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  • From: Etienne Goyer <etienne AT lejardinduvillage.ca>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] sorta OT - update on our organic certification process (long)
  • Date: Sun, 13 May 2012 08:09:21 -0400

The market perspective is interesting. I am not yet certified; looking
forward to that in 2013. This spring, I have a quackgrass infestation
to deal with (improper soil prep last year - not gonna do that mistake
twice!). My brother think I am silly for not spraying RoundUp. I agree
that of all the herbicide, glyphosate is probably the lesser evil,
that's not the problem. But he just does not get it: what sells my
veggies, and allows me to get a good price, is that they are grown
organically. At the market, I think it must be, like, one customer out
of two who casually ask "are you organic?" Right now, I say "I am not
certified organic, but I grow without chemical fertilizer and synthetic
pesticide", which so far has satisfied everyone. If I spray RoundUp
this spring, I cannot honestly say that anymore.

Nothing is perfect. I would rather deal with a quackgrass infestation
organically than having to explain why I am
organic-but-not-quite-because-I-sprayed-once-this-spring a dozen time at
every market. Plus, for good or bad, I am a principled person: spraying
would be a personal failure of holding up to my values.


Kathryn, nice write-up you have there. You should post it to your blog! :)



On 12-05-13 07:50 AM, charlie taplin wrote:
> I have been in the organic business helping others and supplying
> products for over 20 yrs. (before it was cool)
> I sort of retired from it and leased my wife's families 230 yr. old
> family farm and certified it. I had some of your feelings
> even knowing what to expect. It was the best thing I have
> done. We sell by the veggies at a road stand and some
> hay, raise about 300-500 layer pullets a yr. to sell and being
> certified brings $16 ea.
> It increased our sales 3 fold.
>
> On Sat, May 12, 2012 at 10:51 PM, <KAKerby AT aol.com
> <mailto:KAKerby AT aol.com>> wrote:
>
> I'm sitting here feeling a little foolish for sending this email,
> but I have precious few other "audiences" to tell it to, so <lucky
> you> I'm posting it here.
>
> As some of you will recall, we made the decision to go for organic
> certification earlier this year. That decision put into motion more
> changes here, and at our rental ground, than I could possibly put
> into a single email. One of the biggies was that we learned our
> landlord farmer has thought about it for years, but figured he had
> some fatal flaws that prevented him from applying to the program.
> Turns out they weren't fatal flaws at all, but fairly typical of
> farms that have been managed conventionally and are now considering
> organic certification. He is enthusiastically supporting our
> application for our rented 14 acres, and he'll watch to see how that
> goes. But he may end up certifying his entire place - 80 acres, if
> he likes what he sees of this initial effort. Which would put the
> total certified acres at just about 100, all because we got a bee in
> our bonnet to get certified.
>
> We churned through all the application paperwork over a span of
> nearly 2 months. Ugh. We're going for all three categories -
> Crops, Ruminants and Non-Ruminants. Our application packet was 64
> pages long, with very little redundancy between the three categories
> (and yours truly didn't even write any missives; just clipped
> answers). I guess even after we sent the packet off, I didn't
> really consider it "real" because there was always the chance that
> the reviewer would look through it, snort with derision, and send it
> back stamped "No Chance In Heck Of Ever Being Certified". So I
> anxiously awaited the reviewer's comments, and that letter stating
> whether our paperwork was in order, needed some work, or was flatly
> denied.
>
> While waiting, I had some changes to our overall plan that I figured
> the reviewer would need to know about. So I emailed the general
> office yesterday and said I wasn't sure who our reviewer was, but
> please forward these updates. I got back an email only about 30
> minutes later, saying "hi, I'm your reviewer, I got your updates,
> and I just finished your formal application letter. Want to go over
> everything now?" Gulp. I emailed "sure", and she said she'd
> forward a PDF of the formal letter to me "for my consideration."
> She warned me "not to take the questions personally, but ours was a
> fairly complex application and there were bound to be questions that
> came up." Great. So I got the PDF, but was afraid to open it for
> awhile. Finally worked up the nerve (over another cup of my
> favorite tea), and was pleasantly surprised to find that most of the
> questions or requests for clarification were really rather small. A
> few items had me a tad worried, but most were easy. I emailed her
> back with the few issues that I was most concerned about, and she
> responded "give me a call. I can answer those in 10 minutes on the
> phone, while it would take half an hour to write it all out." Dang,
> now I'm going to talk to her in person. Worked up the nerve to call
> her, and we had a whiz-bang slam-dunk conversation, knocking down
> one topic or question after another, bang-bang-bang. Got off the
> phone with a few go-do's, but again nothing major. And then it hit
> me. We're done with the paperwork portion. The next stop?
> Inspection. At which point I started to think "oh, crap, I've got
> 14,201 things to do before then........"
>
> So I spent most of the rest of yesterday bouncing between Cloud 9
> and "OMIGOD the inspection is coming up! Augh!" While the
> application didn't feel "real" to me at first, now it's real
> enough. On the one hand, they like what they've seen enough to
> warrant the inspection. On the other hand, dang now I have to go
> out and do all those things I said I was going to do this year. And
> in a way that meets a whole new higher caliber. So I'm still
> vacillating between Cloud 9 and "OMYGOD", and probably driving my
> husband crazy in the process. We have already decided that we need
> to get him a Tshirt that says "I'm married to an organic zealot!"
> But at this point, I'm starting to dare to think that we might be on
> our way to really truly getting that certification, which would pave
> the way not only for us but for the larger farm that we've been
> teaming up with the last few years. Scary stuff. Exciting, but scary.
>
> Thanks for listening. I just really didn't have anyone else to
> tell.........
> Kathryn Kerby
> frogchorusfarm.com <http://frogchorusfarm.com>
> Snohomish, WA
> Ruminations - essays on the farming life at
> frogchorusfarm.com/weblog.html <http://frogchorusfarm.com/weblog.html>
>
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>
> --
> Charlie at Floating Bridge Organics
> "without power over our food,
> any notion of democracy is empty"
> Frances Moore Lappe
>
>
>
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--
Etienne Goyer - Le Jardin du Village
http://lejardinduvillage.wordpress.com

"Changer le monde, une betterave à la fois"





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