Organic Farming

WITH all the talk about "sustainable" agriculture, sustainable fishing and sustainable eating, it was remarkable how little agreement there was last week at Monterey Bay Aquarium's 2nd annual Sustainable Foods Institute about what sustainable actually means. The daylong symposium gathered 50 food writers and assorted food retailers, farmers, academicians and scientists to discuss the state of the world's increasingly fragile food system, both terrestrial and aquatic.

It comes as no surprise to anyone that the number of organic farms is booming to meet consumer demand for healthy food. In Washington, a state known more for its apples than any other crop, there are 45 organic dairies. Five years ago, there were just two. The challenge has been feeding all of those cows. Acreage of organic forage, such as hay and alfalfa, has grown 40% in the last two years, yet isn't keeping pace with demand.

SCORE ONE FOR THE CRUNCHIES. Yes, proponents of organic farming have been maintaining for years that conventionally grown produce is neither as tasty nor as nutritious as organic fruits and vegetables. But many of us have been skeptics, perhaps to justify our reluctance to pay up to twice as much for food labeled "organic" and sold at smug yuppie temples to the "natural" lifestyle.

Growing up on his family's sugar plantation, Leontino Balbo slept like a dream. The hard work, fresh air and lullaby of the sugar mill's machinery brought him peace. Years later, the place would keep Balbo up at night. After becoming agricultural director of the farm, Balbo took a giant risk. He threw away things his family had learned. He embraced things his family had forgotten.

Growing up on his family's sugar plantation, Leontino Balbo slept like a dream. The hard work, fresh air and lullaby of the sugar mill's machinery brought him peace. Years later, the place would keep Balbo up at night. After becoming agricultural director of the farm, Balbo took a giant risk. He threw away things his family had learned. He embraced things his family had forgotten.

The cows on Pam and Jeff Riesgraf's farm chomped happily away on lush, green grass on a warm, sunny afternoon. Their milk would soon find its way to grocery stores, where organic dairy products are a hot item. The Riesgraf farm represents one vision for organic dairy -- small and medium-size family farms where the cows have names and spend the growing season on pasture.

Unlike most farms in China, no heaps of blackened sewage sludge are piled on the fields at the Green Cow farm. No workers spray pesticides from pumps strapped to their backs. No animals are in quarantine. An oasis in a Beijing suburb, the organic farm's modest six acres boast pepper and tomato plants, fields of corn and wheat, and sunflower patches that pop up in between. Two rotund cows chomp on grasses; under a grove of fruit trees, three young pigs slurp water. Restaurateur and environmentalist Lejen Chen started Green Cow with her husband in 2004, fearful of the pesticides, chemical fertilizers and sewage sludge used in the cultivation of most domestic produce.

When officials at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo scheduled a free lecture by bestselling author Michael Pollan, they envisioned a lively talk about sustainable food, along with Pollan's customary critiques of agribusiness. What they didn't expect was a wave of denunciations from angry farming and ranching alumni who rank Pollan as a force only slightly less damaging to agriculture than the Mediterranean fruit fly. Threatening to pull his donations, the head of one of California's biggest ranching operations succeeded in turning today's planned lecture into a panel discussion involving Pollan, a meat-science expert, and a major grower of organic lettuce.

Shoppers swarm around the farmers market stall. After the rainy California winter, strawberries, peas and fava beans, those heralds of spring, are hot sellers. Some customers move in for the kill, brandishing their trophy produce in one hand and exact change in the other. Others hold back, trying to remember what looked good at the last stall. Weren't those favas a little smaller? But these favas say "pesticide-free." And the guy at the other end of the market might have organic ones.

Greg Higgins, chef and owner of the tony downtown Portland restaurant Higgins, walks to the back of his bustling kitchen and opens a door into the heart of the latest environmental movement.