An Oxymoron: Industrial Organic

This week's reading in The Omnivore's Dilemma, written by Michael Pollan, discusses the reality of the rapidly growing organic foods industry. He brings the reader to Polyface Farm, owned by Joel Salatin, a farmer who triumphs over the industrial system through his natural methods. The relationship between humans and grass is highlighted, as this mutualistic partnership has enabled each species to flourish. On Salatin's alternative farm, "by the end of the season, his grasses will have been transformed by his animals into some 25,000 pounds of beef, 50,000 pounds of pork, 12,000 broilers, 800 turkeys, 500 rabbits, and 30,000 dozen eggs" (126). Pollan comments on how this productive farm amazingly enriches the soil and surrounding environment. He contrasts Salatin's Polyface Farm and George Naylor's farm in Iowa; the former is pastoral, diversified, biological, and functions in a local market, among other things, while the latter is industrial, specialized, mechanical, and is entrenched in the global market. Salatin's natural ideals were exhibited in his strong opinions shared with Pollan. He believed that industrial organic was a contradiction in terms, so Pollan set out to decide if this opinion was valid; he discovered Salatin "hit the nail on the head." Joel Salatin's argument against the organic food industry was confirmed after researching the products at Whole Foods, the number one seller of organic foods in the supermarket industry. Pollan viewed the labels, reading in-depth stories of each animal and the farms they came from: "Rosie, a sustainably farmed, free-range chicken" who came from a company whose "farming methods strive to create harmonious relationships in nature, sustaining the health of all creatures and the natural world" (135).  The other foods all contained the same verbose, pleasant-sounding labels, and when Pollan visited the places that were described, he discovered the labels were far from the truth. Rosie's farm in Petaluma, was more of an animal factory than farm. She lives in a shed with about "twenty thousand other Rosies, who, aside from their certified organic feed, live lives little different from that of any other industrial chicken" (140) and rarely walk outside the shed. Salatin was correct; industrial organic was a euphemism for industrial.


No other novel I have read has been even close to as informative as The Omnivore's Dilemma. The questions it raises about the organic food industry, affect the decisions I make everyday. I realize I have had so many false notions about this food industry, but Pollan has helped unveil the realities of industrial organic. It all begins to make sense after reading this book; the wordy labels, the emphasis on the pure, all cover up the industrialized nature of the industry. It makes me more aware of the food I am eating and  the novel teaches the reader to ask questions and really research the food that is being sold.

How can the everyday consumer differentiate between the falsely advertised organic products, and those that are truly natural?
Is it inevitable that every natural industry eventually falls to the power of industrialism?