The Canadian Organic Growers has declared September 16 – 24
National Organic Week. It is the largest annual celebration of organic food, farming and products across the Canada. Coincidentally, we kicked off organic week by spending half a day with an organic inspector from
Ecocert Canada, who travelled from Southern Ontario to Pass Lake to conduct our annual organic inspection last Friday.
In order to maintain our organic certification we must be inspected annually to ensure that our production practices are in accordance with the Canadian Organic Standards. These standards dictate production practices from crop rotation, to pest control, to fertility inputs, to animal welfare, to post-harvest handling. The underlying goal of each standard is to produce safe and healthy food while protecting the very land on which the food is grown. Protecting ecology is at the heart of the organic movement.
I can talk all day about farming, and if given the chance will tell you a lot more than you actually want to know. This makes it difficult for me to concisely answer the question
“what does organic mean anyway?”. This is a question that I often get while vending at the farmer’s market. Sometimes this question is loaded, as the person asking has strong pre-conceived notions about what it is or isn’t, or sometimes they are simply looking for an opportunity to defend conventional agriculture. Rather than engage in ideological debate charged with passion and conviction for what is just, I simply provide this answer:
“Whereas conventional farmers focus on soil chemistry, organic farmers focus on soil biology”.
Simple, succinct, and sincere. The very word “organic” describes something that is carbon based, and is either living, or was once living. But either way, the word organic refers to life.
The biology that organic farmers are pre-occupied with is mainly the microbiology that lives in the soil. Generally, you cannot see this stuff. I’m talking about bacteria, fungi, nematodes, etc. These living entities form symbiotic relationships with each other, as well as the crops growing on the surface of the soil, and perform a vital role of nutrient cycling. These “bugs” have the ability to break down both organic and inorganic soil constituents and make basic elements available to the plants rooted in that living soil. For example, many gardeners will put a handful of crushed eggshells in with their tomato plants to provide the calcium that tomatoes require. If the soil is populated with a healthy, balanced, and diverse group of microorganisms the eggshells will be broken down and elemental calcium will be released and become available to the tomato plant rooted in that soil. By contrast, if the same eggshells were placed in soil that was not alive with microorganisms, they would not decay and calcium would not cycle into the tomato plant. Just as an ATM machine is a viable way to get cash in hand, it is useless to the person standing in front of it trying to remember their PIN.
Because organic farming is focused on growing and protecting soil life, it is said to be sustainable. Soils that are organically managed are alive – they are teeming with a diverse group of microorganisms (about 5 billion per teaspoon of soil!!!). By contrast, conventionally managed (chemical) soils are nothing more than a rooting medium for the plants growing above. Nutrients are delivered to the plants via water soluble synthetic fertilizers that provide the basic needs of the crop, but actually kill or diminish the biology in the soil. Conventional agriculture cannot be described as sustainable because it cannot sustain itself. It is reliant upon the continual application of synthetic inputs.
While organic agriculture is on at sharp incline around the globe, it continues to receive enormous criticism from industry and consumers alike. Currently, organic crops account for only 1 percent of farmland worldwide. This makes it easy for critics to assert that organic farming is niche, small scale, or only accessible to those who can pay more for their food. I categorically reject all of those claims. “Organic farming” is a term used to describe production practices and management, it does not describe scale or economics. Agriculture has some very vocal lobbyists within the industry – most of which have a financial stake in the status quo of producing crops with synthetic inputs. There is a lot of money to be lost by allowing biology to produce crops for us. As ambassadors of the organic movement, I’d like to arm you with some facts that will come in handy if you find yourself in a conversation where you feel the need to defend organic farming.
- Organic food simply costs more.
While this is largely true, it is mainly a function of supply and demand. The premium paid for organic food in grocery stores has little to do with productivity at the farm level, or the associated cost of production. It has everything to do with how much the retailers can squeeze consumers for something that is in short supply. As demand for organic food rises, the cost will come down.
- Organic farms can’t feed the world.
The loudest voices behind this message are the ones that have the most to lose in a widespread switch to organic production. Agrochemical companies such as Dupont, Pfizer, Dow, plus biotech giants like Monsanto spend a lot of money convincing government and citizens alike that they are needed to feed the world. The reality is that healthy, functioning, organic soils produce yields that are comparable (if not more) than conventional crops. All this with less inputs.
- Organic farms are small and niche.
As stated earlier, organic farming is about “management”, it is not about “scale”. If it were about scale then a little farm like Sleepy G would not be able to compete on price with grocery stores that sell the same product. It is a fact that the food we sell at the farmer’s market, or through the CSA is generally within 20 percent of the mainstream alternative. Admittedly there are some crops that we simply cannot compete with on price – but there are a lot more that we can. For example, we sell Certifed Organic squash, beans, and lettuce cheaper than the conventionally grown versions found in the grocery stores. The cost of our produce reflects the actual cost of production – not how much we think we can “squeeze” out of well-intentioned consumers.
The organic inspection last Friday felt an awful lot like what I imagine an audit from the Canada Revenue Agency would. Questions were asked, and hard evidence needed to be shown. The intent of the organic inspection is to ascertain that the grower is producing crops in accordance with the Canadian Organic Standard. In order to test this, the inspector needs to be able to trace all inputs coming onto the farm (seeds, compost, fertilizer, etc), and all crops leaving the farm. All of this is documented in various records such as invoices and crop production logs for example. At random, the inspector chooses a few crops to do a “tracabilty exercise” with. This involves tracing the crop from seed to final product. For this we rely upon invoices, planting record, harvest record, and sales/distribution record. Finally, the inspector does a number of “balance exercises”, which are intended to ascertain that the farm is only selling crops that they produce, and that that the soil is being built rather than diminished in the production of those crops. For this exercise the inspector needs to see the planting record, harvest record, and field history record (with attached soil analysis).
The inspection went great. We were able to produce all of the records needed. The inspector was very impressed with our record keeping , weed control, and even the quality of our crops given the poor growing season.
We kicked off the start of Organic Week last Friday with our annual organic inspection, and we shall end the celebration this Sunday with the final Open Farm Day for the season. We would love to have you and your family join us for a tour of the crops, and to learn about what organic farming is, or isn’t. Happy Organic Week!