Organic Food Movements and Agricultural Policy (2011)

Undergraduate: Ariel Wilson

Faculty Advisor: James G. Ferguson
Department: Interdisciplinary Studies

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According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the world’s agricultural system has experienced two significant “crises” over the past four years. Sharp jumps in food prices have encountered the onset of the so-called “food movement,” as well as a priority for a more “sustainable” food system from field to plate; both of which, historically speaking, were founded between the two world wars as part of the original “organic” food and farming movement.
In my honors thesis research, I trace the international history of the organic food and farming social movement’s evolution from a small group of concerned researchers, to the fastest growing sector of the food industry. I define and discuss the founding rhetoric of the movement, how and why it was eventually translated into federal agricultural policy within the United States and European Union, as well as the subsequent implications and effects of these policies on the founding social movement’s current identity and original purpose: to fundamentally change the way in which a global population views and practices agriculture. I argue that both extremes of the organic movement should compromise their differences in order to maintain the pursuit of the philosophy’s founding and just goal.