project will include a comprehensive
literature review to determine to what
degree organic farming practices provide social, health, environmental and
economic benefits. Project findings are
slated for publication in mid-2011.
With clean water becoming increasingly scarce, the organic industry’s
ability to help protect the nation’s
water supply is also generating interest.
USDA’s Organic Transitions grant
funding during 2009 included three
water quality projects that will most
likely strengthen the argument for a
government-supported NOAP:
• Enhancing Farmland Water Quality
and Availability through Soil-Building
Crop Rotations and Organic Practices,
undertaken at Iowa State University;
• Water Quality Evaluation of Long-Term
Organic and Conventional Vegetable
Production Under Conservation and
Conventional Tillage, at North Car-
olina State University, and
• Impact of Organic Animal Production
Systems on Water Quality and Quantity
in Ohio, at Ohio State University.
These studies and other future research findings that show the sustain-ability of organic agriculture from
social, environmental, and economic
points of view will bode well for advancing organic on the agricultural
front as well as in the marketplace.
also see choosing organic as a means to support their health and the health of
their children. Additionally, the study’s findings suggest that the new generation
of organic consumers will be more racially diverse and will come from a wider
spectrum of educational and economic backgrounds. These findings counter perceptions of organic as a product category limited to homogenous, wealthy and
highly educated consumers.
Reconnecting with Food. Another defining characteristic of the next generation is their connection to their food. Due in part to the growth of school gardens, which have given children from across social, political, economic and
racial lines first-hand exposure to organic foods and agricultural practices,
these consumers will both understand and appreciate where their food comes
from.
Connecting with the Next
Generation of Consumers
Another important component in
the future of organic is the expectations of the next generation of consumers.
Today’s Organic Consumer. OTA’s
2009 U.S. Families’ Organic Attitudes and
Beliefs Study provides a number of valuable insights into the new generation
of consumers. It reveals, for example,
that these consumers actively incorporate organic into their lives and their
children’s lives, in terms of their product choices, the topics they choose to
discuss, and the social/environmental
activities in which they take part. They
Grassroots Activism through Social
Media. Through blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and any number of other
social media outlets, the new generation of consumers will be able to identify their own set of informational
priorities, and the corresponding actions they wish to take, rather than relying on outside media outlets to
perform these functions. The next generation of consumers is empowered not
only to educate themselves, but to
spread the word to their global community through online media. The next
phase, Organic 2.0, requires those in
the organic industry to fully embrace
online communities and learn how to
interact within them.
An example of an online tool
spreading awareness is the “What’s On My Food?” smart-phone application from
the Pesticide Action Network, which allows consumers to enter a particular food
before they eat it, and find out how many pesticides were used in its production.
Organic Valley has also launched “Organic Counts,” an online calculator that
helps you track how much pesticide usage you prevent by purchasing their or-
ganic products. Users can share their results with friends through Twitter and
Facebook.
Social media was also at the heart of the Organic Trade Association’s recent
“Organic. It’s Worth It in Schools” campaign, which used various social media
outlets and e-newsletters to inspire local communities to “vote” for a school to
win an organic garden or organic food vending machine. The result was the formation of online communities that rallied behind their local schools and encouraged others to do the same. After just three and a half months, OTA’s
campaign generated more than 15,500 newsletter signups, and prompted more
than 1,100 schools across America to participate. The campaign helped to dramatically increase traffic to OTA’s consumer website,
www.OrganicIts WorthIt.org, which received more than 10,000 site visits in the
last month of the campaign—a huge increase over the 1,000 visits it received in
March and 650 visits in February. This campaign demonstrated the powerful
role that social media can play in achieving organizational goals that go beyond
the social media outlets themselves.
“The next phase, Organic 2.0, requires those in the organic industry to fully embrace online communities and learn how to interact within them.”
