Peter V. Fossel - Organic Farming: How to Raise, Certify, and Market Organic Crops and Livestock

HOW TO RAISE, CERTIFY, AND MARKET ORGANIC CROPS AND LIVESTOCK

Peter V. Fossel

Dedication

To Susan Benjamin, without whose encouragement this revised edition might never have happened. She convinced me how important it was.

First published in 2007 by Voyageur Press,

an imprint of Quayside Publishing Group Inc.,

400 First Avenue North, Suite 400,

Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA

2007, 2014 Voyageur Press

Text Peter V. Fossel

Photographs by Peter V. Fossel except where noted.

All rights reserved. With the exception of quoting brief passages for the purposes of review, no part of this publication may be reproduced without prior written permission from the Publisher.

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Digital edition: 9-781-6278-8196-8
Softcover edition: 9-780-7603-4571-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fossel, Peter V.

Organic farming : how to raise, certify, and market organic crops and livestock / by Peter V. Fossel.

pages cm

Other title: How to raise, certify, and market organic crops and livestock

Includes index.

ISBN 978-0-7603-4571-9 (sc)

1. Organic farming. I. Title. II. Title: How to raise, certify, and market organic crops and livestock.

S605.5.F662 2014 631.584--dc23

2013047880

Editor: Elizabeth Noll

Design Manager: Cindy Samargia Laun

Design and layout: Rebecca Pagel

Shutterstock:

(Chaichan Chantapoon)

I love to inhale the fragrance of the fertile earthour mother. It speaks to me of days gone by, but also of days to come, because I firmly believe that without it we shall have no future.

On a vernal morning I scoop both hands into my fertile farm soil and lift it to my face with reverence, to inhale its fragrance. This heady, almost magical earth reeks of love and the forest floor, teeming with life and mystery. It is rich with beneficial microbes and fungi, bacteria, earthworms, plants, bugs, and humus. Merlin himself lies in this earth I hold in my hands. It is why I farm.

I will never be so mechanized that I cant smell the earth and know what it needsever. You may think me crazy, but it speaks to me, and I answer. Not just for me, mind you, but for those who buy my food.

Fertile earth is everything. We moved away from it in the 1940s and afterward, when chemical fertilizers made our soil little more than a planting medium whose fertility was entrusted to petrochemicals, weed control to the likes of Agent Orange, and pest control to DDT. But we are coming back now, back to earth as it were, full circle or even better. And we are coming back with something of a vengeance.

Organic food and beverage sales in the United States have grown from $1 billion in 1990 to $26.7 billion in 2010, representing a hefty 7.7 percent growth over 2009with fruits and vegetables up nearly 12 percent in that year, according to the Organic Trade Association. In fact organic fruits and vegetables now account for roughly 12 percent of all fruit and vegetable sales in the United States, the association reports.

This makes organics the fastest-growing sector of American agriculture and perhaps the most profitable. Certified organic farmland doubled between 1995 and 2000, and then doubled again between 2000 and 2005. In total there were 4 million acres of cropland and pasture dedicated to organic production in 2005, according to the USDA Economic Research Service. Today that number is estimated to have more than doubled againto roughly 8 to 10 million acres.

About the only thing growing faster are the peas and tomatoes on my farm.

So whats going on here?

A day at the farmers market; one of the most enjoyable times you can imagine.

A Matter of Taste

Health is surely part of ita big part, mind youbut you must start with taste.

Organic Means What?

The word natural is meaningless in the food world, but the word organic has a strict and powerful meaning in law. If a farmer describes his produce as certified organic it means he or she has gone through an arduous and to some extent costly process to meet USDA guidelines, requiring that produce to be raised using virtually no chemical pesticides, fertilizers, or synthetic ingredients. Both seeds and transplants are chemical free, and all fertilizer is organic as well.

Animal products must be given no antibiotics or growth hormones, fed only with organic feed, and given no medications aside from those used as vaccinations or to treat an illness.

Products labeled as one-hundred-percent organic must be guaranteed to be free of any GMOs (genetically modified organisms). Farm inputs such as fertilizer or potting soils must contain the seal of approval from the Organic Materials Research Institute (OMRI). If it doesnt have that label, it isnt organic.

Farms selling less than $5,000 worth of produce a year may call themselves organic without paying for certification, so long as they follow all rules and procedures required by formal certification. But you dont have to write a check.

I like that.

Selling out of the back of a pickup truck can be both simple and effective. This one has a roof for shade and provision for a hanging scale.

I sell my organic produce at the Orleans Farmers Market on Cape Cod. Its a destinationboth the market and the townso Europeans often stop by, or Canadians, or those from other nations, and their comments are often the same: Why does your food have no flavor? By that, they mean American food.