How green is the global organic food market?

Organic tomatoes grown in Morocco in Switzerland; Swiss organic grains for breakfast in China. The path travelled by organic farming products is getting longer. But is this putting the environment under threat? “Do we really have to eat tomatoes all year? The large distributors are spoiling Swiss consumers.” While organic farmer Martin Köchli welcomes the increased selection of organic farming products found on the shelves of Swiss supermarkets Migros and Coop, he doesn’t believe that the same products have to be offered all year round. Köchli is president of Bioforum Schweiz (Switzerland), which is committed to a “diverse, ecological, and social agriculture.” In his view, organic farming is about much more than doing without artificial fertilisers or poisonous sprays. It also includes diligence and frugality, two virtues that are not highly valued in today’s consumer society. Köchli worked on an agriculture development project in the 1980s in a remote region of ...