August 1, 2008 - Going organic: Movement taking root as prices, awareness rise
LaReeca Rucker
lrucker@jackson.gannett.com
He draws a picture of a bicycle and writes the words "Self-reliance is patriotic" every weekend on a large door at the Starkville Community Market where produce and fruit is sold.
Owners of the Lafayette Street business allow the public to paint messages on the door, and Mississippi State University student Ryan Storment, 23, is eager to share his ideas about environmental sustainability.
Storment has given up driving and now bikes everywhere he goes. He's also gone organic.
According to the Organic Trade Association, U.S. sales of organic foods and beverages grew from $1 billion in 1990 to an estimated $20 billion in 2007, and are projected to reach nearly $23 billion in 2008. Organic food sales are expected to increase an average of 18 percent each year from 2007 to 2010.
And some, like Storment, are growing their own. He created an organic garden in his apartment. "I feel very strongly that eating foods in their more natural state is very important to human health."
Storment planted tomatoes, banana peppers, eggplant and herbs in containers, using pesticide-free tactics to grow them.
"You can put marigolds around your plants to keep aphids off," he said. "And for things like nightshades - peppers and tomatoes - there are certain kinds of worms that will get them at night. All you have to do is tape a little bit of tinfoil around the stalk, and the worms and bugs can't climb up."
Steve Rozman, a political science professor and director of the Tougaloo Center for Civic Engagement and Social Responsibility, went organic many years ago. Rozman typically buys organic foods at the Fondren store Rainbow Whole Foods Co-operative Grocery.
"If you look at Kroger and some of these other supermarkets, there are more organic alternatives," said Rozman. "Five years ago, you would have found very little organic produce here."
The Tougaloo-Rainbow Sustainable Garden would have also been unheard of five years ago. The joint venture between Rainbow and Tougaloo was created on the campus in May behind the science building.
"We have done some digging, composting, planting seeds and we're getting a crop now," Rozman said.
Some of the produce will be sold at Rainbow. Some will go to garden volunteers, and some will be donated to organizations like Stewpot.
Rainbow employee Michael Gentry, project coordinator, said the garden also will be used as a tool to generate interest.
"We hope everyone who comes out there gains some knowledge of organic gardening and sustainable agriculture," he said. "It's a starting point for their journey into being more sustainable and producing their own organic food."
The garden has two 50-by-50- foot and 150-by-60-foot sections of squash, beans, corn, tomatoes and watermelons. They also have a fruit tree orchard.
Gentry, a 30-year-old Starkville native, earned a degree in landscape architecture from MSU. He said the experience has made him want to become an organic farmer.
"I don't know about doing it as a full-time career, but I can make half of my income farming and bartering with people," he said. "There are also opportunities because people are interested in our knowledge of farming, so you can become a consultant. We can put in a garden for you and start the process, almost like a landscaping design service."
William B. Evans researches organic vegetables, fertilizers and seeds at MSU's Truck Crops Branch Experiment Station in Crystal Springs.
Evans said there are several things driving the organic trend.
"With the high price of fuel and the idea that we can reduce our negative impact on the environment and still live a high quality of life, those things are making more people consider organic gardening, as well as local produce," Evans said. "It provides market opportunity."
Evans said many are starting to realize that some of the ideas stemming from the environmental movement are practical. "Whether or not you are the most devout tree hugger in the world, almost all of us have a desire not to waste things."
Evans said all the major stores carry organic fertilizers, soils and seeds these days, and processed catfish waste, composted chicken litter and horse manure can help you grow organic. He's been able to produce up to 75,000 pounds of watermelon per acre organically.
He said the easiest crops to grow organically are the easiest crops to grow conventionally. He suggests starting with Southern peas, sweet potatoes, blueberries and watermelons.
"Organic foods will remain a significant part of the food we eat for the foreseeable future," Evans said. "There is no sign that that is going to let up."
Clinton resident Tom Mann is another organic gardener. On less than an acre, he grows tomatoes, squash, peppers, eggplant, beans, okra, onions, garlic, potatoes, lettuce, broccoli, collards, kale, cabbage, carrots and sugar snap peas.
And let's not forget the fruits - pears, apples, figs, blueberries, muscadines, strawberries, persimmons, mulberries, blackberries, lemons, calamondins and kumquats.
"Anyone can do it if they give the garden a little special attention," he said, adding that okra, Southern peas and green beans are good beginner crops.
For Mann, organic eating is about healthy living and being environmentally conscious.
"I've read that the average piece of food crossing lips via a fork in the U.S. has traveled 1,500 miles," Mann said. "As long as gas stays at about $4 a gallon, I think organic gardening will continue to be a trend.
"We need to start thinking locally. I think it's important to shorten the strands of our food chain. If we can cut trucks out of our food chain, the better we are."
Storment didn't just stop with his apartment garden. He used his tax refund to purchase a grain meal.
"I can order organic wheat by the 50-pound bucketful, grind it and make bread," he said. "I also try to buy organic milk from the grocery store."
He became a vegetarian at the end of last year and said his new diet has made him more energetic.
"A lot of people make fun of me because I'm on this whole green roll," said the computer science major. "Our whole food industry in America is reliant on petroleum. That's why our food is going up so much."
And that's why Storment, a Byram native, is sharing his message of self-reliance, one that means Mississippians may want to consider turning back the clock to the days when our grandparents lived off the land.
"I think 20 years down the road, we will be back to that again, but my generation has a lot to learn," he said. "The Depression generation didn't want their kids to live through hard times, so the baby boomers pretty much lost all that knowledge. People thought there was going to be a utopia created by desk jobs and technology, and it ended up being the opposite.
"'Self-reliance is patriotic' has kind of become my motto," he said. "That really changes the way you think about a lot of things."
[via: Mississippi's The Clarion-Ledger]
