There are at least 600 lbs. of organic seed potato lying in our basement and making it smell like rich earth...or is that the smell from not sweeping for a winter?
I wonder if I am allowed to use the word..."organic" when describing the seed potato we spent twice as much on because it was "organic."
During the last Farmer's Market vendor meeting we discussed the legality of using the word "organic" to describe our produce and homemade food.
We are not certified organic, so I state that what we sell is "uncertified organic." A certified organic producer was questioning the legality of us doing this and wondering if it creates confusion among our customers.
I could understand his worries. He pays $750 to become certified plus does a lot of paperwork for the third party certifying agency.
Then, another vendor asked about the $5000 rule. That's the rule that if you make $5000 or less on your produce, you can claim you are organic even if you aren't certified.
This raised yet another round of discussion about using the term but not really following the rules of being "organic." Rules like; buying organic seed (potatoes), using organic potting soil, soil building to increase microbial action, mulching crops for weed suppression, using certified organic pesticides and herbicides, and rotating crops in your farming practices (all of which we do, by the way). Also, like not having any Round-Up in your shed (we don't and never have) (just in case you can't get rid of that pig weed by hand weeding,).
We are sitting on the fence about organic certification. It bothers us that the USDA has its iron fist in the process now, and so in a way we want to "stick it to the man" and stay out of the red tape. However, we've been ardent supporters of the organic food movement since before it really began, buying "organic" food at a neighborhood co-op in 1978, even though there were no guarantees that the fields next to the "organic" ones weren't being sprayed. I couldn't do anything more back then than grow my own, and vote with my money.
It worked. Organic is big, but there are still a lot of people who don't know the difference between "natural, organic, gmo, locally grown." So, maybe buying into the system is a way of educating the masses?
I had an intense discussion with a graduate student about GMO's the other day. He thinks GMO's (genetically modified organisms) can solve the ensuing problems not having enough food availability in our world and maybe even reduce the amount of herbicides and pesticides used in farming.
I told him "In Your DREAMS...have you heard of Round-Up ready seed? Seed that grows plants that you can spray with herbicide and they don't die. Seeds owned by Monsanto who of course owns Round-Up."
He wondered how we could make any money when we have to deal with insect damage and hand-weeding. Not that we do make any money, but we have 1) good health, 2) good food and 3) more time working in the garden. By the time I would have to work to pay for the pesticides and herbicides, go to the store to purchase them, load the herbicides and pesticides into a sprayer, and then spray everything, I could have nand picked insects off our plants or pulled out the weeds in patch of our garden, or payed someone a fair wage to do so. He queried, "what about commercial farms...?"
I told him that with 7 billion people in the world that we should be able to figure out a way to hand weed and pick off undesirable insects (because there are desirable ones too; pesticides can't differentiate between "good bugs" and "bad bugs." And, my friends in entomology...I know they aren't bugs).
