Hey Guys. I covered the Santa Monica Farmers Market Quarterly Library Panel
Series for the
Santa Monica Observer.
The all star lineup debated the subject was organics. (And (again) the most
beautiful picture of an apple that Kat Thomas has ever drawn!)
So What’s the Deal With Organics…?
Organics. Even for the informed food consumer it can bring up quite a
question mark. So it’s was with this quandary the Santa Monica Farmers Market
Quarterly Library Panel Series tackled the question of organics a few weeks
ago. Moderated by Laura Avery, Farmers Market Supervisor, the panel consisted
of three farmers: one certified organic (Chris Cadwell of
Tutti Frutti Farms), one formerly certified
organic (Alex Weiser of
Weiser
Family Farms), one not certified organic (Molly Gean of Harry's Berries)
and a chef (Neal Fraser, Chef/Owner of Grace and BLD).
But first a little background of the history of organics. Organic farming
practices began in the 1970s when like-minded farmers wanted to create accepted
practices for growing healthy food. In 1973 the
California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) was
created with farmers certifying each other and making sure others had the CCOF
seal. Fast forward to 1993 with organic farming becoming the fastest growing
part of food industry; but it was a patchwork of organic standards because
different organic practices varied from state to state. The year 2000 saw the
creation of national organic standards. There were massive public hearings over
the definition of what could technically be labeled organic. Initially big
agriculture tried to have this definition to allow irradiated food,
sewage/sludge and GMO (genetically modified organisms) to be included. But over
230,000 individuals wrote in and the final definition excluded these items.
Thus in 2003 the national definition of organic was integrated. “In California
you need to be registered organic,” explained Laura Avery, Wednesday Santa
Monica Farmers Market supervisor. “You need to pay to play; you can’t say
you’re organic unless you’re certified organic. That means a third party agency
to check your farm. They are the ones that give you a CCOF certification.”
Turns out if you’re not certified than you can’t touch that word with a
ten-foot pole. “People ask us all the time, we want to get organic, is everyone
organic?” continued Laura Avery, referring to the Santa Monica Farmers Markets.
“The Wednesday market has 18 organic farmers. The Saturday market has more. But
even if they’re not certified organic the majority has no pesticides or no
chemicals.” “We say chemical free,” explained Molly Gean of Harry’s Berries,
who is not organic but utilizes natural farming practices. “It doesn’t matter
what words you use as long as it’s accurate.”
So why would a farm chose to grow organically, but not get certified
organic? Plain and simple: it ain’t cheap. “I understand why you wouldn’t be
certified. It’s pretty expensive,” Chris Cadwell of Tutti Frutti Farm, which is
organic. “I’ve always been certified since it came in. I was always thinking of
the big picture. There’s too much chemical damage to the soil.“ As Molly Gean
of Harry’s Berry’s (which has positively the most amazing strawberries ever)
explains it, “the reason we haven’t certified organic is we’re small family
farm. We’ve sold 100% of our produce at farmers market for last 13 years.
Because we sold everything we grew there’s no reason to pay if everything is
being sold anyhow. This is because we could tell our customers what we grow.
We’ve relied on our personal relationship. You ask, we tell you, you trust us.
That is kinda the simple quick answer. We don’t market ourselves as organic, or
use it as a marketing tool.”
As Alex Weiser of Weiser Family Farm, who at one time was organic but not at
the moment, explained it, “We’re a medium size farm. We do farmers market, but
also do wholesale to restaurants, retail, and Whole Foods. It was 9 years ago
we were organic, but we still farm with organic principles: rotation, cover
cropping, using organic materials. There were a lot of small reasons not to be
organic. A lot of varieties we wanted to grow we couldn’t get the organic
seeds. It became a management nightmare, the cost of separating things. We had
to label this is organic, and this isn’t. We needed to invest in
infrastructure, we needed some tractors. In the end it was just management, and
cost. So even though we’re no longer organic we believe in what we grow and you
can taste it. The best food is the fairest cleanest food.”
“Organic always demands for farmers to jump through hoops, explained Weiser.
“We saw examples of what Molly does. Putting yourself and home farm as the
brand. It’s not always black and white. Local certified organic is great but
it’s going to cost you more. But it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat an apple if
it’s not organic but it’s local.” But being organic can help you on a larger
level. “I understand Molly’s position: that works if you have good local
customers. But I was selling to stores,” explained Cadwell. “We ship to Whole
Foods we want to keep that going. Internationally everyone is following organic
practices especially in countries like Germany, Denmark, and France.” “Are they
looking for American products because they can’t keep up with demand? Do you
look it as an emerging market?”” questioned Avery. “Absolutely,” answered
Cadwell. “But more importantly the world should be organic. You need laws and
paperwork so that people will follow them. So that they obey the law.” “We’re
always looking to bring back our organic label,” noted Weiser. “Especially now
my nieces are graduating college. But until then we do chose to use traditional
farming techniques.”
“Seems the demand is growing almost too quickly. When certain farms can’t
fill the demand they start to cut corners,” noted Avery, referencing the large
organic company Earthbound issues with E. Coli. “To me if the brand is more
important than what they’re doing than something is wrong,“ explained Cadwell.
“Earthbound is multi state; it’s huge. It was really simple, they were making
salsa and they didn’t clean the water that washes the stuff that goes into it.
But, on my farm every single box is marked with the day it was picked, which
field it was picked from, and where it’s going. If they find Salmonella I can
ask what field? It keeps quality up, but it’s horrible for me because I became
a farmer because I never liked paperwork. Why would Molly want to do that stuff
if she didn’t have to?”
The panel then slid over the question of organic in restaurants. “I eat
almost totally organic at home,” noted Neal Fraser, “But it’s different in a
restaurant. If we go to a restaurant we usually don’t want know. People don’t
want people telling them what to eat. They don’t want to make a political
message when they’re going to dinner. They want to have a cocktail and be
transported. I would love for everything in all my restaurants to be certified
organic. At the same time our menu prices are the same as Citrus was 20 years
ago with product costing 3 times more. You need to weigh out what you want to
use. I like to use local and American, but I do what I can afford. We pay $34
for eggs we could buy $12 from Sysco but people can taste the different. Free
range egg tastes very different.” Fraser noted that the most popular question
asked at his restaurant BLD is if the salmon is farm raised? “We can’t afford
wild salmon at our price point. We can’t use Copper River salmon that’s $25 a
pound with the skin and bones. You can’t serve that for $27 a plate.”
The cost, that is one of the biggest complaints that people have about
organic farming, certified or not. “People ask why are you charging so much
money? But it’s for the flavor,” explained Avery. “We have school tours. We
give kids a conventional strawberry grower and then we gave them Molly’s. And
their eyes lit up! You got the product picked yesterday for you today. If their
strawberries are not sold, which never happens, they never sell the next day.”
“We only farm 30 acres but for that 30 acres we have 30 employees,” explained
Gean. “All seconds are culled out and go into the compost pile. I’ve had chefs
who love our product but I can’t afford it. ‘I can’t pass it on to the
customer’ they tell us. But our strawberries are just more. They’re always
fresh, always ripe. With us you’re going to eat every berry in the basket.
“
And then there’s a question whether something sold as organic is truly
organic. Another thing that healthy eating requires is trust (something that
can be totally hard to come by when talking about food these days). In
September NBC Los Angeles did an in depth investigation on farmers who were
lying about whether they truly did not spray their produce with pesticides.
“We’re vehemently opposed to cheating,” noted Gean. “If people ask,” Laura
Avery explained, “we tell them our farms have to fill out a form and have to be
certified with the CCOF.” “You just have trust us,” continued Gean. “Our
livelihood is based on our relationship. The trust is the keystone to the
relationship. If we didn’t have the trust you couldn’t have the relationship.”
Ted Galvin manager of the Saturday Pico market and an audience member noted,
“I’ve had a relationship with most my farmers for at least 15 years. I know 95%
of them week in and week out. If anybody’s otherwise suspicious I’ll check him
or her out.” Another member of the audience noted “I worked for Whole Foods for
seven years in the marketing department. They are so afraid of lawsuits so if
it says organic it’s probably organic.” But trust is much easier to find if you
have a relationship with your food provider. “The more informed the consumer is
the better,” noted Avery.
And who’s right? All of them. And that’s the hardest part. Sure in a perfect
world we would all eat organic all the time, but that’s not always the case.
The real issue with organics is that it’s not a cut or dry situation (and
everyone likes cut and dry situations, it makes for nice and easy choices…).
But this is not Rock, Paper, Scissors where one always trumps the other. Local
vs. organic, industrial organic vs. small farm… the permutations are
mind-boggling. So on this debate you need to take a step back, considered the
options, and make an informed decision on what works best for you. And in case
you missed it, the watchword for the last sentence was “informed decision”
because, as was noted at the end of Food Inc.,“you can vote to change this
system. Three times a day.” Just as long as you chose to think.
Kat Thomas is a writer who loves it when people make informed decisions
about what and how they eat. Her Food Blog is edibleskinny.com
Casa Herradura is one of Mexico’s most historic and renowned tequila producers. Founded by Ambrosio Rosales and Aurelio
Lopez, Casa Herradura has been hand-harvesting, handcrafting, and estate
bottling 100% agave tequila at the Hacienda San José del Refugio, since
1870. Herradura is credited with the
introduction of the world’s first-ever Reposado and extra-Añejo tequilas in
1974 and 1995, respectively. FYI Most
Mexicans consume there Tequila straight and we followed this tradition during
the entire event. They might mix it with
one mixer such as Coke, but they don’t follow the American standard of Tequila
in cocktail form! 
One
of the few remaining 19th-century structures in Los Angeles, the Cathedral of Saint Vibiana was dedicated in 1876 and served as a religious landmark for more
than 100 years. After suffering damages
in the 1994 Northridge Quake, the historic building was eventually
decommissioned and transformed into a special events venue. 
For
our Colección de la Casa event we were sequestered away in one of the private
rooms off the rectory building that included a balcony, 12-person table, and an
exclusive kitchen where Neal Fraser personally cooked for us! Boom!
The
standard main course was equally as visually gamey (Bacon Wrapped Saddle of
Wild Boar with Spaetzle, Kale and Tequila Violet Mustard sauce) but Fraser was
kind enough to whip up a Tofu based dish for the Vegs of the group complete
with Spaetzle! Both paired fabulously
with Herradura’s Tequila (regular) Reposado smooth flavor profile of vanilla,
butter and dried fruit!
But
the most fabulous part of the evening was the most fascinating dessert I’ve had
in years!!! Created by Jashmine Corpuz,
Pastry Chef at Redbird, the Tequila Caramel Budino was composed of keffir lime
crumble, candied macadamia nuts, cilantro, cilantro syrup, pineapple &
vanilla salad, and jalapeño cilantro sherbert.
You haven’t really lived until you’ve tried jalapeño cilantro sherbert
with cilantro syrup!!! This was of
course paired with their featured Colección de la Casa Tequila Reposado where
its long-drawn out Scotch finish with a touch of sweetness complimented it
perfectly!
