The Futility of Trying

I care about, well, just about everything. As a Cancer, it's my manifest zodiac destiny to try to feel the pains of everyone and everything in the world.

Yay?

As I draw closer to middle-age and further from teen-age, I've learned to pick my battles. After all, I can't rail against everything. (And I learned that from experience, ha ha.)

Studying abroad in Japan was enough to give my subconscious mind years of fodder for trying to sort out the differences between sexism, chauvinism, and misogyny as experienced by me in this country... and whether or not I can hope to change any of that in the long run.

So as I try to reclassify my understanding of feminism and its encounters with domesticity, I've had something else to feed my need to work on social justice. Food.

What a messed up, crazy food system we have. I couldn't possibly start to pin it all down in one post, or even in one website.

So fast forward a little bit to something that came to my attention recently: the parent companies of the certified organic foods I was purchasing at my local co-op.

You probably already know the difference between certified organic and 'natural' on a label. Certification involves a lot of work and money, but serves as a guarantee. Natural has no legal meaning in this context, so it means anything from organic-but-didn't-pay-for-certification to absolutely-nothing-more-than-greenwashing.

After I found out that my Back to Nature mac'n'cheese boxes came from parent company Kraft foods, I started to get serious and do some research. I found this post - I suggest you read it for yourself if you want to follow what I'm going to discuss here. The author says things similar to what I was feeling, and then linked to another site that charts out which companies have purchased which smaller, organic companies.  (I have yet to verify the information is accurate, but I feel reasonably sure it is. Not only is the author an associate professor at MSU, but he is tracking these relationships as they relate to business and not as a betrayed-feeling member of the public.)

Again, I urge you to read both of those posts. Even if you don't have any interest in food politics, the time lapse of purchases and mergers is fascinating to watch.

My over-arching point here today is to give my answer to Mark Gerardot's question at the end of the blog post first cited above: "Does it matter?" (As in, does it matter in the end what parent companies own these 'organic' brands, as long as they're still making the world a better, healthier place to eat.)

How I have struggled with his question.

And I have concluded, yes. Yes, it does matter, very much.

Do you read your food labels? Obviously, I do. And I've wondered what the difference is between USDA certified organic, Oregon Tilth certified organic, QAI certified organic...

One of the reasons it matters which companies (how it would be easier to use 'who' instead of 'which companies,' but I refuse to allow myself to refer to corporations as people!) have their hands in the organic pot is because when companies are doing the whole 'organic thing' as a business move, things start breaking down. Large agri-businesses may indeed have the capital it takes to enact change, but...is that where the capital is going? Or is it going toward loosening the guidelines and restrictions for what it means to become certified organic? Some of both, I expect. The USDA organic certification appears to be the most susceptible to political lobbying, as well as one of the biggest certifiers.

There is a spirit that is lost when businesses embrace change just for the $$. And when the spirit isn't there, what's left? Beyond that, it leaves some of the small organic farmers frustrated and unwilling to pay for certification - totally understandable, but then that easy label that directs the consumers to foods with origins they can believe in goes missing or loses its meaning. Then, even people like me, who care deeply, passionately about this subject, are left too tired to try anymore.

There's just Too Much.

But, I'm going to keep trying. Because I refuse to lose on this.

So, I may not have an absolutely complete answer to Gerardot's question, with reams of facts, figures, citations, and so forth to back my claim. But yes, it matters. It matters a great deal.

I'm going to keep learning about this and sharing my findings with everyone I can. Because it matters.