Market Farming

["eliot coleman" <ecoleman AT prexar.com>]

Fascinating discussion.  I'm glad so many people have opinions on this.
Some background.  I'm not entirely happy with "authentic" either but it
was the best I could do after thinking about this for ten years.  I did
not want an invented word like "bio-pure" or similiar.  The distances came
from our experience.  We are rural but can sell everything within 25 miles
so we doubled it.  The 300 miles for grains etc. is the distance from one
end of  Maine to the other.  Maybe each state or region could set their
own distances.You may have noticed that all the standards were positive
statements.  I'm more interested in hearing what farmers do than what they
don't do.  It is the way i began as an "organic" farmer 35 years ago.  Not
what I didn't use (those were the products of a misguided science) but
rather what practices I believed grew healthier more nutritious food. 
Also when i began there was no "organic" bureaucracy.  If you thought the
concepts made sense and wanted to farm that way you became an organic
farmer.  No one was trying to cheat back then because we all believed in
what we were doing. I see "authentic" the same way. No bureaucracy.  If
the consumers don't care enough to know their farmer or check up on
him/her, maybe they deserve to be bamboozled.  I also think local pressure
would nail the cheats in a locally based system.  I received a wise letter
from a grower who suggested that if we are local and know our customers
and vice versa then no word is necessary. A good point but I still want a
word to compete with the "organish pap" (great phrase someone used) which
is benefiting from all the work of conscientious organic farmers over the
years.  The only way to compete is to go them one better.  Beyond organic,
that's us.  Can the feds stop this?  Not unless they repeal the first
ammendment.