Organic is a word that conjures up different meanings for different people. For some, it simply signifies that no synthetic fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides were used in the production of the product. For others, it may be more evocative, conjuring up images of a small-scale farm, complete with rustic barn and farmhouse, and cows grazing happily on lush green pasture. And there are those for whom organic agriculture is synonymous with sustainable agriculture, a return to working with nature, rather than attempting to impose our will upon it. While none of these interpretations is incorrect, neither are they always entirely accurate.

Although the word “organic” has been used in contrast to the word “industrial” since the nineteenth century, its application to agriculture found its genesis in 1940, in the pages of two publications: a periodical called ‘Organic Gardening and Farming;’ and ‘An Agricultural Testament,’ by English agronomist Sir Albert Howard. In ‘An Agricultural Testament’, Howard set out a vision for agriculture that returned to the way in which things work in nature: a system of mixed crops, fertilized by composted plant and livestock waste; a system that preserves the soil, and in which there is no waste.

Over the intervening decades, as the market for organic produce has grown, organic farms have grown too, adopting more of the techniques of their industrial siblings along the way. The largest organic farms today look much like their conventional equivalents: vast monocultures tended with large amounts of machinery. Like conventional farms, these industrial organic farms often bring in all of their fertilizers and pesticides from outside; the key difference is that on an organic farm, the synthetic inputs have been substituted with products derived from natural sources.

The farm on which I find myself rests at the opposite end of the spectrum, much more in keeping with the ideal laid out by Howard all those years ago: the farm is a closed loop, the only off-farm input being seed. Soil fertility is kept high by moving the land through a rotation of crops: after one or two years in vegetable production, the land will be allowed to grow in hay or pasture for a number of years before being used to grow vegetables again.

There is no “waste” on the farm: manure from pastured animals, such as the cows and pigs, goes directly into feeding the land they are pastured on. Manure and bedding from the horses and chickens, food scraps and spoiled produce all go into a compost heap, the compost from which is used to further feed the soil in the vegetable-producing areas. Weeds are managed through a combination of tilling the soil, hoeing and hand-weeding, and pests and disease are controlled by growing vegetables in different areas of the farm each season, reducing the opportunity for growth of pest populations.

The extent to which these differences in scale and philosophy matter depends largely on your reasons for buying organic. If you are principally concerned with reducing your exposure to synthetic chemicals, these differences are likely to matter little. (However, it is worth keeping in mind that nature also produces many compounds that are toxic to humans, so just because a pesticide is “natural” and approved for use in organic farming, that doesn’t necessarily make it safe.) But if your interest in organic agriculture stems from a belief that it is a more sustainable model, it may be worth taking a closer look at the methods being used to produce the organic food you’re buying.

Sections of this post draw upon the chapter ‘Big Organic’ in Michael Pollan’s excellent ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma.” For those who are interested the different ways in which the word “organic” is applied in an agricultural context, this chapter would serve as a solid introduction.