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Subject: Market Farming
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Re: [Market-farming] sorta OT - update on our organic certification process (...
- From: KAKerby AT aol.com
- To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
- Subject: Re: [Market-farming] sorta OT - update on our organic certification process (...
- Date: Sun, 13 May 2012 12:54:47 -0400 (EDT)
There was one question which came up for our application, I won't get into
the gist of it, but it was rather sticky. It involved transitioning
the animals, particularly the hogs, over from conventional to
certified. Dairy cows can be transitioned as a herd, but adult animals from any
other species can't be transitioned in the same way. I wasn't sure how we
were going to transition the next generation for each species without
buying in all new animals and/or going broke. The solution the
staff came up with met the spirit of the law, without actually breaking the
letter of the law, but a stickler for detail would have objected. When I
went through that solution with the reviewer, she said their discussion came
down to one colleague's point that "if we looked hard enough, we could find a
reason to kill every single application that comes through here. Is that
what we want?" That's when I knew that these folks were working just as
hard as I was to come up with ways to make this happen, rather than sink
it. Of course, warm-n-fuzzy notions like that aren't the ones that wake us
up in the middle of the night, so I'm still nervous about the inspection.
But not as nervous as I was.
As for writing this up for the blog, I'm actually working on a project
in that regard. The day I submitted our paperwork, I wanted to celebrate
so I bought the latest issue of Small Farmer's Journal, which has been one of my
beacons of "this is what farming should be" over the years. In that issue,
someone wrote about why they felt organic certification was unnecessary for
their farm. That's all fine and good, but the letter was written in a way
that told me they really only saw a few of the surface features for what the NOP
is trying to accomplish. Then when I posted to a variety of other groups
about our application, again I got some backlash about how the NOP is "just a
way to squeeze more money from a stupid consumer", and "just switching brands of
feed or fertilizer to make farming more expensive." I was shocked at the
level of ignorance on what the program was all about, particularly amongst
folks who freely used the word "organic" in their marketing (without being
certified). At that point I decided to spend some time writing up what
participation in the NOP meant for us, and why we thought it was important, and
at least touch on some of the less-visible aspects of the program. It
won't suddenly enlighten or convert folks who are dead set against
it. But perhaps it'll shed some light on the depth and breadth of the
program for those who are on the fence. I'll post that to the website, and
possibly also send it in as a letter to the SFJ in response to the article they
ran. Not sure how many folks it'll reach. But wow, I thought most
folks knew the basics by now. If I can reach a few more and shed light on
what the NOP really hopes to accomplish, that'll be a nice "pay it
forward".
Kathryn Kerby
frogchorusfarm.com
Snohomish, WA
Ruminations - essays on the farming life at
frogchorusfarm.com/weblog.html
In a message dated 5/13/2012 7:57:43 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
organic87 AT frontiernet.net writes:
I used to be terrified of inspections. They were never anywhere near as bad as I expected. |
-
Re: [Market-farming] sorta OT - update on our organic certification process (...,
KAKerby, 05/13/2012
- Re: [Market-farming] sorta OT - update on our organic certification process (..., Road's End Farm, 05/13/2012
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