If your local National Public Radio station does not carry the Diane Rehm show, which broadcasts live from Washington DC every weekday, please click on the link above. The show will be broadcast at 11 AM (Eastern). In addition to Miles McEvoy and Mark Kastel, New York Times reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal, who covered industrial-scale organic agriculture in Mexico, will also appear.
Environmental Outlook: Organic Food Standards
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-03-06/environmental-outlook-organic-food-standards
Tuesday, March 6, 2012 – 11:06 a.m.
• 11:06 a.m. (ET) Environmental Outlook: Organic Food Standards
Environmental Outlook: Organic Food Standards
Organic food has become a $30 billion industry in the U.S. For this month’s Environmental Outlook: How growing demand challenges core values of organic farming.
The market for organic food has grown from just $1 billion in 1990 to nearly $30 billion today. As big corporations enter the market, concern has grown about enforcement of organic standards, and some see the movement drifting away from its founding principles of sustainability and local farming. They are alarmed by organic tomatoes grown in far-off, Mexican deserts that require constant irrigation, organic cows living on industrial-sized feedlots, and chickens laying organic eggs while confined in high-capacity barns. But others say that big farms bring organic food to the masses. For this month’s Environmental Outlook series: the organic food paradox.
Guests
Miles McEvoy: deputy administrator, National Organic Program, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Mark Kastel: co-founder, The Cornucopia Institute, a progressive farm policy research group based in Wisconsin
Elisabeth Rosenthal: correspondent, The New York Times
