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market-farming - Re: To certify or not to certify

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  • From: "" <fullcirclefarm AT msn.com>
  • To: market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: To certify or not to certify
  • Date: Fri, 25 Jan 2002 20:02:15 -0600


I think that certification is important, too, along with Farmer in the Dell. The NOSB may have coopted the concept, but I find that I trust that certified organic now means at least basic organic practices, and I hope that consumers will do their best to hold us to higher standards through their direct relationships with us. We have had people at our market claim to be organic, at one market one of my customers asked vendors if they used chemicals, and she said that only one said yes! At the time, we were one of only two genuinely organic growers there.

And my feeling is that rather than us paying for the privelidge of being certified organic, they should be paying us for every acre we treat organically! Say, a couple thousand a year for each acre, since we are doing a service for our communities and the generations to come? If they can pay people not to grow, why shouldn't they pay us to actually IMPROVE the soil, IMPROVE our communities, IMPROVE the health of our selves, our workers, our neighbors and our customers?! If they can pay corporations through tax increment financing because of all the benefits they supposedly provide to the community, if they can subsidize corporate farms in all the ways that they do, why should organic farmers be required to pay for certification?

At the very least, certification should be a free process, just like health inspections, done for the good of the whole community and paid for by the whole community.

Katherine Kelly
Full Circle Farm
www.fullcirclefarmkc.com


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