Man Bites Dog: Wal-Mart gets into organic food
This week the New York Times reported that Wal-Mart is about to get into organic food in a big way. At first glance this seemed like real progress. It conjured up visions of Alice Waters giving out samples of Frog Hollow peaches at Wal-Marts all over the country. But a more careful examination of the story reveals a different scenario. As Ronnie Cummins, national director of the Organic Consumers Assocation put it, "This model of one size fits all and lowest prices possible doesn't work in organic. Their (Wal-Mart) business model is going to wreck organic the way it's wrecking retail stores, driving out all competitors." An editorial today in the Times got it exactly right. On one hand... More