To: letters@guardian.co.uk
Re: Organic food: more a philosophy (of sustainability) than a market sector

Date: Monday, 31 May 05

 
Guardian, 31 May 05: "Food for thought as organic sales grow"

For me, organic food has never been primarily about superior taste, nutritional value, or a lower intake of chemical residues, as important as these all are, but about humane, environmentally-friendly and sustainable agriculture, based, not like the rest of our economy, on man's primitive animal nature,  but on his more enlightened, human nature.

"Going organic", like my rejection of nuclear energy, is an attitude of heart and mind which defies  prevalent economic structures and logic rooted in man's animal fears, desires and stupidity (Homo sapiens, indeed! Homo stupidus is more like it).

If we want to get on top of global warming, and all the other problems that are threatening our planet - and our children's future along with it - we need to "go organic" with the entire economy, i.e. create an alternative, just, humane and sustainable economy based on the values, attitudes and (more spiritual than material) aspirations of our more enlightened, human nature.

This will be achieved, not by trying to overthrow, or even change the existing order (which is quite impossible given the massive vested interests we ALL have in it), but by creating an alternative within but distinct from it. The spirit and actual beginnings of what I have in mind (although still very much just a part of the existing order) already exist to some extent in the open-source community, in moral investment funds, fair trade, various cooperatives, renewable energy, recycling, organic farming, etc).

As this alternative grows and becomes more distinct and distinguishable, people will be able to transfer more and more of their activities and dependencies from the existing socio-economic order - not under coercion, but when they are ready (i.e. as they come out of denial, recognising the fundamental unsustainability of the existing order, and what is at stake), and at their own pace.