What makes organic?

[WindcrestChickens]

Wow...that is sort of nuts...bordering on silly. It's a shame that the whole point of organic can be regulated to such and extent, but then again I suppose there are all good reasons.

Oh well. I will happily eat my omelet and serve them to my family!

Do any of you sell your eggs? I will go find a thread about that next....curious as to how people do it.

Thanks

 

[Dennis1979]

I've said it before I know, but here goes again; "Organic" is meaningless. It is big business now and what the USDA will allow to be certified organic would really surprise you. The USDA and big agribusiness concerns are heavily "educating" the general public that organic is good and is an alternative to all the c_ _ p they have been producing for the last 40 years when it is pretty much the same thing. Even if it was meaningful, they continue their war against the rebellious small producer by making a ridiculous certification process that only someone with a lot of money can actually do. The USDA does not want you to produce your own food and by god, they don't want you selling it to anyone. I mean what if it caught on? What if everyone started doing that? If people begin to taste good wholesome food, they might want more and this would hurt Tyson, and ADM. Can't have that. (Sorry, my anarchist side is showing)

Most backyard eggs and backyard chickens whether raised on organic feed or not, are hundreds of times better tasting, more nutritious, less toxic and raised more humanely than anything labeled organic in the grocery store. Anyway, the term organic would only be useful to someone you don't know and never see. If you are giving eggs to friends or selling them, then you will likely be dealing directly with people. You can tell them how you raise your chickens and how much better your eggs are and then let the eggs speak for themselves. Once they eat the eggs, they will never care whether they are organic or not.

Dennis

 

[MissPrissy]

I agree 100%, Dennis.

 

[WindcrestChickens]

I love anarchists Dennis - thanks!

We have lived on our farm for only 11 months, and in that time each new area of self-sufficient living that we explore is a real eye opener.

 

[greyfields]

I would always recommend buying organic if it's an alternative to the now 'traditional' factory farming methods. You would be surprised how many "little guys" there are in the organic program who have done better than they ever would have if not for the organic program.

Ultimately, as a farmer, Organic will be more cost effective for you int he long run as your imputs are far cheaper (with the exception of the food). But, with the sticker on your food products, you can charge enough to cover that.

So, if you want to raise organic eggs or broilers:

1) Get your pastures certified organic. This is easy as long as you haven't reseeded or used chemicals in the last 3 years.

2) Build yourself a tractor or two. Replace the pressure-treated timbers with recycled plastic, they will last farm longer anyhow.

3) From the first day of life forward, they must be given a certified organic ration. If your pastuers are certified, it's a very small step to get it certified for field crops as well. You can grown your own organic crops and cut way back on feed costs. Things like field peas, oats, rye, wheat etc. the chickens will harvest themselves with no added inputs other than the seed.

4) For hens, they must have access to pasture. Chicken tractors and portable electric netting qualify.... although it's less work if you let your birds out of the tractor during the day and let them forage. Less work meaning you hvae to move them less often.

5) Use a certified organic processor for organic broilers. You can process the eggs yourself, within your state rules, and then put the organic sticker on the boxes.

As ANY organic inspector will tell you, we people doing this here in the backyard are exactly the ones they want becoming certified organic. They will really help out the little guy when it comes time to fill out your paperwork.

Just about 4 more months for me and then I can turn the paperwork in. That will be 3 years here with no prohibited substances used.

 

[greyfields]

By the way, in the long run, over your lifetime...

I would be FAR FAR FAR more concerned with pesticide residues on your fruit and vegetables than any antibiotics going into your meat. That's from my perspective.

 

[WindcrestChickens]

Hi there...How big is your set up? I am pretty much thinking it would be a huge undertaking for me, as our Christmas tree farm uses fertilizers etc, that won't qualify. We are looking into that as well for an organic cert. but I truly am feeling like it makes it harder on the little guy as Dennis mentioned.

I dont know...it is worth opening up the discussion though, as many people have offered great insight.

As a family our first step has been in addressing the foods we eat/bring in to the house. My garden is being grown organically (as in my own criteria) but boy do I miss the results of Miracle Grow....sigh

 

[jadude]

I would buy all natural feed and then say my eggds are
Cage free, All natural (no hormones orr antibiotics)
Organic has to be certified by the usda and every thing going into them has to be organic

 

[greyfields]

You can fertilize under organic rules, you just cannot use synthetic fertilizers. We use the following, which are all natural substances, which are allowed:

seed meal (N)
bone meal (P)
kelp meal (K)
lime

You can section off a portion if your farm to be organic, with adequate barriers to traditional crops. It's not an all or nothing proposition.

I have 25 acres and farm and additional 15 or so. For me, just being able to make organic hay soon is going to make all the paper work very much worth it.

 

[Dennis1979]

I guess my big question is why even go to the effort to get organic certified? I ask this in all honesty. If the reason is to compete somehow against the grocery store organic stuff, it seems to me the cards are stacked against you and you cannot win. It is not an apples-to-apples comparison anyway. Your organic is going to be much better than their organic but to the rest of the world, organic has a single meaning. If you are marketing locally, your customers should recognize the superiority of your product over anything from the grocery store. So to me it seems like you just spend a lot of your potential profit on the organic label.

For my hopefully soon-to-be chicken raising program, I have determined that to be 100% organic will be prohibitively expensive and unnecessary to produce high quality poultry. This is my belief (but I have raised nery a bird as of yet). I still think I am very organic though. I have an organic garden. We don’t fertilize our lawn or use any chemicals (but my neighbors probably do). I will feed my chickens conventional feed but most likely no meds in the feed and definitely no recycled chicken parts or other meat in the food. The chickens will get to range which should really improve quality.

So my thinking is that if you want to produce organic food for your family then do it but use your own definition of organic, not the USDA definition. I say do what you think is best and makes the most sense. If it is for your family, the cost may not be as important to you as the quality of the food, however if you want to get certified so you can sell product labeled organic, you are at an instant disadvantage built-in to the system precisely to keep you out of the market.

I’m a CPA so of course I have “run the numbers”. I have budgeted and analyzed as many of the cost variables as I can think of. My estimates tell me that to go completely organic on a pastured broiler operation will result in a cost per bird (including overhead) of $15 - $17 (versus $7 if raised on conventional feed). At the current market prices for a pastured broiler of say between $3.25 and 4.25 per pound, you don’t make much money. In fact, if the operation is small - say less than 1,000 birds per year - you are most likely going to lose money. It would make more sense to take your money and put it in a CD.

So again, the point I try to make is that what you or I have to do and what we most likely would want to do to become organic, will necessarily take more effort and cost more money than that expended by Tyson, Pilgrims Pride, et al and to that extent, the playing field is unfair. USDA organic says that they can still raise their chickens in giant confinement houses with their beaks cut off living in a tiny little square foot of space. They are still going to chill the dressed birds in a chill tank full of fecal matter. They are going to allow the chicken to soak up to 10% of its weight in that water so they can charge the customer for the added weight. Even though the USDA says I can do all that if I want to, I won’t. So while the feed they use is organic and there are no antibiotics or hormones used, it still doesn’t fit my personal definition of organic.

Dennis