For me to say I grow organic requires me, at a minimum, to understand what this means. The simple definition from the EPA website is “Organically grown” food is food grown and processed using no synthetic fertilizers or pesticides.
But what about the use of horse manure in my compost, or my chicken patrolling the growing area, or preservative treated posts to anchor the cables for muscadine, tomato cages, berry plants?
I am not an attorney or expert in this area and the following are my layperson’s understanding of some of the regulations – so don’t rely on this!
The National Organic Program (“NOP”) states that organic production must comply with the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 (“OFPA”) and title 7 part 205 of the Federal Regulations. Part 205 includes very detailed requirements for processes, record keeping, inspections and state certifications.
For my particular situation, where my gross annual agricultural income from organic produce is less than $5,000, I do not require certification but must nonetheless comply with the applicable organic production, handling and labeling requirements. However, at the local market where I sold my lettuce earlier this year, as well as at a larger market in Atlanta where I had preliminary discussions, the organizers made it clear they would not permit anything to be labeled organic in the absence of organic certification.
Section 205.202 clarifies that there is a 3 year look back period i.e.the field which produces the crop must have had no prohibited substances applied during the 3 years immediately preceding harvest of the crop.
Section 205.203 requires nutrients and soil fertility be managed through rotations, cover crops, and the application of plant and animal materials. Raw animal manure (my chicken manures?) cannot be incorporated into the soil within less than 120 days from the harvesting of a product whose edible portion has direct contact with the soil surface (carrots or onions?) or 90 days for a product where the edible portion does not have direct contact with the soil (tomatoes?). As for composting horse manure, there are required initial Carbon:Nitrogen ratios and temperature ranges and duration.
Section 205.236 for chicken to be organic they must have been under continuous organic management from the second day of their life; and cows producing organic milk products must have been under continuous organic management for 1 year prior to the production of the milk. The inputs such as the seeds or food consumed by the animals must, with some exceptions, be organic and not have come into contact with prohibited substances. Therefore, according to my understanding, no treated posts in the planting areas.
There is a debate about whether honey can be organic since to qualify, the inputs, which are the nectar producing flowers visited by the bees, must be organic and since bees have a flying radius of up to 5 miles can anyone confidently assert they did not visit a chemically treated plant?
Just a culling of some of the provisions and my potted understanding of them!
I should add that I have been a member of Georgia Organics for at least the past 5 years and they have excellent materials on their website on organic farming as well as “sustainable agriculture.”
There’s a big difference between what most people think of as organic, and the legal definition of certified organic. There’s been lots of discussion of this over the years on blogs. A Canadian blogger and organic farmer has spent a lot of time discussing what it means to him, and I think he ended up giving up his organic certification a few years ago:
http://tinyfarmblog.com/
I’ve written lots of posts on this topic, like this one:
http://bifurcatedcarrots.eu/2008/01/certified-organic-can-be-bad-for-small-and-local/
In North America the big agricultural interests own the term organic, and in many ways it’s just not interesting anymore for real people. On one hand it has the strict rules you point out, down to how you have to make your compost. On the other hand, processed foods can still be called organic if at least 80% or so of the ingredients are organic — which is complete nonsense. Certified organic also requires you use organic seeds when available, which is also nonsense, and a major burden for small farmers who among other things are often unable to save their own seeds.
In Europe the term organic can still be used informally at farmers markets, where it has some meaning. Certified organic produce can still be had at outdoor markets and supermarkets, but I don’t think it’s usually very interesting to buy.
While every blogger is different, and there are lots of disagreements, within the circles of bloggers I know most promote permaculture principles above organic. In other words, avoiding inputs and outputs and certainly not using chemicals. Many of us save and trade our own seeds.
A lot of us have some treated wood in our gardens. I think mostly we wouldn’t eagerly go out and buy more, but it often doesn’t make sense to throw away what you already have. In my case having a perimeter fence of treated wood is pretty much the policy of our community gardens, and there isn’t a lot to be done about it. If you have treated wood and remove it, the residual chemicals will stay in the ground a long time anyway. It’s certainly not the case that three years after you remove treated wood, you have an organic garden again.
The use of manure is sometimes a contentious issue. Certainly using factory farm manure isn’t very smart, I think. There are serious problems in the UK now with manure contaminated with herbicides. I think if you have your own animals, there’s little harm in using that manure if it’s composted with enough high carbon material or aged a couple of years. Chicken droppings probably don’t do a lot of harm if they’re within reason.
Many Europeans in general, and Brits in particular, feel very strongly about using manure every year in their gardens, and that you can’t have a good garden without it.
Personally I don’t find manure very useful, and avoid it. If you use fresh manure you can cause a lot of problems with nutrient balances and too much available nitrogen, and if you compost it there’s not a lot of difference between it and compost made without manure. I find dealing with manure more trouble than it’s worth.
When I need nitrogen in my garden, I grow some nitrogen fixing plants. I did a few posts on the nitrogen fixing trees I use, which work well for me:
http://bifurcatedcarrots.eu/2009/12/nitrogen-fixing-trees-2/
Thanks for your comment and links. I had not realized the controversy in Europe over organic seeds nor was I aware of nitrogen fixing trees. I know Europe feels strongly about GMO seeds – is this unequivocally the case and, apart from a general unease, are there any studies yet to indicate their potential for harm?
I am mainly a composter though I happily add stable horse manure to supplement and accelerate the process – my father-in-law was an expert in this field and when we were in London and then in New York he would visit and explain how we had to modify his home grown methods to reflect the locales. I may include at a later date a photo of him and one of his huge olifant compost heaps.
Hi Richard,
I’m glad you found the comment. I use Akismet too, and sometimes lose comments. If I didn’t use it, I would get more than 1000 spam comments a month (30 per day), and this is just too many to go through by hand. It’s probably my fault anyway for writing such a long and rambling comment…
As far as studies to prove GMOs are unhealthy — that will never happen. The food industry is virtually the sole source of funding for this kind of study, and there’s the overriding rule that says these studies cannot conclude a particular food is bad, they can only identify ‘healthy’ foods and encourage people to eat more.
When is the last time you remember hearing a particular food was ‘bad’ to eat? You hear things like salt is bad, and you should eat less, or sugar is bad and you should eat less of that. You never hear a specific processed food is bad. The last time this happened was in the 1970’s when the surgeon general advised there was a connection between eating red meat and heart disease and cancer. The food industry jumped all over him, then sponsored one study after another to show red meat was okay after all.
There was a scientist in the UK who tried to publish a study showing GM potatoes caused cancer. His study was aggressively discredited, torn apart by other scientists, he was fired from his job and his career was ruined:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81rp%C3%A1d_Pusztai
There will really never ever be a study that shows GMOs are bad to eat.
I think just as much as the concern over health, Europeans feel foods should be made available they want to eat. Hardly anyone anywhere wants to eat GMOs, and so Europeans feel GMO-free food should be available for them to eat. If it’s labeled as containing GMOs, the food industry knows people wont buy it, so there’s no point in trying to sell labeled GMO food here.
How interesting. I was unaware of the Pusztai affair referenced by your link to Wikipaedia. Thanks for the comment.
The World Trade Organization has made a preliminary ruling that European Union restrictions on genetically engineered crops violate international trade rules. The United States, Canada, and Argentina together grow 80 percent of all biotech crops sold commercially, by which the EU regulates such crops. The countries argued that the EU’s regulatory process was far too slow and its standards were unreasonable given that the overwhelming body of scientific evidence finds the crops safe.