If you haven’t been following the discussion under this post about Wal-Mart selling organic food, I recommend you catch up. It’s quite insightful, with a range of views well-expressed.

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One note of consensus seems to be this: “Organic,” at least as denoted by the USDA label, falls well short of genuinely sustainable agriculture. Tom is better qualified than I to give a comprehensive description of the latter, but one important element is locality. Food that is grown, sold, and eaten within a single regional foodshed is closer to sustainable than organic mega-farms.

So, as a couple of people have suggested, perhaps one step in the right direction is a new label, to supplement “organic.” This raises two questions:

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  1. What label? What wording should be used?
  2. What standards? Food-miles traveled? Animal health? Soil regeneration? Something else? Opine in comments.