by Frances Laing

Created on: February 16, 2009

This title is really the stuff of a doctorate thesis! It is difficult to chart the progress of any social movement. Take the suffragettes for example. Were they successful because women now have the vote? Or because Equal Opportunities legislation is now enshrined in law? Violence against women is now rearing it's head again in many countries across the planet. Does that mean they failed?

There are parallels with organic food. I'd say there has not been a single organic movement - but rather a range of inter-connected movements (in the plural) that have spanned many decades and many different countries.

Organic food used to be considered somehow odd. It wasn't the sort of thing you came across on television, top chefs weren't using it and you certainly didn't find it in the supermarket. If you compare the present day with the situation twenty years ago, that's definitely progress of a sort. Organic food has worked it's way into contemporary cultural consciousness and into the mainstream.

We now have a coherent system of quality control and labelling for organic produce which spans the globe. So if consumers choose 'certified organic' products, they can be reasonably sure that this is what they are getting.

Compared to the situation as it was thirty or forty years ago, membership of organisations like 'Garden Organic' (a charity which furthers the interests of organic gardening -based in the U.K) has risen dramatically. The charity now boasts several demonstration gardens and it is not the only organisation which runs an extensive educational programme to boost interest in schools.

But how far does the global recession halt the progress made? It is going to be difficult to chart this development. There seem to be varying reports about how organic sales are doing at the moment, both in my country and globally.

On the one hand, there are lots of articles out there about how people are trying to cut their grocery bills. Some say organic food is the first to go as far as consumer choice is concerned. I've heard other reports which indicate because organic food producion is less dependent on oil than conventional agriculture, organic markets are remaining steady, and actually prices of organic food are holding up really well compared to the non-organic alternatives.

All this is reflected in the reality of my own shopping basket. The prices of my organic basics have remained stable. It is the cost of highly processed foods (which require more oil to process them) which is shooting up.

I feel hugely optimistic about the organic food movement, mainly due to the increase in interest in growing your own fruit and vegetables, and the numbers of people who are doing this organically. Sales of organic seeds are up too. So at the present time I'd say it's good news - organic food movements have made great strides.

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