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market-farming - Re: Organic industry vs. organic movement

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Rick Williams" <mrfarm AT frontiernet.net>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Organic industry vs. organic movement
  • Date: Wed, 2 Oct 2002 18:22:20 -0500


Paul Bransky wrote:

>>>>>Our record-keeping costs for organic certification are insignificant.
Record-keeping is just a habit we have gotten used to--a few minutes at the
end of each day to record what was done where. Nothing complex--stuff like
"Paul planted peas and oats in field one," or "20 trays of Copra onions
planted in field three." These notes demonstrate organic soil management and
field rotation to the inspector. Financial transactions have to be noted, so
the agency knows you have a way of figuring their fraction-of-one-percent
cut. (The IRS also likes good records!) Labels and receipts for outside
inputs, such as fertilizer and seed, are kept on file for the inspector.

=====
Is it possible that folks who are complaining about the record keeping are
being unreasonable? Perhaps the record keeping, assuming it is basic info,
may not only be a requirement for running a good operation, but may in the
end help you run a better operation?

>>>>>We like having detailed records of our operation. Records tell us what
we have done. We can look for correlations between field history and current
crop performance. We can more easily plan a budget for each year, based on
past spending. We can follow good organic practices in our field rotations.

=====
I can definitely understand the need for the rotations and remembering where
things are. We don't have any special field numbers here. A lot of our
produce though are perennials such as raspberry, strawberry, asparagus,
blueberry, etc. and they don't move around too much.

>>>>> In Rick's case, of course, there is no cross-contamination between
conventional beef and organic produce.\

======
We do not do conventional beef here at Misty Ridge as we are more geared for
the higher CLA levels in the meat. Our goal is to stress what is in your
food instead of what is not in your food. But basically it is pretty much
the same as organic. And when you explain it to people or give farm tours,
people seem to prefer our approach to just the organic even though we do
feed some grain in the winter and also to the youngest stock and we do use
milk replacer on new calves and do use several pour-on treatments per year
for parasite control. But no pesticides (including herbicides) on forage
production and no hormone implants and no ionophores. That does hit us in
the pocket book a bit. When we shipped those stocker cattle and surplus
Jersey steers this week, we estimate a loss of 30 to 50 pounds per head
because we do not use those chemicals.

Our produce is more organic really than regular organic since we do not even
use the allowed pesticides that organic uses.

By the way does anyone feel as uncomfortable as we do with putting on Bt and
similar substances on crops you are personally going to eat?

Sincerely,

Rick Williams
Misty Ridge Farm
Dairy heifers and dairy beef graziers
Viroqua, WI

www.mistyridgefarm.com





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