Organic food enters the mainstream - will it bubble to the top?

Sitting in her cafe in view of the grey-green ridge of the Nightcap Range, we were talking about the market for local food products, and unorthodox dietary demands. "There are a lot of food fascists out there," Robyn said, "but I make use of the herbs and vegetables I grow here myself, and for the rest I try to buy as much locally organically-grown food as possible."

Robyn operates a small outdoor eatery attached to her training centre in northern NSW where she promotes her use of local, organically-grown foods. Robyn is one of a growing band of food-conscious people pushing the idea of local food and regional cuisine.

Australia has yet to develop regional cuisines - geographically distinct food products and ways of preparing and cooking them - as gastronomically-driven countries like France and Italy have done. However, the process is underway, and is likely to be driven by a new focus on food in our society. This is derived from migrant communities, popular television cooking programmes, libraries of books about food and cooking, and health fears about the food we eat. These health fears focus on personal health - on obesity, and also on the implications of consuming food that may be contaminated by agricultural pesticide and herbicide residues.

Farmers point to the growing trend to minimise the use of agricultural chemicals. They claim that Australian farms use comparatively little and that there is an increasing tendency to apply pesticide and herbicide only when needed. But consumer suspicions persist, based partly on assumptions and fear but also on scientific findings such as those by NSW Agriculture. It discovered Sydney-fringe farmers overusing agricultural chemicals to an extent that could harm themselves, people who eat the food, and also the region's waterways.

Australia's burgeoning organic foods sector is one industry that has benefited from this new food awareness and the fear of conventionally-grown foods. Now climbing a distinct growth curve, 'organic' has penetrated mainstream Australian society. But barriers remain to organic's deeper penetration of the food market, and potential areas of disagreement with the country's food-aware.

The journey of organics from social fringe to suburban mainstream has taken a little over 30 years. Its genesis lay with the baby-boomer generation, who patronised the small wholefood and organic shops that first appeared in Australia's cities and a few regional centres such as Lismore during the 1960s and '70s. They were concerned about agricultural chemical residues in conventionally-grown foods, an issue dated from Rachael Carson's Silent Spring. Some took their preference for organics with them as they moved on in life, and some rediscovered it later - now organic food can be found in supermarkets as well as specialist stores.

The industry is worth $250-300 million at retail, according to Scott Kinnear, past-chair of Organic Federation Australia, and is integrated from growing to retail, with 40 per cent exported.

Kinnear says that 1700 - 2000 farmers produce on 7.5 million hectares and many are approved by organic-certification agencies. The industry has produced growth in Australian agriculture and urban small business: specialist shops, a growing number of supermarkets, organic home delivery services and a small number of food cooperatives.

Who buys organic food? The industry once said "People who can't afford it". That is, people who buy organic out of principle but do not enjoy high incomes. This was true, but they can't sustain the industry today.

As the sector has grown, unsubstantiated allegations of inflated prices have been made but there's no doubt that the higher cost of organic food is a barrier, particularly in lower-income suburbs, where organics are likely to lose out. This is confirmed by community workers. The industry points out that organics are more labour-intensive and time-consuming and there is an expense in managing the land responsibly - organic certification requires this.

Organic farming occupies the moral high ground, and this could be profitably exploited by marketers. Organic retailers tend to be more common in the inner-urban or more affluent locales, but the presence of organic home delivery services muddies any geographic identification of organic consumers.

What is apparent is that organics have penetrated suburban Australia as the costs and prices have fallen over time due to efficiencies - the price difference is often not great. This 'trickle-down' strategy may be the right one for the industry to take.

The popularity of organic food rests on factual information, contested information and assumptions.

Maintaining farm soils in top productive condition is perhaps the main focus of organic farmers, and the organic certifying agencies. The agency's logo on product packaging is a selling point and a quality assurance to consumers.

Fears over the health consequences of chemical residues in food, and now over genetically modified food, are important. At present, the organic certification agencies won't approve GM foods.

The claim that organically-grown food is more nutritious and tasty has been confused by studies producing conflicting results. I believe it is. However, tastes are subjective.

While organic fruit with marks on it does not differ nutritionally to conventionally grown food (such as polished apples) it can create a disincentive to buy when compared to cosmetically perfect fruit. But the appearance of organic fruit is improving and older fruit and vegetables once found in organic retailers are less likely.

"Food miles" is a concept developed by promoters of local food, referring to the distance travelled by food products from grower to consumer. It is seen as an indicator of lack of freshness, as well as the road congestion and pollution caused by fossil-fueled delivery trucks.

Veteran campaigner Helena Norberg-Hodge has popularised these ideas in the UK and they are gaining currency in the US and here. Advocates of regional cuisine such as the Slow Foods organisation are soon to hold their first Australian get-together.

Nutrition, freshness and, safety are selling points for organic local or regional food. The fast-growing number of farmers' markets effectively cut the food miles. Sydney has had two for some years and last year Brisbane's Northey Street City Farm started. There are many others and Australia's first national conference recently took place in Bathurst with the support of the town council. Local food can boost local economies and tourism, as at the Hawkesbury Harvest Trail near Sydney, and a similar trail on South Australia's Yorke Peninsula.

But the organics industry is far from free of criticism that it contributes to well-travelled food: 40 per cent of Australia's organic production is exported and foreign organic produce - pasta from Italy, beans, and yoghurt from Paris Creek - indicates that the industry is part of the globalised food chain.

Now that organics is an established industry, it has the dynamics of any other industry and is in competition with conventional agriculture and farmers, nutritionists and scientists, although the diners of Australia have voted with their cash in favour of the industry. The industry still has much work to do to dispel misperceptions, to obtain evidence for some of its claims, and to increase the quality of its product. But there are two other significant challenges.

The first is to achieve wider distribution by getting products into the venues where most people obtain their food - the supermarkets.

The second challenge is to further 'normalise' organic food. This could be done through offering it alongside conventional food lines, reducing the price differential, and promoting the virtues of organic food through an advertising strategy.

Up in northern NSW, Robyn Francis continues to offer home-grown organic foods from her garden and organic products from the region in her eatery. She knows she is doing the right thing because her customers tell her so. And in a market economy, that's all you need to know.