Whose harvest? The politics of organic seed certification

Anotherexcellent article from Graind ealing with the hurdles & hoops poor farmers in developing countries hafta go over or through to make a living,and why the Monsantos and Bayers and others have such an advantage in the seed arena.
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original-grain.org

Whose harvest? The politics of organic seed certification

GRAIN

We have also provided an annex table with details of what various regulatory bodies from around the world say about organic seeds

The vision behind organic agriculture is one in which care for the environment and health are central, and farmers get a fair deal for their efforts. But organic agriculture is also becoming serious business – with marketing tools, like certification, occupying more and more space and influence. More than 30 million hectares of certified organic farmland worldwide already produce goods for a global market worth €30 billion.2 This market, moreover, is growing fast, much faster than the global market for conventional food products. The main markets for certified organic foods are still very much in the North, but organic production for export is steadily increasing in the South, as are new strategies at the grassroots to develop local organic food and farming systems – most of which reject the business approach to certification.

What are certified organic products?

Certified organic products are those which have been produced, stored, processed, handled and marketed in accordance with precise technical specifications (standards) and certified as “organic” by a certification body. Once a certification body has verified conformity with organic standards, the product can be labelled as such.

From the IFOAM website: http://www.ifoam.org/sub/faq.html






















complete article link:www.grain.org/briefings/?id=207|www.grain.org/briefings/?id=207|here]

Chemical farming is hugely oil dependent, not just for transport, but for the chemicals on which they depend: fertilizer and pesticide.

The cost differential between organic and chemically farmed foods will shift as the chemicals become more costly. Areas that have cultivated strong, community supported, organic farms are fortunate.