Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

market-farming - Re: market-farming digest: "Final Rule"

market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Market Farming

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Dori Green" <dorigreen00 AT hotmail.com>
  • To: market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: market-farming digest: "Final Rule"
  • Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2000 09:07:28 -0500


As somebody who served on a local organic certification board serving multiple states, I can tell you why the regulations are necessary.

Certification as a way to prevent fraud is useless. But it gives a good illusion of doing something to prevent fraud.

Fraud in the exploding "organic" marketplace is ridiculously easy. And lots and lots of money is involved. So it's probably also inevitable.

I can't even get the local farmer's market managers to boot out the old guys whose closest connection to a real farm is that they backed up their pickup to a wholesale loading dock. How far do you think I'd get them or any of the affiliated programs such as WIC and Cooperative Extension to back a serious effort to police "organic certification" and the ethics and morals of the people going for it?

The truth is that nobody wants to police other people's ethics and morals. I sure know that I don't want that job -- I have a hard enough time working on my own (at least when they knock heads against convenience)! It would be the easiest thing in the world to put a premium price on the potatoes grown here, be a little lazy about my growing practices, and fill in a spindly crop by backing my own pickup to the wholesale dock -- and of course selling the whole truckload as "certified organic". Unless there's an inspector at my farm 24/7, who's to know? And I'd cry about the need to compromise my principles -- all the way to the bank.

No, of course I wouldn't do that. Neither would most of the farmers doing the work to become certified organic, I'll bet. But let's not be naive enough to assume that nobody would do this to make an extra buck or thirty, especially if it means the difference between paying the mortgage or being short again that month.

That's why I dropped my own farm's certification and why I bring up this issue directly when I make my CSA recruiting pitch to church and parent groups. A piece of paper does not guarantee that food has been grown in accordance with the principles and practices of sustainable agriculture. Knowing your farmer isn't a guarantee either, but it sure helps. So do regular visits to the farm -- something that isn't always possible on large farms, even organic ones.

Lots of people at high levels in the food biz talk about "economies of scale". When we consider the gut and spirit level connections between farms and communities, there will always be a place for small farms even if it's just as a place where people can go to see what they used to be like and can grieve for what we've lost.

Dori Green
Ash Grove Community Farm & Center for Sustainable Living
Corning, NY
http://www.ic.org/agrove.htm

now working 250 miles from home to keep my farm alive, go figger

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com




  • Re: market-farming digest: "Final Rule", Dori Green, 12/24/2000

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page