Marketing Beyond Organic
Food ingredients raised regeneratively could be cleaner and more nutritious than certified organics, even with small amounts of chemical inputs used.
When consumers choose certified organic over the alternatives, they expect them to be:
Produced closer to home;
Free from pesticide residues; and
More nutritious.
In fact, these claims can’t be validated and are often non-existent in foods labeled certified organic today.
Background
Over recent decades, the trade in organic grain ‘commodified.’ Initially that was a good thing, enabling supplies to increase to meet fast-growing consumer demand, and lowering supply chain costs in handling, transportation and segregation.
As food brands added certified organic options at retail, resellers and traders of organic grain ran out of local sourcing options. In North America, conventional farms expanded much quicker via economies of scale, despite the price premiums for organics.
Offshore Ingredient Sourcing
The trade in organic grains is global. Europe, Canada, the U.S. and other countries now import a considerable percentage, in commingled bulk cargoes, of the ingredients used to manufacture organic flour, pasta, soup mixes, etc.
The cost of production and yields of organic cropping are advantageous in regions like eastern Europe, India and South America. Traders can source, ship, and offer imported bulk organic grain shipments at prices below the cost of production on North American organic farms.
Not all traders source organic production from overseas, because they understand the importance of supporting local farmers. North American processors would be well-served to seek out these suppliers to avoid the risk of fraudulently labeling foods as organic. It is especially challenging to validate the paper trail back to the field of origin on shipments from abroad that have passed through several hands.
Preventing Contamination
Built in the 80’s, certification protocols and auditing processes have fallen behind what would be necessary today to prevent spray drift from contaminating organically-produced grain crops at the source of production. Back then, pesticides were used relatively sparingly by conventional grain farmers. Today it seems like all they do in June and July is run their sprayers to keep fields entirely void of disease, insects, and weeds.
The small number of organic grain fields operating amidst the spray-fest maintain a buffer zone that is far from adequate to prevent contamination from drift. No regulatory or technical oversight exists for field-level testing of pesticide residues, and as a result, certified organic grain shipments are regularly rejected upon arrival in markets that do test.
Nutrient Density
Conventional grading focuses on protein and oil content in grains, oilseeds, and legumes. Health-conscious consumers, on the other hand, are looking for micronutrients like zinc, calcium, and magnesium, which aren’t reported on food labels. Hence the robust market for dietary supplements.
Nutrient density is a function of soil health. Higher levels of trace minerals are present in foods when they originate from plants grown on soils with balanced levels of micronutrients.
Biological actors underground do the work of cycling nutrients by digesting and expelling the compounds that make up soils. Rhizobium bacteria fix atmospheric nitrogen, for example, and mycorrhizal fungi stretch horizontally across fields, transporting nutrients from areas of excess to plants that need them elsewhere.
Vertical tillage breaks up fungal networks underground and reduces their capacity to deliver nutrition to plants naturally. Traditionally, certified organic farms have relied on repeated bouts of tillage to control weeds, which can do considerable damage to soil health, and nutrient density potential in harvested crops.
Evolving to Adapt and Maintain Market Share
Agroecology offers innumerable alternatives to tillage in organic farming. The Regenerative Organic Alliance (ROA) was founded in 2017 to improve upon the soil health standards in traditional organic farming, and have steadily grown the footprint of farmers who can accomplish very complex management practices.
In conventional systems, regenerative agriculture allows for context-specific, gradual reductions of agrochemical use and meets every farmer where they’re at. It’s based on principles, rather than protocols, making it adaptable anywhere… unlike the certification-based systems that dictate specific practices.
Marketing Regenerative
The next challenge in marketing regeneratively-raised food ingredients will be to convey these complexities to consumers, and bring integrity back to purchasing decisions. Thankfully, certified organic supply chains offer a model for how segregation systems can be built and beefed up to create fully traceable, authentic new brand propositions.
The current stand-out winner in marketing label claims for regenerative farming systems is the Land to Market program, which can track animal products that carry the seal back to farms that have achieved the Savory Institute’s Ecological Outcome Verification (EOV) standard. Like ROA, Land to Market is run by smart, progressive, well-meaning nature-lovers with a passion for managed grazing and biodiversity, and who are able to connect farmers into commercial supply chains and with food brands.
Myth Busting
The jury is still out in terms of the markets’ willingness-to-pay for products that carry a truly positive environmental impact, and how that will break down between different demographics and sectors of the economy. The data will be available soon thanks to AI and smart new tech platforms.
In the meantime, there are significant financial incentives for starting to convert land to regenerative agriculture. Healthy soils, left undisturbed, function far better than expensive interventions, and can displace most agrochemical applications.