Market Farming

["" <fullcirclefarm AT msn.com>]

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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