I recently emailed a local farm to ask why they don’t consider themselves “organic.” The farm’s response was that they refuse to be certified as a form of “philosophical protest.” When I asked them what that means, they gave me a really great response, which I think helps to sum up my previous post:
Hello! Our philosophical protest came about after the USDA took over the
administration and nationalizing of the organic standards. Those rules
would allow, for example, that beef could be certified as organic if
they never saw a blade of grass and were fed a starchy, rich and
unnatural diet for ruminants. Our objection to feedlot beef production
(and this applied to dairy, too) that does not encourage the use of
feeds and practices that are suited to ruminants, forced us to bow out.
More of our philosophy can be viewed at our website,
http://www.caledoniafarm.com, or click here http://www.caledoniafarm.com/about.htm
However, there was a recent development in the standards that dictate
that ruminants must have access to their natural diet throughout their
lives. This is a positive development, though we will resort to staying
our course and and have our customers judge for themselves if we meet
their needs.
Going organic and/or local, like all things in life, afford benefits and
costs and it is up to the consumer to weight those costs on an
individual basis.
What is most important for you in your food purchase decisions?
We feel local production helps local economies, reduces carbon
emissions, maintains open space, and builds local capacity and self
reliance but will be more expensive to the consumer.
Organic production will keep various chemicals out of the environment
and promote more environmentally sensitive practices. And now that
organic food production has gone “big-time”, you can benefit from
economies of scale resulting in overall lower costs. These are all very
good developments in my opinion. However, food sourced from far away
carries a sizable carbon footprint and one cannot tell if the workers
who toiled over the food were treated fairly. As a point of interest,
click here for an eye opening take:
http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/07/news/economy/farm_worker_jobs/index.htm
Money and where it is spent is a powerful force. Many people don’t want
to work for minimum wage, in triple digit heat, bent over a field, so
those at the bottom of the economic ladder do it for us……….
Thank you for your interest!
You can also feel free to visit Calendonia Farm’s website.
So the person from Calendonia Farms never actually states whether or not they use chemicals. I would guess they do or they would advertise the fact they are both local and organic. Why can’t they strive to do both since that is what is best for the consumer and the environment?
Also, farms in New England can grow things out of season in greenhouses and not use chemicals at the same time.
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You can only infer from his statements that they do what they can to be environmentally-friendly. An earlier email went like this:
“Hello! We used to be certified organic, but we opted out of the program by philosophical protest. Since we are no longer certified, we cannot legally claim to be organic and have resorted to the term ‘sustainable.’ If you have any questions about our cultural/care methods and practices, please let us know, we’d be happy to answer them.”
That’s why I suggested people need to ask themselves what’s truly important to them and then ask the farms if what they practice aligns with that.
And you’re right about farming in winter (see article http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/282749). However, not all farms will probably be willing to build and sustain greenhouses that will produce enough produce to make it worth the cost.
Additional info on greenhouse farming:
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/ghwebRL.html#organic_gh
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