Apart from the more specific ones (like ‘keep water high on the land’, but maybe just try to metaphor these as taoist haikus to trigger bewildering insights.)

• Relative Location Components placed in a system are viewed relatively, not in isolation. Functional Relationship between components.
• Everything is connected to everything else. Recognise functional relationships between elements.
• Every function is supported by many elements – Redundancy Good design ensures that all important functions can withstand the failure of one or more element.
• Every element is supported by many functions Each element we include is a system, chosen and placed so that it performs as many functions as possible.
• Local Focus “Think globally – Act locally” Grow your own food, cooperate with neighbours. Community efficiency not self-sufficiency.
• Diversity As a general rule, as sustainable systems mature they become increasingly diverse in both space and time. What is important is the complexity of the functional relationships that exist between elements not the number of elements.
• Biological Resources We know living things reproduce and build up their availability over time, assisted by their interaction with other compatible elements. Use and reserve biological intelligence.
• One Calorie In/One Calorie Out Do not consume or export more biomass than carbon fixed by the solar budget.
• Stocking Finding the balance of various elements to keep one from overpowering another over time. How much of an element needs to be produced in order to fulfil the need of whole system?
• Stacking Multi-level functions for single element (stacking functions). Multi-level garden design, ie., trellising, forest garden, vines, ground covers, etc.
• Succession Recognise that certain elements prepare the way for system to supports other elements in the future, i.e.: succession planting.
• Use Onsite Resources Determine what resources are available and entering the system on their own and maximise their use.
• Edge Effect Ecotones are the most diverse and fertile area in a system. Two ecosystems come together to form a third which has more diversity than either of the other two, i.e.: edges of ponds, forests, meadows, currents etc.
• Energy Recycling Yields from system designed to supply onsite needs and/or needs of local region.
• Small Scale Intensive Systems start small and create a system that is manageable and produces a high yield.
• Make Least Change for the Greatest Effect The less change that is generated, the less embedded energy is used to endow the system.
• Planting Strategy 1st-natives, 2nd-proven exotics, 3rd unproven exotics – carefully on small scale with lots of observation.
• Work Within Nature Aiding the natural cycles results in higher yield and less work. A little support goes along way.
• Appropriate Technology The same principles apply to cooking, lighting, transportation, heating, sewage treatment, water and other utilities.
• Law of Return Whatever we take, we must return Every object must responsibly provide for its replacement.
• Stress and Harmony Stress here may be defined as either prevention of natural function, or of forced function. Harmony may be defined as the integration of chosen and natural functions, and the easy supply of essential needs.
• The Problem is the solution We are the problem, we are the solution. Turn constraints into resources
• Mistakes are tools for learning
• The yield of a system is theoretically unlimited The only limit on the number of uses of a resource possible is the limit of information and imagination of designer.
• Dispersal of Yield Over Time Principal of seven generations. We can use energy to construct these systems, providing that in their lifetime, they store or conserve more energy that we use to construct them or to maintain them.
• A Policy of Responsibility (to relinquish power) The role of successful design is to create a self-managed system.
• Principle of Disorder Order and harmony produce energy for other uses. Disorder consumes energy to no useful end. Tidiness is maintained disorder.
• Chaos Has form, but is not predictable. The amplification of small fluctuations.
• Entropy In complex systems disorder is an increasing result. Entropy and lifeforce are a stable pair that maintain the universe to infinity.
• Metastability For a complex system to remain stable, there must be small pockets of disorder.
• Entelechy Principal of genetic intelligence. i.e. The rose has thorns to protect itself.
• Observation Protracted & thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor.
• We are surrounded by insurmountable opportunities
• Wait one year
• Hold water and fertility as high (in elevation) on the landscape as possible
• The only ethical decision is to take responsibility for our own existence and that of our children.
• Cooperation, not competition, is the very basis of future survival and of existing life systems.

http://www.thefarm.org/permaculture/

There are two separate issues here:

1. Is it too expensive – or does your regular shop charge too much for it?
2. Is it too expensive – or is the other food too cheap? (Or more to the point: are you just paying the extra expense in other ways?)

a) Your regular shop charges too much for it.

If you buy organic food in a supermarket it may very well be more expensive – but that’s because LOTS of things are more expensive in supermarkets: they just lure us in with the illusion of value. (And they’re good at it, too: that’s why the competition commission has to keep on slapping them down for doing things like raising prices to make the subsequent price cut more dramatic.)

If you shop at a local market, not only can you save about 50%, but you stay healthier by eating only fresh and seasonal food, have much less packaging to waste and feel terrible about throwing away, often find other good bargains, and most importantly you invest in your local community - £10 spent in your local market is worth £25 to the local economy, whereas £10 spent in a supermarket is worth only £14, because most of it zips away to head office to pay for TV adverts and expensive cars.

b) Other food is HUGELY subsidised, making it seem cheaper.

Subsidies work out at about 40 pence in every pound spent on food. Organic farmers, who don’t consume as much subsidy because they don’t use such high-input-cost methods and don’t try to maximise subsidy income, cost about 25 pence in every pound.

We are currently taxed £5.3 billion every year to subsidise current industrial farming methods (£3bn to farmers, £2.3bn on pollution cleanup). It’s been calculated that if we spend £1.2 billion every year for the next five years, all UK farms could convert to organic*.

That would mean we save £20 billion pounds in 5 years – about the same as we spend on education each year – and then free up another £5.3bn / year to invest in renewable energy. Huge.

* To be fair, I’ve not been able to corroborate that statement, but the numbers aren’t so important so long as they tend to zero, and end up delivering a system which requires less subsidy than the cost of conversion, which seems likely, especially with the ever rising cost of oil.

One definite bit of research though: In 2001 the UK pesticide market was worth about £500m per year. The cost of removing these from drinking water was £120m. That’s madness. And that’s before we even get on to the cancer rates, skin diseases, biodiversity loss, and so on.

2. It’s not any tastier.

It’s not supposed to be tastier. It’s supposed to be, and is, better.More nutrituous,

3. It’s weirdly shaped and got spots on.

Hey, cut your food some slack! That described you, once, too, and you turned out to be pretty tasty.

4. I’m concerned about animal welfare, not pesticide use.

Excellent! You probably look for the Freedom Food label, go free range, and only eat meat once or twice a week. You are wonderful! Did you know, though, that the Organic Certification includes animal welfare standards?

5. I buy local instead.

Ah, now that is interesting. Which is more important? Sustainable communities with local employment, or organic farming? Well you’re probably not going to get good organic farming without the people there to do it, so ensuring you’re buying local to keep that going is massively important. But then so is the health of your local environment. If you’re interested in local livelihoods, soils, jobs, high employment, roi,

Well you can test this for yourself at the Landshare Foodprint calculator.

But boy-oh-boy has the organisation been holding them back! The Soil Association’s position and principles have been well intentioned, but the way they’ve gone about their job has been – with a few notable and excellent exceptions – from the dark ages. (Well, OK, maybe the 1970s? But with sprinklings of C17th Puritanism.)

But with their new corporate strategy, The Road to 2020, I am delighted to report that change is coming.

It’s driven by this vital sentence: There is no room for complacency*.

This is the crux which allows the pivot from “We are The Guardians of The Church of Organic Excellence and will only work with Believers” to “Let’s just try to help make food better for people and planet, shall we?”

Skipping over ironies that come from such a change of direction, and turning a blind eye (for now) to the “What took so bloody long?” problem of institutional change, let’s look at the highlights:

• More evidence based: they’re using facts, not ideologies.
• Going to where the people are: “it’s about mainstreaming our values, encouraging people to connect with, and care for, each other and the natural world through their relationship with food.”
• It’s about improving standards: The word ‘agro-ecological’ is used 3 times. Whilst it’s not much against the 44 instances of ‘organic’ it’s a major shift to acknowledging and promoting sustainable yet not-100%-organic farming methods.
• Partnerships: “Our future will be built on partnerships with other organisations and individuals who share our vision for the future of food, farming and land use. [...] investigate and promote business and social enterprise models that encourage ethical practice.”

This last point about partnerships is one I welcome enormously and agree with whole-heartedly. There is no room for complacency, and we must move fast and move together to undo the tragedies which have taken place since WWII.

I have had some experience of trying to work with the Soil Association on a project which helps with their stated aims of “providing solutions that help people to live, eat, farm and grow with the resources that are available” and “ensuring that we are giving the best possible service and support to our licensees”. I know three companies who have tried to work with the Soil Association on related projects which champion the work of organic producers, and each has met with a particularly abrupt and hostile response.

I shall be following up with Helen Browning to make sure that the journey along The Road to 2020 starts today, and will keep you posted.

(Meantime, you might like to sign up www.notasupermarket.co.uk to be a part of a networked solution which is 100% behind the Soil Association’s new direction!)

PS. apologies for the blatant self-promotion, but it’s a heck of a mission, and we need all the help we can get!

Both.

As food growers, sellers and eaters, we’re moving in two directions at once.

The number of hungry people has soared to nearly 1 billion, despite strong global harvests. And for even more people, sustenance has become a health hazard—with the US diet implicated in four out of our top ten deadly diseases. Power over soil, seeds and food sales is ever more tightly held, and farmland in the global South is being snatched away from indigenous people by speculators set to profit on climbing food prices. Just four companies control at least three-quarters of international grain trade; and in the United States, by 2000, just ten corporations—with boards totaling only 138 people—had come to account for half of US food and beverage sales. Conditions for American farmworkers remain so horrific that seven Florida growers have been convicted of slavery involving more than 1,000 workers. Life expectancy of US farmworkers is forty-nine years.

That’s one current. It’s antidemocratic and deadly.

There is, however, another current, which is democratizing power and aligning farming with nature’s genius. Many call it simply “the global food movement.” In the United States it’s building on the courage of truth tellers from Upton Sinclair to Rachel Carson, and worldwide it has been gaining energy and breadth for at least four decades.

Some Americans see the food movement as “nice” but peripheral—a middle-class preoccupation with farmers’ markets, community gardens and healthy school lunches. But no, I’ll argue here. It is at heart revolutionary, with some of the world’s poorest people in the lead, from Florida farmworkers to Indian villagers. It has the potential to transform not just the way we eat but the way we understand our world, including ourselves. And that vast power is just beginning to erupt.

[...]

More than 1,000 independent seed companies were swallowed up by multinationals in the past four decades, so today just three—Monsanto, DuPont and Syngenta—control about half the proprietary seed market worldwide.

Notes from The Food Movement: Its Power and Possibilities | The Nation.

Not A Supermarket

Organic isn’t yet what one might call ‘mainstream’, so they may have a point. For too many of us, being organic comes at too high a cost: at the till, in labour costs, paperwork, effort, and time. It takes a great deal to meet the commendably high organic standards.

Is there a way this burden could be reduced whilst preserving the core principles?

Let’s consider some examples

• If you collect horse manure* from nearby stables where the horses are well cared for and fed organically, should using their manure on your  veg beds disqualify you from an organic classification?
• If you take a non-organic seed (not GM, not sterile) from a conventionally farmed field and plant it in an organic farm, and look after it organically all its life, should that count as organic?
• If you buy some ducks to patrol as organic pest control, and keep them to organic standards – but the ducks themselves were not raised organically for the first few weeks of their lives – should you still be able to sell your produce as organic?

None of these examples are allowed under organic certification. (You can get a derogation for some of them if you ask politely and give good reasons, but that’s just MORE hassle, not less.)

So we have a situation where it’s ok to go up and down the fields in a diesel tractor and the attendant pollution it leaves, or to use an gas flame thrower to get rid of weeds, but it’s not ok to use a duck or horse manure? Something is amiss.

It’s a problem of degrees. Even if you farm 100% organically, if you use any input which is not of certified organic origin, you can no longer claim organic status. Even though the horse manure might be 100% organic, it is nixed because it doesn’t come with a bit of paper to prove it. Getting that bit of paper is expensive, time consuming, and not of sufficient benefit to any of the people who might make it happen. So rather than using cheap, local, (self-certified) organic manure, the farmer is forced to buy lorry loads of expensive manure from the council. Is that what we want organic to stand for?

From an inspection point of view, it’s clearly more manageable to say that “certified organic” means 100% organic, 100% of the time. Yet this does seem rather blunt, and the strictness hurts and alienates the allies who are working towards the same goals.

A pragmatic solution could be to have more types of licence.

There is a parallel to draw with copyright, in which a work is either 100% copyright protected, or not at all.

In 2001 a non-profit organisation was formed to address the copyright’s failure to offer any licences to sit between the extreme ‘all’ or ‘nothing’ positions. It created new licences which allow creators to have shades of grey in the rights they reserve and which rights they waive.

For example this blog has an ‘attribution & share-alike’ licence, meaning you can copy as much of it as you like as long as you remember to link back to this original source, and if you do copy it you must share any derivative works under the same licence.

You can immediately see that such a system is going to encourage more creativity since, like copyright, we still receive acclaim for our creativity; but unlike copyright, it intrinsically acknowledges that all human efforts are cumulative, and preserves your right to continue evolving any ideas I may have put down. (It also highlights the observation that to deny anyone else their right to build upon your efforts for at least 70 years is almost as destructive as it is creative, but that’s for another day.)

Each licence is free of charge, and self-certified, and comes in three versions: human readable, lawyer readable, and computer readable; and links through to a simple plain language explanation (here’s mine.)

It has  caught on like wildfire since it is designed for sensible people in the 21st century, and offers the simple versatility and breadth of options which works to help the majority rather than to protect a minority.

Could organic certifiers bring this type of flexibility to organic?

Imagine how many more organic products we might have on the shelves if we added just two extra categories

• Organically certified production (the original and best)
• Organically certified production using self-certified inputs
• Organically certified production with approved inputs of non-organic origin (ie ducks, seeds, piglets)

Before we get into a long debate about how this devalues the meaning of organic or makes the market too complicated for consumers to navigate, let’s remember three important things:

1) the urgent and paramount importance to develop a food chain which is sustainable, not dependent on ever-diminishing fossil fuels, and which provides good food for everyone in a resilient and healthy manner.

2) it wouldn’t be that hard to implement (eg self-certification with random spot checks with high penalties) and would engage more people in the transition to be more organic.

3) these new classifications can happily co-exist with the highest, original organic certification, in the same way that it already co-exists with other food labelling schemes such as Freedom Food and Red Tractor.

And this invocation of the Red Tractor and Freedom Foods brings us to the final important point. If you worked with almost any group of consumers to deliberate upon what they would expect from animal welfare standards, they would most likely develop a set of rules closer to those laid down by the Soil Association’s organic certification than those set down by the Freedom Food standard.

There are turbulent times ahead for food and farming, and it seems likely that we’ll see a few more revolutions in food labelling before the decade is out. Food scares and the low marginal cost of data conspire to make it almost inevitable. In these turbulent times, it seems more desirable to organic beacons guide us by using responsible food labelling which urges more sustainable practises, than being led astray by the type of deliberately misleading commercial marketing campaign which puts a Union Jack on the packet just because it was packaged here.

To summarise

1. Change is inevitable
2. We want all changes to nudge us in a better direction
3. Only a very few organisations can be trusted to lead with authenticity
4. Making it easy for people to start being good is important. Once we start, we do the rest of the journey on our own.
5. Expect the best from people, and they will likely deliver it.
6. New technology changes what’s possible, new information changes what’s required. Keep up, or fall behind.
7. Implementation is easy if the leadership is bold and has the courage to let go and empower.

* There is a similar argument to be made for human sewage, too, but I didn’t raise it in the main article to ensure we didn’t get distracted. When organic standards were set, sewage processing was not as good as it is now, and unwelcome chemicals and diseases could contaminate the resultant manure. But times have changed, processing standards have improved, and treated human sewage is routinely used in conventional farming, sensibly and sustainably minimising waste and making good use of a locally sourced, energy-rich resource. Isn’t that in keeping with the organic principles?

New Dream Mini-Views: Visualizing a Plenitude Economy from Center for a New American Dream on Vimeo.

via Visualizing a Plenitude Economy on Vimeo.

It was always felt by the group that technology might exist (or be developed cost‐effectively) that could allow individual group members to place orders directly with suppliers whilst consolidating these orders and providing the supplier and the distribution company with consolidated bulk orders for ease of transport.

Joining the Dots, Sustain and Making Local Food Work