Why I'm Against Organic (read all the way through before you flame)

[Beekissed]

Much of the produce at the "farmer's" market doesn't come from farms, per se, but from hobbyists

Webster's says that a farm is: a piece of land(with house, barns, etc.) on which crops or animals are raised. My state defines a farm as anything 5 acres or over, buildings or not.

The condescending word "hobbyist" is something that many farmers around my state would consider fighting words....they have farmed their 50-500 acre family farms for generations and consider themselves farmers. I think its the heighth of snobbery to consider a farm a farm only if it is very large and indebted for million dollar machinery.

That attitude, right there, is what gives farmers a bad name...that whole "WE feed the nation, you smaller guys are merely hobbyists" attitude that infuriates people who work just as hard to produce food locally that you do nationally. Whether you feed 50 people per year with your crops, or 500,000...a farm is a farm. Hobbies are fun things that you do in your spare time....these folks actually derive a significant amount of their income from these farms.​

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
I'm right there with you. I have nothing against small family farms. The hobbyists I refer to are backyard gardeners rather than truck farms. Many of the farmers markets in our area are filled with folks selling extra produce on the weekends for a little extra cash. Their livelihoods don't depend upon whether they sell anything or not. Here, you typically don't find "farmers", in my sense of the word, selling their products at the farmers market. They already have markets for their produce and farmers market sales wouldn't add up to much.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

As far as the organic debate goes, this is the way I see it:

The consumer says:

"We want food that raised without pesticides or herbicides that are poisoning us".
"We want food that is raised without depleting the land or polluting the land or waterways."
"We want food from animals that are raised humanely, not given growth hormones, or fed nasty by-products".

Farmer Joe says:

"I've got just what you are asking for. I have eggs from hens that are raised in a custom built $100,000 barn with enough room for every bird to run around and express its natural behaviors. We have perches and roosts for the birds and clean nest boxes for them to lay their eggs in. The floor is covered with straw and hay for them to scratch around in and they have plenty of alfalfa covered pasture outside for them to run around in. They are fed wholesome, organic grains that were raised without any synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides. Our land is not overstocked and the pasture and cropland can take all of the manure they produce without excessive nutrient buildup. We have grass buffers between the pasture and the creek to prevent any manure runoff. These eggs are third party certified to be everything I say they are and if you have any questions you can call the certifying agency whose name is required to be on every carton. That will be $3.50 a dozen, please".

Haughty consumer, with nose in air, says:

"Well, I had no idea it would cost so much, I refuse to buy them. Besides that, I read on the internet yesterday that for your barn to be humane you need to have 2.03 square feet per bird and you only have 2.0 square feet per bird. I've also heard that you're allowed to use Rotenone to kill caterpillars".

Farmer Joe shrugs and says:

"Beats me, our hens have never been infested with caterpillars".

 

[greathorse]

Mac I tried to explain this to you before. How could someone actually trying to make some sort of a living from farming know the first thing about farming.

I think very few people understand the sort of revenue required, given the slim margins in agriculture to make any kind of profit whatsoever. If many folks had their way we would have a whole system based on part time farmers. There are many farmers now that in my mind would be viewed by many as large factory farms that do it part time because the income generated will not support doing it full time.

Small backyard hobbyists are a wonderful thing I support it, but we should be realistic in order to generate any meaningful revenue it requires an investment far beyond a few acres and a few chickens, pigs or cattle.

 

[welsummerchicks]

I can read to my heart's content what the offical gov't definition of 'organic' is, but it's still looking to me, exactly as I described - that every single potential egg buyer I talk to has a different idea of what 'organic' means to them - and many of them have absolutely no interest in what the gov't website has to say about it and are not interested in reading it. They decide what they are going to buy, and the gov't description of 'organic' is not what makes them buy or not buy - it's their own understanding of what the word means to them.

And as I described - to one lady it was about not vaccinating - she expected me not to vaccinate my chicks, if I did, she would not buy my eggs (she said, 'vaccines have mercury in them and cause autism'), another, to her it meant not to give medicated feed (I had read that was not allowed, but the vet recommended it so I went ahead and bought it).

In this area, people selling eggs in small amounts off their farms, often have signs that just say 'natural' or 'pasture raised', and avoid using 'The 'O' word'.

 

[greathorse]

If producers cant support that they follow the regs as described in the protocol they should not call their eggs organic. I agree many local producers should define the merits they can support and many customers will be happy with that.

I agree many many consumers do not know what is in the regulations. What I find troubling is that on this forum we are in a small or large way associated with agriculture in some way or another and I find a large number of folks that make no effort to understand it for themselves and even worse find all kinds of fault with agriculture if it happens to be of enough signigance in terms of mass-volume to be more than a bit of a hobby. We need farmers, we need farmers that can produce enough food to feed the cities and folks that cant wont grow their own. Frankly that is most of this population.

I am only asking that we give the hard working farmers even those that have some scale their due. Many of them are family farms that work day and night to grow food for this nation and others

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
The best you can do is to understand it yourself and try to educate them or you can tell them that you will gladly provide custom produced eggs for $10 a dozen.

You can't say that nobody understands it. Our cooperative has around 100 producers that keep a total of 500,000 hens. The cooperative sold somewhere around 11,000,000 dozen USDA Certified Organic eggs last year and that is just a small portion of Organic egg sales in this country. I sold over 2,000 dozen direct to consumers from our farm and while I had a few people ask me what "organic" production meant, I never had anybody ask me anything more in depth than that.

 

[welsummerchicks]

"farmers market products come from hobbyists"....

Depends on the farmer's market. In the small markets in rural areas, perhaps, but quite a few 'farmer's markets' in this region are supplied by large producers. It just is a different look and feel at a 'farmer's market', but in the back, are the big trucks unloading. No, not all, but farmer's markets really are very diverse.

I can say that the people who've talked to me about eggs don't seem to understand the gov't designation - several didn't even know it existed. And EVERYONE seemed to have a different 'enfant terrible'.

Myself, I have no gripe against either 'hobbyists' or 'commercial farmers'. Of the large scale farmers and livestock people I happen to know all appear to be doing a bang up job managing their land, minimizing erosion and runoff, and producing quality products with a minimum of 'chemicals'.

Some who try to do produce on a small holding, or go without chemicals and commercial products are spending more per unit of product, but some are only doing their product in order to get a real estate tax reduction, and as long as they have the income to put into the product, they are ok. Not all feel the same, though, and for these folks the product does have to 'make more sense' economically.

The idea that full time large scale farmers are struggling financially. I think in some regions with some products, it's quite true. Many of the smaller dairy operations have struggled for years in this area. But with wheat and corn prices increasing robustly, some are doing rather well. Producing specialty hays is doing well in this area.

Further, there is so much interaction between small and large scale holdings, that I am not sure drawing a line between 'hobbyist' and 'other' really makes sense. They all have ties to each other. For example we have small scale, artisanal cheese makers who buy volume milk from large dairy farms as well as some milk from smaller producers and sell locally in small markets. The small scale producers often buy hay, bedding, even livestock, from the larger scale operations.

It's a complex web of interaction, and I think it's going to get much more complex. Straw production being diverted over to stove pellets, grains being funneled into ethanol production, wealthy folks producing small volume products to get real estate tax reductions, booming population of exotic animals, businesses that at least in part cater to the new rural population (riding stables, llamas, gourmet products) etc.

 

[hughmac312]

hmmm, which came first the population of the pollution of crops...

synthetically supporting growth of animals and produce strikes me as contrary to nature

The creation of the "Golden Grain", industrial farming techniques, and high energy use is global destruction.

Balance is everything and the greed of a very few is bringing this world to a point of no return. And the richest X percent
of this world will be in the best position, initially, to survive the coming crash of nature. Our oceans are being systematically
polluted, diluted, and reconstituted to a point where many species will disappear and when that happens there will be a
crisis that will make all our other crises look small.

 

[95yj]

I agree with what many people are saying about monsanto, that is a truly evil company corrupt by greed. However as for boycotting, unless you are entirely self suffishent (sp?) that would be very hard. Monsanto's seeds are in everything, from bread to soda and of course chicken feed. As for farmers markets the one in my town is actually really good, it has a mix of "hobbyists" (to sell on this level you have to be a darn dedicated hobbyist, especially with all the regulations in mass.) right next to the hard core farmers still scratching a living from the dirt in the middle of suburbia, and everything in between. I think it provides a really good jumping off point for somebody not quite ready to take the plunge and quit there day job to farm full time, but who is interested and wants to get there feet wet. As for the term organic being defined, yes it has, by the U.S. government, however they have included so many variables (either to keep options open for farmers or by accident) that its nearly impossible to tell how your food has been grown unless you have seen it, I would still much rather by stuff from the guy down the road.