On Being Organic

We’ve been using the word “organic” to describe our growing practices for 3 years now because it’s been true. But I’m the 1^st to admit it’s a bit of a confusing term. Many growers claim to be “organic” simply because they don’t spray chemicals on their crops. A surprising number of consumers assume that local and organic mean the same thing. Both of these are actually limited (or even entirely misled) assumptions about what it means to be organic.

Growing organically involves not only what a grower cannot do (spray chemical pesticides or herbicides, use treated seeds, apply synthetic fertilizers), but also what they must do. Certified organic growers are expected to practice crop rotations, use cover crops to protect against erosion and build organic matter, test water quality, minimize soil disturbance, and keep a variety of records that allow for tracking of planting, harvesting and distribution of crops, as well as tillage and soil amendment application logs.

This year we applied – and just last week received approval! – for organic pre-certification with Ecocert (one of the independent companies approved for certifying to the Canadian Organic Standard). While our field practices were essentially already in line with standards, we’ve had to really tighten up our record keeping – something I actually really appreciate as it will allow me to compare field activities, crop yields and distribution patterns from year to year.

My initial motivation for pursuing certification was purely economic: I was afraid I’d be forced to drop my market prices if (when) it became illegal for me to use the word “organic” without certification. That said, I’ve come to appreciate the way that certification provides a definition for  the term “organic,” pushing growers to build healthy systems and protecting consumers from any misleading claims of growers who use the term in inappropriate ways.

There are, of course, consequences to growing organically. For example, we have little way of protecting against blight in the tomatoes and downy mildew in the cucumbers – 2 diseases we’ve fallen prey to again this year. Although we’ve rotated crops and sprayed kelp and compost tea, these have not been enough to deter spread of the disease during hard rainfalls. While I believe that healthy soils produce healthy crops which are more disease & pest resistant, this type of system takes years to build. I do, however, believe it is worth it, and some resulting tomato and cucumber shortfalls are a fair price to pay for building a sustainable agricultural system that improves the land over time and produces truly healthy food to feed us well.