Are you guys gonna start acting like hipsters soon?

I lived in Ithaca, NY for about two-years between 2009 and 2011. Ithaca is one of those towns where hippies go to retire, finding tree stumps carved into ‘gnome homes’ is common, and a conversation along the lines of :

‘Drinking Kambucha has changed my life.’

 I know, right, I just bought some yesterday and I feel great.’

‘Oh, you buy yours? I make mine from scratch from a mother culture that comes from the highlands of Nepal, so...you know...’

is likely to be overheard in the local grocery cooperative (which I was a member of, by the by).

I’ve been at this organic work here in Cameroon for about 18-months now, and I’m starting to wonder if the people I work with will ever adopt that somewhat separatist/elitist/hipsterish/environmentalist attitude that is so tightly connected to the organic movement in the US. Frankly, it would make my work a lot easier if the farmers who took on the organic title took the organic worldview along with it. As it stands, I can give a list of rules and make sure that they are being followed, but there is still something intangible missing from the culture of our group of farmers.

I’m sure that my own approach to organic production isn’t really helping nurture this sub-culture. My motivation in this endeavor leans more towards the economic (you can get more cash per kilogram of coffee if it is certified) than the environmental. Obviously, I don’t ditch the later but as an illustration of how I straddle that line, last month in our training meetings I discussed weed control, devoting significant time to describing the health hazards associated with herbicide use. At the same time, I couldn’t resist devoting additional time to discussing the safest and most responsible use of chemicals (herbicides included) which did lead a few people to wonder where exactly I stood on herbicide use. (In my defense I made sure to say the exact phrase, ‘Organic growers are never allowed to use chemical herbicides of any kind, ever, without exception’ at least four times in each of those meetings, so I felt like I was being pretty clear).

A different organizer would have probably run those meetings a different way, perhaps ignoring the potential use of chemicals all together and using the training time to try to galvanize farmers’ minds against the idea of herbicides. As I write that sentence, I certainly see merit in that approach, maybe more than I did a month ago, but I just wouldn’t be able to run it that way. The galvanizing approach would probably lead to that organic sub-culture much more quickly than my own hedging method. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to think about how to punch up the status and raison d’etre of organic production, at least in the minds of Oku practitioners.