As the organic food trend continues to gain steam, you may being seeing more of it at your supermarket. News Focus Achilles Heel The crisis in Greece, and the collapse of the euro, could scuttle Egypt’s plans for economic growth. River of Strife A new agreement among East African countries may spell the end of Egyptian control over the Nile . On the Block Foreign investors buy up African farmland, sparking fears of a new colonialism. By Dana Smillie Organic farms avoid using chemical pesticides and fertilizers that could harm the environment.

By  Andrew Bossone

It’s often said that the largest of trees comes from the smallest of seeds. When Ibrahim Abouleish opened the Sekem Farm on a plot of empty desert, his critics must have thought he was crazy. But now, with a network of crops covering more than 70,000 acres of organic farmland, he is all smiles.

To celebrate the twenty-ninth anniversary of the Sekem project, Abouleish stood proudly on the stage of his farm’s amphitheater with his son Helmy by his side and an audience of prominent business leaders, biologists and Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation Amin Abaza in attendance.

“To start from nothing 29 years [ago] to go to around 70,000 or 80,000 acres [28,300 or 32,300 hectares] now — having in mind that we want to go to 6 or 7 million acres [2.83 million hectares] in Egypt — it is still at the beginning of the road,” Helmy Abouleish says. “But I see the momentum.”

Organic farms only constitute about 1% of the estimated 8 million acres of farms in Egypt, academics say, though there are signs of a blossoming organic movement. Wadi Foods, one of the biggest producers of olives and olive oils in the country, has launched an organic line that will be in supermarkets by the end of year. Wadi is moving towards selling all of their products under a certified organic label.

“[Sekem] did pave the way,” says Hala Rosteck, brand and image manager for Wadi Holdings. “And in fact I think we will be very much complementing each other.”

To most consumers, “organic” — if they’ve heard the word at all — simply means something like healthy or natural. When referring to products and farming, it is used to describe an agricultural production system that operates on a set of specific principles. While there are a number of different approaches, the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Agriculture points out in its Organic Farming: Guide to Community Rules that “the common feature of all these movements is to stress the essential link between farming and nature, and to promote respect for natural equilibria. They distance themselves from the interventionist approach to farming, which maximizes yields through the use of various kinds of synthetic products.”

Today, organic represents a worldwide trend in the agriculture industry. Organic advocates are fighting any number of battles from preventing the use of chemical additives in agriculture to stopping big lobbies and farming subsidies that pressure the price of international goods to, finally, ending the cultivation and husbandry of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

On the most superficial level, organic begins with the elimination of chemical pesticides and fertilizers harmful to the environment and our health. “Healthier means it does not contain residues or pollutants,” says Yousseff Ali Hamdi, the chairman of the Egyptian Center of Organic Agriculture (ECOA) and an expert in soil microbiology.

The ECOA is an independent body that inspects, certifies and registers farms as organic producers. It is accredited to evaluate compliance with at least six different sets of international standards, including those of several European bodies and the US Department of Agriculture.

Genetically modified foods are among organic farms’ top enemies. To create a GMO, scientists manipulate genes in a plant’s or animal’s DNA to produce desirable characteristics, for example, a certain pest resistance or a larger fruit. Although some GE proponents say it can reduce the use of chemicals, the evidence is so far inconclusive. On the other hand, claims that GMOs are more susceptible to diseases and infestation are equally unproven. The use of GMOs does, however, risk uniformity across species because it reproduces the same strain of plant over and over again. In practice, this means that if one strain of a plant is susceptible to a disease, as happened during the Irish potato famine, there are no backup strains to take its place.

GMOs pose a threat to organic farms in the form of natural crossbreeding from airborne spores and seeds. A stiff breeze could introduce a GMO spore into organic areas. History has shown that the introduction of foreign species into an ecosystem can sometimes produce devastating results. A prime example is the zebra mussel, which was introduced into North America’s Great Lakes and began disrupting the food chain for native species.

But that doesn’t mean Sekem is reluctant to explore new uses for existing species, particularly in the growing market for natural, plant-derived medicines.

“God didn’t give these plants to us for nothing,” says Ahmed Shalaby, a technical advisor to Sekem. “We just have to scratch and find why. You can go in the desert and see how people are suffering. And then they go many kilometers to get these plants. Then you will believe.”

Sekem produces more than 30 medicines derived from plants. Much of its knowledge comes from traditional healers in a Bedouin community. There are an estimated 2,500 plants in the country that could be used for medicinal purposes, such treating hypertension and diseases such as diabetes. Much of the innate knowledge of traditional hakims, like what time of day to harvest a plant in order to maximize its benefit, has been verified through scientific research and development.

“Many [mainstream pharmaceutical] medicines are derived in this way,” Shalaby says. “They [the pharmaceutical industry] see plants and synthesize [their active ingredients] for mass production, but sometimes they go back to the original plant.”

As a philosophy — and as a way of life — organic goes further than prohibiting the use of chemicals and GE. It discusses human and economic development as well as the eternal connection with nature, dating back to an ancient era long before buzzwords like ‘development’ existed.

“The farmers in Egypt were growing on the Coptic calendar, growing certain crops on certain days,” says Abouleish, who is on leave from Sekem while he serves as the managing director of the Industrial Modernization Center at the Ministry of Trade and Industry. “All during the year, they knew when to grow and cultivate on which day. So how to use it in a modern scientific way and trying to understand this and explain it, I think, has always been one of the ways organic agriculture was open to new sources [other] than scientific approaches.”

When Abouleish, who prefers jeans and boots to the requisite suit and tie, talks about organic food, he sounds more like a romantic expounding on love than a captain and promoter of industry. He respects the basic definition of the concept, which incorporates an ecologically balanced environment into the concept of healthy living, but as he talks about organic on the “next level,” it is clear that he takes it to heart.

“The human being is not only 60 kilos of material issues,” Abouleish says, “but there is something inside that you can call soul and spirit and lifeforce. And then how you manage it and what happens when you feed it with organic agriculture There is a totally different sphere of questions that organic agriculture is always asking.”

Okay, so not everyone will develop an organic philosophy, but as a way of doing business and of sustaining the community at large, organic agriculture offers some potentially huge benefits.

Sekem is like no other office here or abroad. At the start of each day, workers gather around in circles outside their workplaces. There are no time clocks, no bosses lurking over their shoulders. The workers stand side by side, chatting among themselves and learning about each other. Each circle represents a microcosm of Sekem’s egalitarian community of about 4,000 employees.

Local children attend the school on the farm; when they reach secondary-school age, they have the choice of taking on a vocation or continuing with their academic studies. Sekem’s hospital, which also serves the surrounding communities, uses the natural herbs and plants grown on the farm. Sekem will also open a full-fledged university this year.

“The real pioneers of [the] organic movement in the ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s of the last century were all about sustainable development,” Abouleish says. “Organic was always part of the total picture in sustainable development for human beings, and it always had elements of cultural and social and economic development combined. This is why what is called ‘fair trade’ was always integrated [with] organic agriculture from the very beginning.”

While fair trade essentially means producers get a fair price for their goods throughout the entire supply chain, it also means working under equitable conditions.

In Abouleish’s eyes, organic encompasses “ethics, fair trade, spirituality and last but not least, a totally new view to what is the most competitive economic ideology. Is it all about competition? Is it about everyone fighting everyone and getting the most benefit just for himself and then the whole society will evolve, as Adam Smith claimed?”

Sekem is not based on competition, per se, but on cooperation. Within the organization, employees are given access to an education and offered an encouraging work environment, which engenders greater productivity. Outside the organization, partners and customers are integrated into the knowledge of the company, which has helped Sekem continually progress. It is what Abouleish calls a “living, learning organization.”

In the end, a profitable company arose that benefits the community in a true social entrepreneurial spirit. And the institution itself is sustainable, along with the environment.

Sekem has grown exponentially in the last 29 years. As producer of the Isis line of teas, herbs and honey, the company is the most high-profile producer of high-end food products in the country. Sekem also sells organic cotton for babies’ clothing, arguing that young children are often sensitive to chemicals and dyes.

Skeptics claim Sekem is the exception, not the rule, noting that the group also has significant backing from Germans. But foreign backing may be one of the best reasons for farmers to go organic, if not for the philosophy alone. Today, there is a huge export market for organic products, especially in the European Union and North America.

“In Egypt, about 90% of production of organic is mainly for export,” says Hamdy. “It is not spreading [on the local market] simply because normal people cannot buy it. The price is very high in the external market. This is the main point for the farmer to move [to] organic.”

The prohibitively high price of organic agents including biopesticides has precluded farmers from using them. But if more producers were to enter the market, the price would drop. And if governments supported organic growing, Abouleish says, those countries could see greater economic benefits.

“It is already very clear today, scientifically, that if you calculate all costs which are part of pesticide usage and chemical fertilizer usage in regard to environmental impact, social impact and the health impact of the products, then organic is much, much cheaper,” he says.

Some of these costs include environmental degradation that requires more money for projects like cleaning polluted water, higher medical bills from diminished health, and agricultural investment to correct poor soil quality. Studies have shown that organically treated soil has greater crop yields, retains more water and replenishes its own important nutrients more quickly — all of which improves the farmer’s bottom line.

Sekem might be the classic example for organic success, but the Wadi Holdings story is proof of possibilities elsewhere. Starting out as a chicken-farming endeavor, Wadi planted 30 hectares of olive groves south of Alexandria and another 400 north of Cairo in 1986 and 1993, respectively. The company immediately discovered that Egypt’s year-round sun and warm, dry weather was perfect for olive cultivation. Since then Wadi has won several international awards for its extra-virgin olive oil, even when put up against veteran producers in Italy and Spain.

Today, Wadi has 930 acres on the Cairo-Alex Desert Road devoted to organic production plus 680 that have recently been planted; about 50% of the production is slated for export. Although its olives and oil have been organic for a few years, the farm had to be monitored as continuously producing organic for a few years before it could receive certification. Also, because demand has been high, Wadi had to import some olives to mix with their own and they could not guarantee they were organic.

Eventually, the plan is to produce only organic products and expand it to include new lines such as salad dressing and mayonnaise.

“It was silly not to show people that we have organic products,” says Rosteck.

“When we got certified, we thought it’s a shame to have organic and not make a line out of it.”

Wadi has taken a page from of Sekem’s philosophy by incorporating development into its business practices. The company has established the Wadi Environment and Science Center, which trained 40,000 students and teachers in environmentally sound practices and technology during the last academic year. The company is also approaching other schools to open up similar projects across the country.

“One part of my dream, vision, call it whatever you want, is that Egypt and the Middle East will be organic in total,” Abouleish says. “I believe the only way to sustainable development in agriculture in all regards — environmentally, in terms of food quality and for healthy living — is in organic agriculture.”  bt