Hydroponic Veggies Are Taking Over Organic, And A Move To Ban Them Fails

Enlarge this image toggle caption Wilson Ring/AP Images Wilson Ring/AP Images

Dave Chapman and dozens of other longtime organic farmers packed a meeting of the National Organic Standards Board in Jacksonville, Fla., this week. It was their last-ditch effort to strip the organic label from a tide of fluid-fed, "hydroponic" greenhouse-grown vegetables that they think represent a betrayal of true organic principles.

"It really goes to the foundation of what organic farming means," says Chapman, who grows vegetables on his farm in East Thetford, Vt. Abby Youngblood, executive director of the National Organic Coalition, said that "we're seeing, here in Jacksonville, a lot of support for the founding principles of organic, which are really about soil health, regenerating the soil," rather than simply feeding plants the nutrients that they need.

Their protests, however, failed to convince a majority of the board, which voted, 8-7, against a ban on hydroponic methods in organic farming.

Members of the government-appointed board, which advises the U.S. Department of Agriculture on rules for the organic industry, were persuaded instead by the arguments of companies like Wholesum Harvest, which grows tomatoes and other vegetables in high-tech greenhouses.

According to the company's Jessie Gunn, there are big environmental benefits to growing vegetables indoors, with their roots in small containers. "We can grow our tomatoes organically with 3 to 5 gallons of water, per pound of production, as opposed to growing tomatoes in open fields, which can use anywhere from 26 to 37 gallons of water," Gunn says. Growing crops in open fields, she says, "uses more water, more land, destroys more natural habitat. I mean, what is the true essence of organic?"

That is, in fact, the central question, and it has provoked a bitter divide in the organic industry. On one side are organic traditionalists who are committed to the ideas of Albert Howard, an English botanist who inspired the organic farming movement. Howard wrote that "the health of soil, plant, animal and man is one and indivisible." For farmers like Chapman, nurturing the soil is the essence of organic farming, and a vegetable grown without its roots in the soil simply cannot be called organic.

On the other side are companies like Wholesum Harvest or the berry giant Driscoll's, who say that they are delivering what consumers expect from that organic label: Vegetables grown without synthetic pesticides, year-round, and affordably. "Don't tell me that people in Duluth, Minn., don't want strawberries in the middle of January, because I know it's not true. And they want them grown organically," Gunn says.

Enlarge this image toggle caption Elissa Nadworny/NPR Elissa Nadworny/NPR

The battle is over more than philosophy. It's about market share. Hydroponic methods, deployed on an industrial scale, are taking over an increasing share of sales to supermarkets. Chapman says that most organic tomatoes sold in supermarkets today already are grown without touching the soil.

"What will happen, very quickly, is that virtually all of the certified organic tomatoes in supermarkets will be hydroponic," Chapman says. "Virtually all of the peppers and cucumbers [will be hydroponically grown]. A great deal of the lettuce. And most of the berries."

Chapman calls it a "tragic situation." The Recirculating Farms Coalition, however, which represents hydroponic producers, welcomed the NOSB's vote. Marianne Cufone, the coalition's executive director, issued a statement saying that "the NOSB is sending a critical message that sustainability and innovation are valuable in U.S. agriculture."