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market-farming - RE: Writer's Request: Organic Industry vs Organi c Movement

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  • From: "Wiediger, Alison" <awiediger AT HART.k12.ky.us>
  • To: 'Market Farming' <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: Writer's Request: Organic Industry vs Organi c Movement
  • Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2002 13:40:36 -0500


Allen,
Paul and I have been growing organically since 1974. Our current farm has
been managed organically since 1989, was first certified in 1991. We will
no longer certify. The USDA regs cause too much record keeping for a small
diversified organic farmer. Points to consider (these are for KY, but
should be similar everywhere):

The application is 23 pages long, to be filled out for the past 3 years -
the fact that those were certified years (and many before) not relevant. I
figured 20-30 hours to fill this out.

Seeds must be organically produced - if they aren't you must produce a paper
trail documenting your search for organic seeds. They can be prohibitively
expensive on a commercial scale, not important to the feds. A lot of
cultivars, especially the commercial hybrids may never be available as
organic seed - so we can't use them? How many hours would it take to
research all the possible seedsmen in the country for the dozens of
different cultivars the average market grower uses?

Our biggest complaint is the sales record. We must document date,
commodity, lot#, quantity, buyer, sales invoice#, bill of lading or scale
ticket#, total sales - for each thing we sell????at farmers market??? For a
wholesale grower, grain, produce, whatever, who is selling truckloads from
large fields, this is not a problem. For someone who is selling at farmers'
market, perhaps 20 different items, from 20+ different field areas, to
100-150 customers on a Saturday - get real! There is no way. It has been
suggested that we could, as Au Naturel Farm, sell a lot of produce to Paul
and Alison Wiediger for sale at a market stall - but why should we have to
go through such gyrations? There needs to be some scale taken into
consideration. We figure the record keeping would take at least 100 hours a
year on our farm - and that's 100 hours away from farming, and 100 hours we
do not have.

And, finally, we don't really need it. We have always grown organically,
will always grow that way because we believe it is best for us, our
customers and the environment. Our customers know us and trust us to be
selling them the best produce available. Labels aren't too important. We
do resent, however, not being able to describe ourselves as organic farmers,
'cause we are, and always will be, and the USDA cannot take that away from
us, try how they may.

Alison Wiediger, Au Naturel Farm



> ----------
> From: Allan Balliett[SMTP:igg AT igg.com]
> If you have criticisms of federal organic certification, particularly
> point-by-point ones, and, again, particularly short-comings of the
> federal certification, please pass them on to me, here or at
> igg AT igg.com
>
> I'm also looking for 'speaking points' on alternatives to federal
> certification
>
> And personal positions on certification in general
>
> thanks
>
> -Allan Balliett
> Gardening for the Future
>
>



  • RE: Writer's Request: Organic Industry vs Organi c Movement, Wiediger, Alison, 09/27/2002

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