by Oliver Hill
Narration:
Four years ago, Mark Solomon founded a small restaurant called A on Columbus Ave and 106th street, that serves exclusively organic food. A did so well that last year he opened two more branches.
Tape:
Mark Solomon
we just do it, we don't knock people over the head we're not gurus, we are not sitting around chanting, none of that we just say organic, it' not even a way of life of life with us, you have no choice, it's natural.
Narrration
Ajim Dike had dinner at Funky Nassau, Solomon's latest branch.
Tape: Ajim Dike
when I'm eating out, i mean you don't have much of a choice. the fact that it's organic is an added plus.
Narrration
In spite of the success of Solomon's restaurants, the mainstay of the organic food market is still in retail. Gabrielle Langholtz works at Greenmarket, a New York City organization that runs farmers markets across the city providing 170 local producers with an outlet for their goods. Langholtz says customers at the farmers markets often ask whether the food is certified.
Tape: Langholtz
It's virtually the only question that any customer ever ask, what here is organic.
Narrration
When they learn that only 12 of Greenmarkets 170 farms are certified organic, many turn their backs.
Tape: Langholtz
They say, ok thanks a lot and they go across the street and they buy something that has the words certified organic on it that were grown in california and spent three weeks in a truck and have a whole slew of environmental impacts that accompany them.
Narrration
What many of these customers don't realize however, is that some of these farms have made a conscious choice not to be a part of the new federal organic standards because of the subsequent boom in industrial organic production.
Tape: Langholtz
We've actually had several farms just in the past few years give up their organic certification in protest. About a year and a half ago I watched several farmers cross that word off their sign or cover it up with tape.
One such farmer is Morse Pitts. Pitts has a small farm in Orange County New York and delivers his produce each week to the Farmers Market in Union Square. He says the short growing season in the northeast makes it hard to compete for the lucrative contracts doled out by large supermarkets who are capitalizing on the marketing value of the word organic.
Tape: Morse Pitts
In the last five to ten years, the federal government and the big companies, said ooh, valuable word, let's take it away from the small producers, use it to make a lot of money real quick while while we degrade it, but while it's degrading people still think it means something.
Pitts gave up his organic certification in 2001 and continues to protest the way in which large producers from across the continent have taken over the organic food business.
Tape: Pitts
We have a little handout at our stand that says are we organic and then answers the question in more words and basically outlines what organic used to be before the federal government got ahold of it and that's the way we grow the way it used to be when people believed in it instead of were using it to make quick money.
But Barbara Hauman, senior writer at the Organic Trade Association, a group that lobbied for the federal standard, says the increasing demand for organic food is good for producers of all sizes.
Tape:
Barbara Hauman
there seems to be room for the small producer medium producer large producer and the small farmers in particular are finding that they can either sell to their neighbors or local farmers markets or establish relationships with some of the smaller retailers in their area or they can band together to produce enough supply for maybe a bigger supermarket in the area
Narration
Hauman says the appearance of restaurants specializing in organic food reflects the overall increase in demand for organic products.
Tape: Barbara
What has happened is that consumer demand has evolved such that it's been really ahead of supply, and so by having more restaurants offering this it's really in response to customers saying this is what we want.
Some retailers and Restaurant owners like Mark Solomon are heeding the calls to bring meaning back to the term organic by acquiring as much as possible from local producers
Tape: Solomon
Everything local, we don't worry about getting stuff in far away, it's local if it's an ingredient we need from another country, since it's like even our coffee, it's fair trade coffee so with organic it's not even organic, it's the way it was and the way it going to be, it will be.
Solomon's booming restaurant business combines the marketability of organic food with a commitment to support local producers who now command a decreasing share of the growing organic food market. For Columbia Radio News, I'm Oliver Hill.