FEBRUARY NEWSLETTER
2013 Long Life Farm Shares Available
Long Life Farm Shares available for 2013 season. Pick up sites available in Hopkinton on Tuesday and Friday and in Ashland on Saturday. You can download last year's share content to see what vegetables were in the bags each week. To reserve your share for 2013, print out the application and send in your deposit. You can find more detailed information here. 
Applying for Organic Certification
I am a decision maker by nature, not a spontaneous decision maker, but one who does the research, considers all sides and then makes an informed and educated decision. That is exactly how I have approached my decision to apply for organic certification for our farm. There are many naysayers about organic certification, outside as well as inside the farming world including organic farmers and my husband, my farming partner.
When I shop for my family, I try to buy certified organic food most of the time. Before I knew about genetic modification of seed, I was not so strict about buying organic food. If you are new to Long Life Farm or are new to the topic of GMOs (genetically modified organisms) here are a few good sources of information to bring you up to speed.
http://www.responsibletechnology.org/faqs
http://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/campaign/genetically-engineered-food/crops/
http://www.aaemonline.org/gmopost.html
http://www.fedcoseeds.com/seeds/articles/farmington.htm
I buy food for my family from farmers who I know are using organic methods; food that is labeled non-GMO verified; meats that are the product of grass fed or organically fed grain and food that is certified organic (GMO seeds are prohibited). This is not easy or inexpensive. My 8 year old has broken down in tears and screamed she does not want to be organic. She and her sister buy lunch two days per week at school and take their lunch the other three, but I still insist on no Doritos, and this has caused a bit of chip envy and tantrum. It is also not easy to shop, as you have to be constantly vigilant, what did the animal eat? Does the item contain corn, soybean, cottonseed, canola or sugar from sugar beets or one of it’s
derivatives? If it is not organic or not non-GMO verified it is most likely genetically modified. Whole Foods has started to label their shelves with the Non-GMO tag, which helps save time at the grocery, but the process is still difficult. I pay the grocery bill every month, so I know that organic is more expensive. But I feel the health of my family is worth the extra expense of organic food. So to me, the decision to get our vegetables organically certified has taken on a much larger meaning and a greater commitment to the organic label despite the challenges this label faces. To me, the decision to buy organic food, is more than avoiding synthetic chemicals.
Long Life Farm chooses mostly certified organic seed for growing crops. We currently buy seed from High Mowing, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, Fedco, Seeds of Change, Seed Savers Exchange, Territorial Seed, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and Botanical Interests. Of the 174 varieties of seed we bought this year, 5 of them are not organic. The National Organic Program requires that organic farmers buy only certified organic seed unless the same variety is not available as organic. If organic seed is not available and I looked for the organic version at three other seed companies, only then can I buy a non-organic seed. Of the 5 seeds we bought that were not organic, four were purchased from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds who tests there seeds for GMOs and also has signed the Safe Seed Pledge as has Johnny’s the source of the last variety purchased as non-organic. All five were varieties were not available in an organic version. There are tens of thousands more varieties available for non-organic growers than there are for organic growers. As I reviewed my catalogs it is clear that organic seed prices average 30% higher than non-organic seed for the same varieties. This process of buying the right seed is tedious and difficult but worth it to insure the right start for our food. Why go through this trouble of procuring certified organic seed if I am not going to seek certification for the harvested product?
My husband Don’s argument against organic certification is based upon the amount of paperwork and the cost to maintain organic certification. While the paperwork is greatest upon first application, there is a need to keep detailed records about crop rotation and daily activity such as weeding, fertilizing, tilling, harvesting, etc and to renew certification annually. The organic system plan that I am preparing for my application details the seedling, planting, harvesting, handling and post-handling activity on the farm. Try writing down everything you do on a daily basis. The cost is also a big consideration. Besides the cost of our own record keeping, Baystate Organic Certifiers certification fees will be between $800-1500 each year. These fees grow as revenue grows. This will cover inspectors visiting us twice per year and the use of the USDA Organic label. We can not use the word “organic” produce without this certification. If you get to know us and the farm, you will feel comfortable that we are following the rules, but what if you don’t know us and you are new to Long Life Farm? This label is important to me when I don’t know the farmer and their practices, and I believe it is important to our customers as well. The “certified organic” label is the only truly regulated label amongst the many eco-labels you see. Certification to the National Organic Program (NOP) provides assurance to our customers that the USDA and certifiers are watching to insure that the standards have been met.
Being certified organic is one way to prevent aerial spraying of pesticides that might take place by the state to address pest infestation such as EEE, Asian longhorn beetle, etc. While overhead spraying is rare, I appreciate this added level of protection. Long Life Farm has also registered with the town of Hopkinton to avoid any future ground spraying that might be done.
Has the organic label lost it’s relevance? Some in the food world say yes, due to big organic companies gaining approval of questionable ingredients for food processing. When it comes to processed organic personal care products, coffee cream and snacks, you still need a dictionary to translate some of these labels.
Eden Foods is one of the big organic companies that is also worried and refuses to use the organic label.
I have met dozens of new farmers these last three years and only a small number are applying for organic certification. They all have given me different answers as to why they are not certifying: Some say their customers know them well by now and they trust them when they say they are following the National Organic Standards (NOP). Some say that large agribusiness has hijacked the organic label. Some just don’t want to manage the amount of paperwork and tracking of daily work that certification requires. Others find it unacceptable that certified organic growers have to prove what they are not doing, when it should be the conventional growers that are transparent about what they are spraying on our food.
There was also the Stanford study that published last year that showed that organic produce tested in the study was no more nutritional than the conventionally grown.
Thorough or not, this study may have made consumers stray from their commitment to buying organic. The NOP does not dictate nutrition requirements for produce on an organic farm. There is no current standard for how nutritious a fruit or vegetable should be. Long Life Farm focuses on balancing the minerals in the soil to increase the nutrition in crops, to try and regain the plant nutrition that used to be in our ancestors' crops. We still must verify that any mineral we add to the soil be approved for organic use.
After weighing all the facts and many opinions about organic certification, we believe for a small vegetable farm, the organic label still has relevance to our family and our customers and can be a real badge of honor, so we are moving forward to finish our application this spring. We hope to bring you an update on our progress sometime this summer. Wish us luck and perseverance!
Laura Davis
