Why Walmart Is a Threat to Organic Food

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/food/why-wal-mart-threat-organic-food



Only after I decided to pursue freelance journalism fulltime, thereby joining the ranks of low-wage workers, did I enter a Walmart for the first time. It was in Southern California, in the spring of 2012, and I was trying to go easy on my wallet as I crammed my car with supplies before embarking on a cross-country reporting tour.

I reluctantly ventured inside a Walmart near San Diego, but I discovered immediately why its slogan, “Save Money, Live Better,” is a lifeline for the economically distressed. In the average superstore there’s a phenomenal 142,000 separate items at astonishingly low prices: button-down shirts for $10, a large bag of potato chips for a buck, a fat tube of toothpaste for two bucks, 25 cents for a metal fork, 10 oranges for a dollar. One former Walmart worker in California told me everyone he knew shopped there because, “Walmart is cheap as shit and it’s convenient.”

So when Walmart announced in April that it was invading organic turf by introducing the Wild Oats food line in 2,000 stores, some food-justice advocates were excited about the possibilities. They believe that Walmart's buying power, which accounts for a 33 percent share of groceries sold nationwide, will enable it to offer lower prices for consumers, expand the market for organic farmers, and lessen the use of toxic pesticides and global-warming fertilizers. It’s a classic win-win, showing how the free market can solve problems it helped create.

It’s wishful thinking. Alarm bells should be ringing now that Walmart is going organic. One Walmart executive explains it will “disrupt” the organic market by reducing inefficiencies and encouraging consolidation. Lower prices for consumers mean fewer organic farmers, declining farm incomes and agricultural wages, and remaining farmers will be forced to industrialize further to produce more goods at lower prices.

[Wilms]

1. ^

[BrotherIvan]

2. This is true of all farms that sell to big box stores

I knew some pumpkin farmers in NoCal and Christmas Tree farmers in Oregon. They started selling to Kroeger/Ralphs and Home Depot. It was the same story for both: the orders were so large, the big box became their only customer as they could no longer fill orders from independent retailers. But then, each year, the price the big box would pay went down and down. Finally the Christmas tree guy said Home Depot would only order his trees on consignment. He had to shoulder all costs, including shipping them down from Oregon to California with hefty gas prices, and wasn't even breaking even. The tree guy went bankrupt and the pumpkin farmer had to sell off half his farm and go back to producing for the small guys. The big box stores will always prime the pump to put the little guy out of business so big corps can buy it up. It's disgusting in every way.