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Re: [Market-farming] sorta OT - update on our organic certificationprocess (long)
- From: "Beth Spaugh" <lists AT rhomestead.com>
- To: "'Market Farming'" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
- Subject: Re: [Market-farming] sorta OT - update on our organic certificationprocess (long)
- Date: Sun, 13 May 2012 13:12:07 -0400
It depends on each farm, the agency, and
the inspector, but I felt the physical farm inspections were a breeze. My
problem is they want everything documented – when, what, how much, including
yields, and I just couldn’t do that. I am starting to use a
smartphone this year, making notes as I go, and think it might be doable again,
and am aiming to recertifiy next year. I haven’t done anything
differently production-wise. Beth Spaugh http://rhomestead.com
http://www.facebook.com/rhomestead "How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the
world is used." - Wendell Berry "Without power over our food, any notion of democracy is
empty." - Frances Moore Lappe From:
market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of KAKerby AT aol.com 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 Ruminations - essays on the farming life
at frogchorusfarm.com/weblog.html |
-
[Market-farming] sorta OT - update on our organic certification process (long),
KAKerby, 05/12/2012
-
Re: [Market-farming] sorta OT - update on our organic certification process (long),
charlie taplin, 05/13/2012
- Re: [Market-farming] sorta OT - update on our organic certification process (long), Etienne Goyer, 05/13/2012
- Re: [Market-farming] sorta OT - update on our organic certification process (long), Road's End Farm, 05/13/2012
- Re: [Market-farming] sorta OT - update on our organic certificationprocess (long), Beth Spaugh, 05/13/2012
-
Re: [Market-farming] sorta OT - update on our organic certification process (long),
charlie taplin, 05/13/2012
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