, the word “organic” conjures images of small farms, animals on pasture, and healthy produce; and when organic was a “movement” such were the realities. But, what was once a Movement is now a Label. The change from movement to label started with hopeful farmers and ended with paid lobbyists. While the notion of organic is still (on the whole) good, the actual implementation of organic may not be what you, the consumer, hope it is.

In fact, what many consumers are looking for are products from farms practicing “Sustainable” agriculture over and against “Industrial” agriculture whether it be conventional or organic. A couple examples to illustrate the difference might help clarify.

Let us use laying hens as our example; the problems with industrial egg production are well documented and a sustainable model is easily practiced on any farm.

Industrial Non-Organic/Conventional Model

Feed: Mass produced grain, usually Soy based and almost certainly Genetically Modified.
Shelter: Hens are caged 6 or 8 to a 3x3 cage… stacked several layers high.
Pasture: None… or possibly given “access” to a yard.
Sunlight: No
Waste (Poop): Waste is a serious industrial problem… the accumulation of chicken waste within the factory facilities can cause dangerous levels of ammonia that can kill the birds if not sufficiently aerated and mucked. Since the waste has no carbon to stabilize it, the mineral value of the nitrogen is highly volatile and difficult to recycle. It may be hard to believe, but chicken waste is actually gathered and processed for (industrial) cattle feed. Since the waste is concentrated on a highly specialized poultry factory site, the waste is not distributed back to the land so the natural benefits to soil are lost.
Auxiliary Benefits: None (unless you are an industrial beef producer looking to feed cheap chicken waste to your animals).
Bird Health: Owing to closed confinement and highly stressful crowding, birds are fed a constant drip of antibiotics to keep them from certain bacterial infection. When you have tens of thousands of birds caged at 1 sqft/bird… bacterial infection is fatal in epidemic proportions. Ironically, nature’s best anti-bacterial sanitizer is sunlight.
Human Health: Eggs from factory confined birds are high in cholesterol and have a very poor Omega-6 / Omega-3 ratio. Without access to pasture, the eggs lack important trace minerals. These eggs may contribute to heart disease.
Cooking: Industrial eggs are cheap. However, they are characterized by runny whites and pale yolks. The taste is as bland as the soybeans whence they come.

Sustainable Model

Feed: Bugs, leafy greens, grass, and whole grain processed feed (often locally produced)
Shelter: Open air coops… often portable
Pasture: Yes, constantly on Pasture and moved as needed.
Sunlight: Yes… why is sunlight important? Well, we’re really not sure; what we know is that sunlight interacts with living organisms in subtle and various ways. Sunlight is the essence of photosynthesis in plants; in humans it stimulates the production of Vitamin D. We know that animals crave it and thrive when given full exposure. It is more than a hunch that sunlight is a gift to living organisms in ways more than we can measure.
Waste: Poop is deposited exactly where it is wanted: in the pasture. Chicken Poop is an excellent source of Nitrogen for pastures. Moreover, introducing it to fields during all seasons and conditions allows for excellent absorption and does not cause nitrogen run-off like fields that are saturated with petroleum generated nitrogen once per year.
Auxiliary Benefits: Birds as part of a sustainable farm will typically follow ruminants on the pasture; the birds perform several important functions: 1. They scratch the ruminant manure into the field; 2. they eat the worm larvae and help sanitize the pasture for the ruminants to re-graze with reduced risk of parasite infection; 3. they eat fly larvae which greatly reduce the number of flies thereby reducing stress on the ruminants… leading to healthier cows/sheep/goats.
Bird Health: Birds on pasture have no need for antibiotic IV’s. Since they forage on pasture as their nature guides them, their stress is greatly reduced and therefore their ordinary immune systems can fight off garden variety (literally) infections. Open air coops are sanitized by direct sunlight and since they are often moved they do not provide dark stagnant areas for bacteria to grow.
Human Health: Recent lab testing of pastured eggs yielded an average improvement as follows: 33% less cholesterol, 25% less saturated fat, 66% more Vitamin A, 300% more Vitamin E, 200% more Omega-3 (the good fatty acid), and 700% beta carotene. Besides the numerical evidence, the marked increase of beta carotene clearly indicates the source: leafy greens. In other words, the health benefits to humans come from the chickens foraging on green pastures… not from eating grain be it supplemented industrial grain or organic grain.
Cooking: Pastured eggs exhibit markedly richer yolks and firmer whites. Eggs sauces such as hollandaise and Bernaise possess a deeper color, firmer texture and a “meatier” flavor. Similarly, omlettes, soufflés and frittatas are noticeably improved.

If you have read this far, you are likely very excited by the prospect of Sustainable Pastured eggs; but so too are you wondering how sustainable and organic are not exactly the same.

The American Egg Board (AEB), the marketing arm of the industrial egg producers, defines organic eggs thus:

Eggs from hens fed rations having ingredients that were grown without pesticides, fungicides, herbicides or commercial fertilizers. No commercial laying hen rations ever contain hormones. Due to higher production costs and lower volume per farm, organic eggs are more expensive than eggs from hens fed conventional feed. The nutrient content of eggs is not affected by whether or not the ration is organic. http://www.aeb.org/LearnMore/EggFacts.htm#organiceggs

And they are completely correct. If you simply substitute expensive “organic rations” to the industrial model, you have what can be labeled “organic eggs” (depending, to be sure, on the philosophy of the organic certification board the producer chooses). Sure, these “organic” eggs are better for the absence of hormones and antibiotics, but note the careful observation that the eggs are nutritionally identical to conventional eggs.

The problem with such scientific findings in not so much that they are false, but that the hide the bias that guarantees the results. If one measures eggs from two birds raised in factory cages the only difference of which is that one bird is fed a similar “organic ration” then yes, the nutritional value will be identical. And what, then, did you the consumer just pay for? The AEB just told you that the costs were higher for no appreciable benefit. In fact, you paid for the image of Sustainable Pastured eggs that the AEB helped market to you as Organic. You basically justified the budget of the AEB.

The nutritional benefit is not in the organic grain, it never has been, it is in the green grass. The problem for the AEB, however, is that 75,000 layers (the minimum size of their constituent members) are quite simply impossible to manage according to the sustainable model above. Another way to put it is thus: the AEB its members are invested in Industrialized Automation, not in the actual goods they produce.

This is what a $20,000,000 organization whose board is appointed by the Secretary of Agriculture and whose annual budget is funded “from a national legislative checkoff on all egg production from companies with greater than 75,000 layers” can do to change a movement into a label.

And so, reader, we hope that you see now why our guild seeks to go “beyond organic” and move forward towards new models of sustainable agriculture. Are our members Certified Organic? Some; and if that is important to you, we encourage you to patronize those members. What is assured, however, is the guild’s commitment to grassfed and pasture based animals and products. While seeking new ways to provide local products to the local populace, we are aware that every new breakthrough is a move forward towards tradition.

Remember, the Good is in the Green.

Resources:
Eatwild.com, various health benefits: http://www.eatwild.com/healthbenefits.htm
2007 Lab test by Mother Earth News: http://www.motherearthnews.com/eggs.aspx
American Egg Board: http://www.aeb.org/Index.asp