I have seen the future and it is round and red, like a big juicy tomato. And it is green and leafy, like a robust head of romaine lettuce. Green like the colour of money, an increasingly scarce commodity in the newest have-not province.

Suspend all monochromatic thought and follow me as we check out B.C.'s fastest growing cash crop. Our tour begins on the supermarket produce shelves -- and it's clear there's a revolution under way.

Remember when the organic produce section was a pathetic array of wizened apples and bananas that cost twice as much as regular fruit and vegetables? Beloved only by well-heeled fanatics, it occupied a dark corner while the major real estate was reserved for the chemically enhanced bounty of agribusiness.

Well, that's changed. And it's been so subtle you may not have noticed that, every week, the organic product is taking up more shelf space. Potatoes, tomatoes, lettuce, cabbages, peas, beans, corn, free-ramblin' chickens -- the organic offering is surprising in its volume and variety.

The real revolution is that organics are starting to look less like dumpster detritus and more like the stuff that requires an environmental paroxysm to produce. And while organic is still expensive, the margin is closing. If price and quality compare, who wants to pay for pesticides?

The demand for organic food has been growing at a rate of about 25 per cent a year. Organic Monitor, a London-based research company, says that the organic market was a $26-billion global business in 2001, and that sales will reach $80-billion in 2008. Statistics Canada values the business in Canada at nearly $1-billion, and estimates that one out of 20 fruit or vegetable farms considers itself an organic operation.

And B.C. is on the organic cutting edge, with the highest percentage of organic farms in Canada (about 2 per cent). Still, only 23,500 acres are certified organic, and although British Columbians are at or near the top in organic consumption, the industry supplies only 30 per cent of the market (the U.S. mostly supplies the rest).

And there's the opportunity. B.C. is stuck in a bind -- despite the deceptive sparkle of the movie business and biotechnology, the real money is still made in the traditional industries of forestry, mining, petroleum, fishing and agriculture. Forestry and mining have seen better times, petroleum is decades away from reaching its potential, and you'd have to be plumb loco to invest in mainstream agriculture or the fishery.

So why not go green? Donna Morton of the Vancouver-based Centre for Integral Economics advocates "tax-shifting": placing the tax load on pollution-generating industries and removing it from activities that benefit the environment. It could mean increasing taxes on pesticides and herbicides while rewarding farmers who doggedly apply organic techniques. That could be the incentive farmers need to meet the rising demand for organic food.

This and other schemes to promote organics will, no doubt, be on the agenda in Victoria next week when at least 1,000 organic experts from around the world participate in the 14th Organic World Congress. (There's also an organic wine conference and an organic fashion show.)

This is not my bid to participate in the organic/agribusiness debate. If my inbox gets stuffed with messages from fanatics on both sides of the road, I may just wander into traffic. Or maybe I'll go stand in the produce section and watch the guys put organic stickers on the fruit, and wonder what part of this don't we get.
psulli@sullivanmedia.com