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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Denver Post Op-ed

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  • From: road's end farm <organic101 AT linkny.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Denver Post Op-ed
  • Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 21:58:50 -0400


On Aug 2, 2007, at 4:48 PM, Sharon and Steve wrote:

If strong wording was a crime then a lot of "organic folk" would also be
headed for the pokey as their finger pointing and screaming about
conventional farmers trying to poison the flora and fauna on the planet is
pretty vicious also.

Did you actually read my post? I made a very strong point of doing no such thing. I have very rarely heard other organic growers do so; and on the few occasions when I have, both I and other organic growers present have objected to it. Most of us prefer to be on good terms with our neighbors, not to be screaming at them.

And I didn't say that strong wording was a crime. I objected to some of Jackie Avner's strong wording with some moderately strong wording of my own, not by calling the police.

In some cases she is giving too much credit to the organic producer, come on
over and we will follow the grain delivery truck, the milk pick up truck; we
will look at the pastures, the barns, and a bunch of stuff that will show
that you that organic is just a word. [. . . ]
if
you want to go buy something that carries a USDA Organic sticker go
ahead.........but dont expect it to be anything buit a rip off.


And I resent being told, in effect, that I and others who I know are lying about our organic practices, by someone who has never met us and never seen our farms.

I'm sure you can find a few unscrupulous people posing as organic who are lying; just as I'm sure you can find a few conventional farmers who are happy to poison everything that moves and some things that don't. But neither of these things are true of most of either group of people.

If you know specific farmers who are claiming their product is organic when they are in gross violation of organic practices, then I urge you to report them. I don't know how you can tell by following the feed truck, however, unless you know for sure everything that's in the load. They might be hauling organic and conventional feed in the same truck, if it's bagged feed and bagged separately; or even if it's bulk, if the truck has been cleaned inbetween. I have had lime brought to my fields by the regular lime spreader from a conventional fertilizer company. I had to get a signed statement from them that, in addition to their ordinary cleaning procedures, the previous load (applied to a conventional farm) had also been lime, so as to make sure that any residue from whatever had been previously hauled in that truck had been effectively cleared out.

If your problem is with the USDA version of organic, please snarl at the USDA, and not at organic growers in general. Most of us don't like a lot of what gets by under the USDA any better than you do (I'm thinking, among other things, of the failure to enforce genuine pasture access regulations). I agree that going entirely and only by the UDSA label, without knowing anything about the actual producers, may get you something that most of us don't think is organic at all; but the fact that some of us have the USDA label doesn't mean that we're all lying and just trying to rip you off.

-- Rivka; Finger Lakes NY, Zone 5 mostly
Fresh-market organic produce, small scale



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