All That Glitters….

March is greenhouse season. We go full bore towards Memorial Day to get garden starts, ornamentals a and container material grown up and healthy. My responsibilities lean more towards the propagation and seeding  part, so I am busy in  January with daily trips or days in the greenhouse. (So named by my neighbor as the “nuclear greenhouse” because of the warm evening glow of additional lighting we provide the seedlings.)

I will often spend hours at a potting bench either  seeding a bazillion different flowers and herbs that Anne and Sarah order or I am  taking cuttings and propagating non hardy plants and perennials to be grown and used as  annuals up here in the frozen north. Salvias, fuchsias, brugmansias all have to be cut, stuck in the soil  and rooted. It’s a nice job in the winter. It’s essentially a desk job  at a cold and often crappy time of year to be outside. It’s  quite pleasant , especially when the sun is out.

I have a radio next to the potting bench, and I use it this time of year to listen to music, interviews, podcasts, and in-depth news. Today there was an interesting hour on Public Radio  devoted to  the explanation of the  importance of the federal organic certification and the labeling laws concerning  organic produce. The discussion centered around proposed changes in  laws and protocols and how some  unscrupulous producers are claiming through their packaging that they are USDA certified organic when in fact they have been cited for  violating or incorporating questionable organic production protocols. The first part of the program had callers explaining why they chose to purchase certified organic products over conventionally grown. The testimonials  ran the gamut from “I buy organic products because it’s good for the earth…”  to others who presented very interesting   and compelling reasons.   Suffice to say, consumers  depend on the USDA label to help them with their choices at the store.  

We at Edgewater Farm are not a certified USDA Organic Farm selling USDA certified organic fruit and produce. We are, by definition, a conventional farm.   So we don’t have a dog in this labeling fight. However, I am very am skeptical and disturbed at the current trajectory  of the current  federal certification process. There are inconsistencies in the   Federal oversight  that  annoy me and how it affects some of my upper valley  organic farming colleagues.

Originally organic farm certification was overseen by state governments or the independent state organic farmer organizations. They developed localized production guidelines, by laws and oversaw the certification  of farms within their boundaries or purview.  They developed these guidelines based on sound organic principles as set down by the “founding fathers” of the  organic movement (Albrecht, JI Rodale and others)  and proven science of the time.  Vermont historically has  had a very  robust association of organic farmers in NOFA VT for over 50 years, ( if my memory serves me..) . The certification was not a giveaway marketing tool. You had to adhere to some very strict production guidelines, record keeping and inspections. Over time  Vermont Organic certification was a standard that elicited buyer confidence and meant something for a farm to achieve. It was arguably a template that was used elsewhere in America.

Enter the federal government. USDA  (the US Department of Agriculture)   felt that the standardization of a nationwide set of regulations  and guidelines was  more appropriate to regulating, standardizing and promoting organic agriculture, to which I would agree. However, all the small statewide organic associations and organizations  had to surrendered their autonomy to the federal government. The result was a greater impact in the marketplace, and marketing strategies coalesced around the federal government’s efforts to promote the benefits of small scale organic agriculture. It initially also served  to give a leg up to the small family farms that were using organics to find  a market niche, especially at a time when corporate farming  was flourishing.  

So whence the term “organic farmer” had once been synonymous with “hippy” or  “counter culture”, the federal labeling and attendant marketing and certification process gave the term “certified organic” credibility, and an increase in market share  was a result. It became trendy and desirable.  It was successful in carving out a bigger piece of the produce gross sales “pie”  nationally.  Organic farming began to look profitable.   That spike in growth of the demand for organics on a national level caught the eyes and interest of some very large farming conglomerates, (like General Foods). They became interested and ultimately wanted to get into that growth index, and to get  a piece of that pie.

It is an undisputable  fact that farming organically is harder, more expensive, and more complicated  to produce food strictly organically than it is with  conventional agriculture. If it’s more  expensive to produce, its going to cost the consumer  more , hence the  general price disparity at the cash register.  Large or corporate sized farms transitioned from conventional agricultural production to organic agriculture. Some moved because of philosophical beliefs but mainly they were profit motivated. Some made the transition, did it by the books, and were successful.   Others jumped in and did well but only because they  found ways to cut a few corners.  How and why are the corners smoothed over ? As Killdeer Farm’s  Jake Guest always  says:  “Just follow the money, you will find the players…”  

Every USDA Organically certified commodity has a specific set of production guidelines to be followed. They are not always easy to follow. For example, in vegetable production you are not allowed to use fertilizers that are produced through chemical synthesis. The guideline is cut and dried.  No synthetic pesticides and no synthetic herbicides. Organic farmers can use certain organically derived in insecticides, a very few herbicides  and  some fungicides (elemental metals like copper, sulfur) for fungicides.   They may use only these  products which are allowed and approved by USDA Organics Standards. You must demonstrate meaningful soil stewardship and rotation. as stipulated by USDA. If you fail on guidelines, you fail and don’t get Organic Certification. Nor the label.

At this point of in the blog I am providing a link that you should take a moment to visit. There is a splinter organic movement developing called the Real Organic Project.  On the home page there are three interesting videos that may give pause for trusting  the USDA organic  labeling on the produce that  you buy at the supermarket. The short videos will help some of the terms going forward that you may have heard being bantered about.  

https://www.realorganicproject.org/

So if you are Big Ag, some of these additional production steps to achieve certification  can trip you up and be  very  expensive or impossible  to incorporate or to get around .  An area of concern is in the meat production area. CAFOs (Corporate Agriculture Feedlot Operation) are the conventional models for meat production in the west  and are used in pork, beef, dairy  and poultry  production. Sometimes there are thousands of animals in these feedlot operations. Manure management and herd health can be a problem  in these congested environments. The organic regs say that each cow   needs approximately 4 acres of “loafing area” or pasture to be certifiably organic. Let’s say you are a conventional beef producer in the Midwest and you have a feedlot operation with 3000 animals on 500 acres, all animals fed  and grown   in one location. I you wish to transition to certifiable organic production with those 3 thousand beef cows and  you want to get your meat certified USDA Organic, fattening up and finishing 3000 beef cows gets  much more difficult. You will need to acquire an additional 11,500 acres for them to frolic on. Plus you would have to break up the feedlot to many small outlying feedlots so the animals could travel to pasture  daily  from those feeding stations.  Its going to cost you a bundle to meet the organics guidelines. Seems financially impossible.  Your next solution is to simply lobby for a change in USDA organic production guidelines, so the guidelines are less stringent and less expensive.   Bingo.  That’s where lobbying and influence comes in.

The overseers of the  USDA National Organics Program  must believe some of its own regulations are exclusionary.  So they modify them in favor of corporate agriculture. (Think of Jake’s “follow the money..”)  There are stories abound with the National Organic Standards Board playing pretty loose with guidelines and making exceptions to accommodate corporate agriculture. I heard of blueberry operations in the south and mid-Atlantic that were allowed to use glyphosate (Roundup) in their production strategies. CAFOs have been under fire for playing loose with the animal loafing regs. Some years back the Upper Valley’s own Long Wind Farm suffered an account loss to a certified organic facility that was growing hydroponic tomatoes!  (The very definition of organic specifically mentions growing, use, and   care of the  soil,  not liquid mediums infused with nutrients.)  The National Organic Standards Board thought it better to usurp the definition of organics than to deny some  mega greenhouse operation across the country the USDA Certification Seal.

The point of all of this being that you should be a bit skeptical about “the little  green sticker”. It might well not be as ”good for  the planet” as the woman on the radio promoted .  If you are thinking about the environment and your own health you should not necessarily assume that the sticker means the product is better for you or better for the planet   Are  Mr. Driscoll’s  organic strawberries from Mexico really better for  your health  or the earth than Edgewater or 4 Corners Farms  conventionally grown strawberries? Did you consider carbon footprint in your choice of the organic Mexican strawberries or do you just buy into what the green sticker implies? I am a conventional grower by definition whom  belongs to Vermont NOFA, and I feel that their old  label was meaningful and a label  in which you could invest your trust and faith. Do you really think the pork in the store is   necessarily better than a “conventional” farm because the Organic label issued by the USDA makes you feel secure? I am not sure it should. On our farm  we are incorporating and trying to apply  a lot of soil biodynamic principles; not because we hope to get certified,  but because we just think its good farming and good stewardship.  Going forward, there are going to be different labels, you should not blindly  ”buy into” the veracity that the USDA Certified Organic is  best for the planet, your health or the future of the family farm.   Where at one time that may have been the case, I am don’t think that is the case today.  More to the point that  your concern should compel you learn more  about the American food system.