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 Organic
Growers Supply |
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What's New at Organic Growers Supply |
| “I do not suggest that the organic label is meaningless. With regard to our own food purchases, my wife Ellen and I seek out certified organic products we cannot buy locally…the greater the degree of anonymity in the purchase, the more organic certification means to us…When the anonymity is removed from the transaction, we do not care whether the farmer chooses to be certified or not.” —Harvey Ussery, introduction to The Small-Scale Poultry Flock. This attitude seems to be fairly prevalent. With the advent of the National Organic Program under USDA jurisdiction, a split seems to be developing in the broader movement of what was once called organic agriculture. Farmers who want to continue to use the organic label and sell their products to third-party vendors, for the most part, recognize the need to be certified under the NOP rules. If you can’t know your farmer, the organic label is the next best thing. But what about farmers who sell locally through their farmstands and farmers’ markets? I spent an interesting day talking with four excellent farmers about the meaning of organic. Each of them is committed to using the best possible practices, raising the best possible fruits and vegetables, improving their soils, and providing fresh local food. Among them they have close to 150 years of practicing organic farming. They all sell the bulk of their products locally, certainly within 50 miles of where they farm, largely through farmers’ markets or small local markets. All see and praise the value of knowing your farmer, the important connection between producer and consumer. Two are certified under the NOP and two are adamantly opposed to doing so. There are many good reasons not to certify. No standard that applies equally to small market gardeners and giant multinational corporations could begin to define good farming. As long as the focus is on minimum acceptable standards, that is exactly what one gets. Most important, farming is a continuous exploration to uncover the best possible practices and not merely an application of what is acceptable under the rules. The word organic was used long before the NOP came along and the USDA reserved the term exclusively for its program. Likewise there are good reasons to certify even if one’s sales are all local. With certification there is independent third-party verification that the farmer’s practices are in accord with a nationally accepted set of standards. Without independent standards organic is whatever the user of the term says it is; consumers have no assurance that it constitutes good farming and good food. And along with the NOP, the USDA began providing at least some money for research in organic farming. Both sides have merit. It is too easy to put problems down to the impossibility of dealing with the federal government, to see the USDA as just another federal agency in bed with the big boys and out to screw the little guy. But the USDA is funding training for new farmers, and many of our smaller dairies and market growers benefit from money available for on-farm improvements. However, for the program to be of value to consumers and smaller farmers, it must be more than just a minimum guarantee; the rules must promote improvement. If chickens should have access to the outdoors, it must be more than a two-foot-square opening in a building housing 20,000 broilers. The strength of the NOP is also one of its weaknesses. Independence means that the inspectors and certifiers cannot play a role in educating and helping those being certified. Too often what should be a collaborative process seems to become an adversarial procedure that boils down not to how well you farm but how well you keep records. We at Organic Growers Supply want to see organic agriculture grow and thrive; we sell products that we think move us in a better direction. We believe there is a place for the NOP, because government has the duty of doing for us what we can’t do for ourselves, whether that is building roads, or guaranteeing that the food we buy is what it claims to be. In an ever-changing climate, we need to adapt more nimbly than the government can respond, and what works in California probably isn’t right for Maine. In conjunction with nationally recognized minimum accepted practices, we need to work together to establish a set of the best possible methods for our own communities. David Shipman, OGS coordinator |
Fedco Seeds, PO Box 520, Waterville, ME 04903
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