Organic and Economy

[Brunty_Farms]

First off I'm talking about eggs and chicken from meat. That's what BYC is.... it's a chicken site. So is my operation, I have no use for organic veggies, fruits, or ruminents as it's irrelivent to my argument.

Before I go off in my rant, I would like to say that I would love to have organic feed put into my chickens. But it's too expensive, and it limits the customers that your trying to get. I'm trying to make it feasable for normal people to buy great food for their families.... not put it so far out of reach that only the rich can enjoy quality foods. If I had to choose organic feed or husbandry issues... I'm going to choose the husbandry isssues. It's a bigger issue. Even though I don't use organic feed I can still eliminate GMO's, By-products, and medications. You take one of our poultry and compare it to a conventional organic chicken.... and test it in the lab for nutrients.... they wouldn't even compare... Pasture raised poultry are superior to organics, it's already been proven. Same with eggs.

Secondly, I want to say that small organic producers don't fall into the category of Conventional organics. If you raise 5-3,000 hens your small, and you fall more in the catagory as "home grown organic" or "pasture raised organics". SO when I sit here and complain about the industry.... I'm not talking about the people here that work hard to make their animals, pastures, and products organic... I salute you....


What concerns me is the neglect of knowledge that many people have about organic meats. First off the processing facilities that are used for organic broilers meet the same standards and regs as one used for conventional. There is one about 4 hours away from me that process both organic and natural raised chickens. The claim of them going through a "special" plant is false.

Secondly, my concern is mainly the broilers as how can you call them "healthier" because they get oranic grains for their main diet? Diet is not the main concern whith organic chickens. It is far more important to have a healthy and clean environment. For example chickens can't be healthy if they eat organic feed that is sprinkled with fecal particulate, dirt, and dust that is normaly found in a conventional organic poultry houses.

Layers are just as bad. So you mean to tell me that it's not suitable for caged layers to be called organic? SO, if you take the small cages away and put them in one giant one.... give them a little bit of room to run around outside and then its ok to call them organic? Now everything is ok? I'm sorry but to me it's a way for organic egg producers to make a decent profit by offering nothing more than a chicken fed with an organic feed. You think customers care if the eggs are organically washed in an organically approved facility? No, all they care about is what their knowledge has taught them. If pretty lables and clever marketing captured their attention more than likely they are lured in.

I give everyone here a test.... go to the closest health food store and pick out the most expensive organic eggs.... and chicken. Try to locate the farm and see if you can see the way their chickens are being raised. 99% of the farms you see... will not let you in anywhere on their premisis. Why? Biosecurity? No, that's bougus. Go to a grass based farm or a home grown organic farm and ask to see thier chickens.... you will probably get a tour of the entire operation.... why? Because when you do things right you have nothing to hide.

Selling pastured poultry involves a much more eclectic consumer than your average supermarket shopper. Direct marketing is a challenge. While the National Organic Program isn't perfect, it does provide a venue for the organic producer to move his product into the supermarkets and have it identified to the consumer as a value added product that meets certain minimum expectations.

Your right direct marketing is tough, it's not for a lazy farmer. I turn down weekly... phone calls and e-mails from companies wanting to be the middle man for my product. I won't do it, people need to get used to going to their local farms again to buy their produce and meats the most they can. For now it's just a niche, but it grows daily. A few flyers, ads, or inserts in magazines go a long way. The more the government has food recalls the more phone calls and e-mails farmers like me and CSA's get... And we will educate them one at a time. My biggest marketing tool is the fact we have an open door policy. I ask my customers that formaly bought organics from Health food stores this question..... Can you go to the farm where you bought your products? If they answere no.... I don't have to say anymore.​

 

[Harp Turkey Ranch]

well said Brunty farms.
Instead of being certified organic try http://www.naturallygrown.org, I think it is sooo much better then certified organic. Makes more sense and it is designed for the small farmers.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

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I understand, but your disparaging comments about organics cast a poor light on the entire NOP program which encompasses more than just chickens.

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I don't disagree with you, I wasn't pointing any fingers because you don't use organic feed . My point was that the NOP has it's merits and detractions, just as your methods do. Your site compares your methods against the NOP methods at length, but I feel it's an unnecessary comparison, you don't need to disparage the NOP to sell your product, it speaks for itself.

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I don't understand your use of the term "conventional" organics. The organics industry consists of many players, big and small. Everything from mega-corporations to family corporations to mom and pop entrepreneurs. While 2500 hens is a small operation I really can't direct market 750,000 eggs a year, I will rely on the regional co-op and the USDA certified Organic label to do that.

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I didn't say it was special, separate plant. They have to be certified under the NOP, which has its own set of standards for organic processors. Whether this results in a large change in their methods, I don't know. I would suspect the wash portion to change, given that bleach disinfectant can't be used on organic carcasses.

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You've lost me Jeff, how else are we supposed to raise them? They have to have some sort of shelter and nest boxes to lay in. I can't let $20,000 worth of pullets just roam some acreage and go search for a couple hundred dozens eggs each day. They have a large barn to run around in with a deep litter system and an area set aside for dust bathing. Weather permitting, large bay doors are opened up to allow them access to a fenced alfalfa pasture. I wouldn't let them outside if it's storming or 20 below or out into a 10 foot snowdrift. What would you suggest otherwise?

It's all about making a profit, nobody does this for free. The question is whether a producer does it ethically or not to make that dollar. I don't believe they are offering nothing more than a chicken or egg produced with organic feed. As I said the NOP encompasses the entire production system, from the millions of acres that are spared pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, to animal welfare, to the actual tangible product. I understand your argument with broilers, but I don't see how it can be done much different on a large scale. While the benefits to broilers' welfare are marginal under the NOP, I believe there is an overall benefit from the millions of acres of cropland have been moved to organic production to feed them.

 

[jtownchickens]

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The whole idea behind being certified organic is the key word "certified". It stops people from claiming to be something they aren't or it is supossed to be anyway. Some still try to claim it. Our farm has been certified for quite a few years now and it is a lable we put on our products with great pride. Another example it raising hertiage poultry vs the "meat bird cross hybrids". With a heritage breed they self reproduce and the producer has a never ending supply, with the hybrids the producer is stuck with having to order a new batch each time.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

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That's not correct. Under the National Organic Program if you gross less than $5000 a year from your products you are allowed to market them as "Organic". You don't have to be certified and can't use the "USDA Certified Organic" label. You are expected to follow the NOP standards to use the term "Organic" though.

 

[chickenannie]

Bossroo, just curious, do you work in an agriculture-related profession? you know a lot about some of these issues!

 

[Mac in Wisco]

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In a biography of my Great Great Grandfather it talked of his fields being overrun with Canadian Thistle after he took in a large amount of hay contaminated with it. He spent about three years walking his fields pulling the plants before they went to seed and managed to eradicate them.


Added:

This is from a 30 page biography of my mother's Great-Grandfather who came to Wisconsin in 1847. It is a detailed account of his day to day life in Germany, coming to Wisconsin, working on a farm as a laborer, and buying and working his own farm. It is a real treasure:

After Fred Sprain had bought from Mr. Evan Roberts, he was told by other people that Mr. Wright, a former owner, had bought apple trees and other fruit to plant on the place. The roots of the trees had been wrapped in straw. This with other fertilizer was carried into the fields and plowed under. This straw happened to carry the seeds of the Canada Thistle. Sprain was told that this was impossible to destroy, that it would now crowd out any crop planted, and that it would cover the whole farm and the neighbors' too. Fred did not sleep that night but made a resolution. Next morning he sent both of his men each with a team of horses 2 miles down the road to the newly-acquired farm, telling them, "Light the straw pile on that patch of land," hoping that some of the thistle would be burned. "Then begin on the other end and plow that field." It took 2 men two teams to plow the field once. Two weeks later the land was plowed again deeper than before.--------------(This seems to have begun to be a solution to the thistle problem.) The family moved. Then some winter wheat was so tall that the cattle were turned into the field to eat and keep the wheat from heading. This wheat yielded a good crop the following season.
Corn was planted in the much plowed and thistle land. Then Sprain himself took a basket and a pitchfork and walked along each row of corn when the corn had just appeared above the ground, digging up any thistle that he could find. When tired or at mealtime all the thistles were carefully burned in the kitchen stove. 4 crops of corn were raised on that land, and 4 summers Sprain diligently dug any thistle plants. Thus the land was finally rid of Canada Thistle, as well as clean of other weeds. Much cultivating loosened the soil so that the roots pulled out easily. Patience and industry won the day.

 

[me&thegals]

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Seeing as world population exploded before we stopped being organic in about the 1940s, I'd have to disagree with the argument that going organic would lead to mass starvation.

As an organic grower (not certified), I would say that some things are much more labor intensive to grow organically. Some things are not. The certification process is labor and paperwork intensive with other expenses. Those get passed onto the consumer, I'm assuming. Organic food is picked when ripe, not picked green and gassed or irradiated. This makes it more perishable. I would also assume grocers make up for that loss with higher prices. Organic growers also have higher seed costs and less land available (buffer zones because of nonorganic neighbors), just a couple more reasons for higher costs. If you can't spray chemicals on diseased or bug-infested crops, then I guess you lose part of that crop.

There are many reasons organic costs more and many reasons why it's worth it anyway.

I can understand why some people have to choose nonorganic when money is tight. I can't stand to pay organic prices and can't stand to eat nonorganic, so I grow it myself

 

[Brunty_Farms]

What I'm saying is the caged layer systems support 20,000 plus layers. When you take those cages away and put 20,000 layers in a bard and enclose them... what's the difference?

You fall under a small buisness/hobby farm. I'm in the same boat you are. We have the capacity for 3,000 layers at a time(500 to a group). I raise my layers exactly like you in the winter time, the only difference is the organic feed. When we are in half production we get about 18,000 dozen eggs in a 9 month season. Everything directly marketed, we are in a location that allows us to do so. Many places don't allow this, and selling to the stores is the way out.

I'm sorry if I made it look like I was bashing the industry as a whole as i'm not. I'm also all for what you do, it's an alternative to commercial poultry. If you have 2,500 layers and let them have access to pasture that's great in my opinion. I would much rather see every small farmer in the country raising a few hundred hens to a few thousand to support their community. I would love nothing more than that. My beef is not with organics.... it's with the conventional producers trying to "steal" the word organics to capitalize on the marketing term. To much hard work goes into truely having an organic farm. Putting chickens in a house and feeding them sufficient feed from organic grains is not a truely organic farm. Wellfare, environment, and space needs to be put in the mix too. Basically you can't put 20,000 birds in a layer house and manage it properly. 2,500 to 3,000 Yes it can be done.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

You've lost me Jeff, how else are we supposed to raise them? They have to have some sort of shelter and nest boxes to lay in. I can't let $20,000 worth of pullets just roam some acreage and go search for a couple hundred dozens eggs each day. They have a large barn to run around in with a deep litter system and an area set aside for dust bathing. Weather permitting, large bay doors are opened up to allow them access to a fenced alfalfa pasture. I wouldn't let them outside if it's storming or 20 below or out into a 10 foot snowdrift. What would you suggest otherwise?

I raise mine in a 16 x 20 ft barn with four paddocks of grass. It's fenced in just like yours, they have a barn to sleep in at night and to lay their eggs. They are rotated every three days into a new pasture, this is easily done from the inside of the coop as there is four doors that go into a sepeate paddock of grass. In the winter they are put in hoop houses to spend the day and go into a coop at night. Everything is heated to prevent eggs from freezing and keeps the chill off of the hens.

My biggest concern is not with your farm and the way you do things but with the fact that if you take your pasture out of your operation than what happens? Under the regs you can still call your layers eggs organic, you happen to be above the organics. You see that it's not right to keep poultry confined to a house if you can avoid it.

It's the laws that I dis-like. They need to be more specific, which is why we use the slogan we use.​