I just came across this 2004 article by Wendy Johnson about the standards for cherry production in British Colombia.

What is surprising to me is not only that industrialized fruit farms in the South are adapting more quickly to new standards than their Canadian counterparts, but also that on some of the farms in Chile and Argentina each field "grows for a specified country and follows its particular maximum residue levels designations".

The conclusion?

It is hard to argue with a system that puts the quality of food first, but there is the nagging suspicion this will spell the end of some family farms. This industry-changing event is just a sign of things to come.

Nobody quoted in this article seems to have a problem with the tremendous power Wal-Mart will have over farmers in expanding into the organics industry. Is public cynism so profound as to overlook such devastating consequences for farmer autonomy if Wal-Mart dictates the terms of food production? Is the desire for organic food so strong that we should be meant to overlook the social consequences? What about the tension between the ecological benefits of organics versus the industrial-model production that Wal-Mart demands All of this is rather generic, obvious critique of Wal-Mart's move. The interesting thing to note about this article is the way "sustainability" is defined as a corporate ethos and the way corporations are depicted as frontline workers in this battle. Perhaps there could be some positive unintended consequences of this Wal-Mart attack in terms of subsidizing the transition to organic for some farmers... Or introducing people to organic food who would otherwise have no access, or can't afford it. But then again, Wal-Mart is a powerful force that will fast emerge as just another Invisible Giant.

Wal-Mart's move to organics could shake up retail world, analysts say

There's a new report by Devlin Kuyek and GRAIN about the bird flu crisis. For all you executives, here's the Executive Summary:

Backyard or free-range poultry are not fuelling the current wave of bird flu outbreaks stalking large parts of the world. The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu is essentially a problem of industrial poultry practices. Its epicentre is the factory farms of China and Southeast Asia and -- while wild birds can carry the disease, at least for short distances -- its main vector is the highly self-regulated transnational poultry industry, which sends the products and waste of its farms around the world through a multitude of channels. Yet small poultry farmers and the poultry biodiversity and local food security that they sustain are suffering badly from the fall-out. To make matters worse, governments and international agencies, following mistaken assumptions about how the disease spreads and amplifies, are pursuing measures to force poultry indoors and further industrialise the poultry sector. In practice, this means the end of the small-scale poultry farming that provides food and livelihoods to hundreds of millions of families across the world. This paper presents a fresh perspective on the bird flu story that challenges current assumptions and puts the focus back where it should be: on the transnational poultry industry.