Local food and big business at Michigan State and NY Times Article

[Floodzilla]

Here is a link to the Professor who did the research: Lots of good
stuff.

http://www.msu.edu/%7Ehowardp/organicindustry.html

Here is the NYTimes article

March 19, 2008, 12:52 pm
When Big Business Eats Organic

Does your purchase of organic milk conjure up images of happy cows? Do
you buy brands like Nature's Farm and Nantucket Nectars because you
want to support small farms?

Well, this animated graphic will make you think twice about your
organic purchases. It shows how small organic businesses (the green
dots) get gobbled up by Big Food (the yellow dots) and private
investment groups (the blue dots). Along the way, major food companies
create their own versions of organic products (the red dots).

"These relationships aren't very apparent,'' said Philip H. Howard,
assistant professor in the department of community agriculture,
recreation and resource studies at Michigan State University and the
creator of the graphic. "If you look at a product, a lot of times this
ownership is not at all noted, even on the Web sites at times.''

Obviously, there's nothing inherently wrong with a big company buying
an organic brand. But Dr. Howard notes that many consumers seek out
organic foods, in part, because they don't want to buy foods from
multinational food companies.

"Often organic consumers are interested in supporting smaller scale
farms and food processors,'' Dr. Howard said. "In the marketing of a
lot of these organic brands the firms try to evoke that image of a
small pastoral farm.''

After you watch the animated graphic (just click on the picture
above), check out Dr. Howard's Web site, where he has created several
interesting graphics depicting the structure of the organic food
industry. One chart shows what brands have been acquired by big
chains, while another shows organic brands that have been created by
large companies. Additional charts show locations for organic
retailers and the major organic brands that remain independent.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/when-big-business-eats-organic/