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Here’s What You Need to Know About The Organic Standard Changes
Here’s What You Need to Know About The Organic Standard Changes
by Jason Arnold | Sep 7, 2017 | Business Mgt & Operations, Farm & Business Planning | 0 comments
The Organic standards could soon exclude your farm from ever being certified.
You’ve probably heard about the organic standards changing. But you might not know what’s actually happening and how it impacts your farm. Whether you’re currently an organic farmer, or if you’ve had even a fleeting thought about getting certified, changing standards can impact your ability to sell and grow great food.
In this article, we’re going to discuss what’s happening in the NOSB and USDA, and why soilless farms should have the option to get certified organic.
Here’s what’s happening
The National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) is a board of 14 people that make recommendations to the USDA regarding the organic standards – what they should be and how they should change.
Currently, the NOSB is considering a recommendation that the USDA bans hydroponic, aquaponic, aeroponic, and other container-based growing methods from the organic standards. (Currently, growers using these methods are able to receive organic certification under the USDA’s National Organic Program.)
If the USDA were to take such a recommendation, it would bar soilless farmers from ever being certified organic.
The option would be off the table – probably forever. This would put the hydroponic and aquaponic industries at a disadvantage and could even impact traditional organic farmers as well by deleting a significant portion of the organic community.
The NOSB’s upcoming recommendation will impact real farmers across the U.S.
To protect the business options of farmers and future farmers, it is critical that members of the hydroponic, aquaponic, and aeroponic community make their voices heard by the NOSB. The ultimate goal is to ensure that consumers can continue to have an ample supply of reasonably priced organic fresh produce.
How do I get involved?
There’s a lack of information regarding how hydro-, aqua-, and aeroponics work and how changed standards would impact farmers. The best way to make sure your voice is heard is to tell the NOSB how this decision will affect you and your farming business. The NOSB will take your comments into account as they prepare for a vote on October 31st.
Click here right now to make a comment.
It’s not always easy to sit down and articulate your comment, so we’ve outlined the four main issues surrounding the decision about banning growing methods. These are the primary arguments to keep organic on the table.
4 reasons to allow soilless organics
1) Soilless grown produce is robust, safe, and nutritious like consumers deserve.
The Organic label was created to signify safety, sustainability, and responsibility in food. Consumers depend on the organic label to signify that food is:
- Free of unsafe or unhealthy pesticides and fertilizers
- Resource efficient with effective cycling and recycling of inputs through the farm
- Free from harmful impacts to the air, water, and surrounding land.
- Created in humane and healthy conditions
Hydroponic and aquaponic production, like any farm, can align with these criteria.
The purpose of the Organic label is to encourage growers to grow great food, not restrict them.
One great example of how hydroponics and aquaponics support responsible resource use and nutritious food is the decrease in food miles. Hydroponic and aquaponic systems can be built indoors, enabling fresh produce to be grown close to the consumer all year round, eliminating hundreds or thousands of miles of transportation.
Locally grown fresh foods also provide better nutrients. The Harvard T.H. Chan Center for Public Health reports that “even when the highest post-harvest handling standards are met, foods grown far away spend significant time on the road, and therefore have more time to lose nutrients before reaching the marketplace.” (1)
When food is grown regionally or locally using indoor hydroponics and aquaponics, the consumer gets a richer nutritional profile, and the environment benefits from a shorter supply chain. The bottom line: hydroponics and aquaponics don’t block better food; they empower it.
2) Soilless growing contributes to the economy and strengthens food security
Modern farmers, empowered with appropriate tools and technology, are able to grow food in areas where fresh, local food has never been possible before. Doing so helps more people have access to nutritious food in previously unthinkable locations:
- Urban food deserts
- Northern latitudes
- Areas that lack abundant ground and surface water
This is helping a new generation of farmers in both urban and rural locations as they face difficult growing conditions and even more difficult economics. Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) allows more people to grow food and access markets. (3)
According to former Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, “Urban agriculture helps strengthen the health and social fabric of communities while creating economic opportunities for farmers and neighborhoods.”
Hydroponics and aquaponics empower people to grow anywhere, all year long.
As part of the Upstart University community, you know this better than most. Your innovative spirit and commitment to your community are the beating heart of the Upstart Farmer network.
Click here to submit it this as comment to the NOSB.
3) Soilless growing doesn’t subtract the power of sun and soil; it amplifies it.
There are numerous studies about the benefits of Organic crops grown in soil with careful attention to the biological composition of the soil. Many organic farmers will claim that since we continue to learn more about the biology in organic production systems, the potential unknown benefits of producing in soil is worth excluding hydroponic and aquaponic production methods.
Unfortunately, the anti-hydroponic activists take advantage of the fact that most members of the general public do not have a degree in microbiology. By using words like “unnatural, sterile, robo-crops,” they deliberately try to to confuse the public about the realities of hydroponic or aquaponic production methods. It is up to us to set the record straight.
Indeed, studies show that Organic aquaponic and hydroponic production relies on a robust microflora in the root zone – made of the same types and numbers of bacteria and fungi that thrive in soil.
Click here to submit this as a comment to the NOSB.
4) Small farms need assistance getting to market.
Small and independently owned farms often struggle to beat the economics of the start up world and often rely on a second or third income stream to support their farm (6). The price premium that is associated with organic crops helps to support small, medium, and large farms, both locally and regionally.
Should growers using innovative approaches to produce organically be punished for doing something new?
The Organic label assists many small farmers to maintain a business.
Click here to submit this as a comment to the NOSB.
The bottom line? Organic standards should adapt to new techniques instead of dismissing them.
If the goal of the Organic label is to empower more consumers with organically grown produce, then hydroponics and aquaponics have a lot to offer. It doesn’t make sense to restrict or exclude these methods from the Organic label.
However, restriction is what will happen if farmers like you don’t speak up. Luckily, speaking up is easy; the easy way to make sure your voice is heard is to make a comment to the NOSB. The NOSB will take your comments into account as they prepare for a vote on October 15th.
Here are 4 easy way to comment:
- Go to the NOSB Organic Comments page and write a message telling the NOSB that you believe your growing methods should remain organic.
- Sign up to give a three-minute testimony at the October 24 and 26 webinars.
- Sign up to attend the Fall Meeting in person and provide in-person three-minute testimony.
- Contact your federal congressional representatives and tell them you want the NOSB to retain the organic eligibility of sustainable growing methods like aquaponics, hydroponics, and aeroponics. Click here to enter your zip code and find your representatives.
Agrotechnology Prepares For its Arrival in Brazil And The US
Agrotechnology Prepares For its Arrival in Brazil And The US
The Alicante company Agrotechnology Group has accelerated its plans for international growth. The biofertilizer company is preparing its entry into Brazil and the US, two of the World's main markets.
With it the company plans to reach a turnover of 40 million euros in 2021, which means quadrupling its current size, according to Enrique Riquelme, CEO of the company. The group closed the first half of the year with a 40% growth in revenues.
The company has focused this growth on new markets. "In five years the international business has gone from 10% to 55% and the goal is to reach 80% at the end of the strategic plan in 2021," says Riquelme.
The company has committed its strategy to Latin America and North America, regions where a 40% growth is expected over the next three years in the biofertilizer business for organic crops. "There are no export tariff barriers, but there are phytosanitary ones, and being able to export to zero waste standards is what food companies are looking for to open new markets," explains the manager.
As for its expansion to the US, the company already has products registered for marketing. "It is a mature market but the legislation is simpler than in Europe", emphasizes Riquelme. He acknowledges that the competition is complicated, with giants of the sector such as Monsanto, but maintains that its segment of customers is different from that of the multinational.
Together with the US, the company plans to open offices in Brazil, Argentina, Poland, Germany and Italy, in addition to those already in Chile, Mexico and Peru. "Then China will arrive," he announced.
Riquelme argues that there is a shift in the sector towards more sustainable crops, with a growing demand for organic food. "Consumers are looking for products that are grown more naturally and distribution tends to offer more. It is the answer to this demand that gives meaning to our company," he argues. The Alicantino group was already focused on fertilizers of this type, which is why it is better positioned than the great companies that dominate the sector.
Source: cincodias.elpais.com
Bananas, Bananas Everywhere, But Not A One To Eat
How can a single viral strain be capable of wiping out all of the world’s bananas? The scary answer lies in our modern agricultural practices which focus on profit over sustainability. Ninety-nine percent of the bananas eaten in the developed world are of just one varietal called Cavendish, meaning it only takes one deadly illness to wipe out the whole lot.
Bananas, Bananas Everywhere, But Not A One To Eat
Kaveri Marathe | Interested in energy & environmental issues, entrepreneurship & startups. All views my own.
Nov 15, 2016
Eating Organic Isn’t Just For Hipsters
News has swirled in recent years that the banana industry is in crisis — a virus called Tropical Race 4 is, like its name suggests, rapidly spreading around the globe crippling the world’s banana plantations. How can a single viral strain be capable of wiping out all of the world’s bananas? The scary answer lies in our modern agricultural practices which focus on profit over sustainability. Ninety-nine percent of the bananas eaten in the developed world are of just one varietal called Cavendish, meaning it only takes one deadly illness to wipe out the whole lot.
What is monoculture?
Monoculture is the establishment of a single plant varietal on a, typically large, swathe of farmland. These varietals are grown season after season, without any crop rotation. Crop rotation, which was the standard method of farming for millennia along with the use of animal waste as fertilizer, ensured that countervailing nutrients passed into and out of the soil and interrupted the life cycles of harmful insects that were typically attracted to a certain plant. These natural processes have been replaced with the use of huge quantities of synthetic fertilizers for nutrients and pesticides to repel insects.
So what?
Ninety-two percent of the world’s water goes to agriculture, but more than half of it is wasted.
Proponents of monoculture claim it allows for greater yields of crops by isolating and selecting for certain qualities, like insect-repulsion, heartiness, beauty and increased flowering, through breeding. As our global population continues to grow, the production of sufficient quantities of food will be crucial to alleviating hunger and poverty. The drawbacks, however, could be even more damaging to our long-term ecology than the risk of not having enough food. (I will note also that humans globally waste 1/3 of the food we produce.)
The problems resulting from the widespread use of agricultural monocultures are numerous. I’ll break down the basics:
Pesticides: Genetically homogenous plants grown in monocultures do not have the natural defense system to fight off pests, so increasing quantities of pesticides are employed by farmers. Pesticide residue on fruits and vegetables has been shown to cause neurological problems in children and adults. Runoff can enter bodies of water and groundwater, impacting the quality of our drinking water and the health of the fish and birds that rely on those sources. Populations of beneficial microorganisms in soil also dwindle due to pesticides, as well as those of many non-target animals, such as bees, bats, spiders, fish and river dolphins.
Water: Agriculture accounts for 92% of the world’s water usage. Moreover, agriculture wastes 60% of the water it uses through leaky infrastructure, poor application techniques, and the cultivation of especially “thirsty” crops. Agricultural water use has certainly contributed to the current extreme drought California is facing.
Fertilizer: Excess fertilizer escapes fields as runoff into water sources and as gas into the atmosphere. In the water, these can cause eutrophication, which depletes oxygen from the water and kills the plants and fish living in it. It can also escape into the atmosphere as nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas that depletes the ozone layer. Furthermore, production of the primary elements in fertilizer — nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium (NPK) — are expensive or limited. Nitrogen can be collected from the air, but only through a carbon-intensive production process. Phosphorous and potassium, meanwhile, only exist in limited quantities on Earth and they’re running out. Without them, food production is impossible.
Declining nutrient content: Crops of the past offered far more nutrients than crops do today, per calorie consumed. Modern agricultural methods, like close planting and the focus on yields, result in plants being unable to develop strong root systems and, in turn, being unable to absorb as many nutrients. Modern plants have between 10–25% fewer nutrients today than in the past. Not only that, but by investing in monoculture, we also eliminate variety in our diets, leading to illness and obesity.
Super weeds & superinsects: Modern agriculture attempts to subvert nature by biologically altering our plants to resist weeds and bugs, but nature is fighting back. Weeds and insects have begun to evolve to counteract the effects of pesticides and herbicides, creating a vicious cycle in which we are developing ever-more-toxic chemicals to ward off our agricultural foes.
This brings me back to the banana story. The irony is that this is not the first instance of the world’s bananas falling prey to a deadly virus. Beginning in 1903, the predecessor of the Cavendish, the Gros Michel, a sweeter, creamier banana, was wiped out by a cousin of the Tropical Race 4, the Race 1 virus. The Cavendish was one varietal (among many) that was resistant to the virus and, thus, chosen to replace it on plantations across the globe. Clearly the banana masterminds were not thinking long term and banana plantation owners are now having trouble finding a species that can replace the Cavendish. The reason? Tropical Race 4 came from “one of the ancient cradles of banana civilization,” Malaysia. There, it had the time to evolve into a super-virus, capable of tackling even the well-adapted native Malaysian bananas. Foreign bananas didn’t stand a chance. The current plight of the bananas is just one example of the dangers of monoculture — hopefully we’ll learn our lesson and shift back towards more sustainable forms of agriculture. In the meantime, it’s a good reason to buy local and organic.
Antonio Ruiz, of Murgiverde: "The Netherlands Wants Hydroponic Crops To Be Accredited As Organic"
Antonio Ruiz, of Murgiverde: "The Netherlands Wants Hydroponic Crops To Be Accredited As Organic"
The Netherlands confirms that Spanish organic production is illicit
The quick expansion of the reenhouse acreage planted with organic vegetables in Spain has led to criticism from the Netherlands, where they confirm that Spain has more than 1,000 hectares of organic greenhouses built on plots where producers have used soil from other places.
The Dutch agriculture lobby claims that the European rules for organic farming require the crops to be planted on certified organic soil. There are strict regulations when it comes to the origin and status of the soil, although there is an exception for Scandinavian producers, who can certify their products as organic when grown on organic soil in containers. However, this exemption will be phased out over the next ten years, as recently announced by the EU.
"Although producers in southern Europe also requested an exemption so that soil on bedrock can also meet these standards, the EU did not respond to their request. Organic production in Spain will therefore have to comply with the general rules, and at the moment, it cannot be certified as organic," said Dutch deputy Tjeerd de Groot, of the party D66, who asked for further clarification on the issue, because he believes that this results in unfair competition with Dutch growers and other European producers who are required to meet strict standards."
The Dutch deputy has asked the secretary of state to clarify things as regards the Spanish method of "cultivation of organic products on bedrock with the help of auxiliary soil."
It is worth noting that hydroponic cultivation with coconut substrate, very common in the Netherlands, is not certified or recognised as organic by the EU.
According to the commercial director of one of the largest Spanish companies producing organic vegetables, the Almeria-based Murgiverde, which has more than 400 hectares devoted to organic farming from a total of around 1500 hectares in production, "the Netherlands has problems with its high water table (an accumulation of groundwater that is located at a relatively small depth below ground level). We do not have this problem in Spain and we enjoy a clear competitive advantage. For this reason, the Dutch lobby is pushing even the EU to accept hydroponic farming as organic through certifications," explains Antonio Ruiz Rodríguez.
"We have a lot more (and more natural) soil, and they do not have this advantage. Every country seeks to defend its own interests; it is normal," says Antonio Ruiz. "The Netherlands, for example, will continue to have huge logistical advantages over us," he adds.
Organic farming is a strategic business area for Murgiverde, even though its profitability has been declining in recent years. "Prices for organic products will continue to fall, because supply is growing above demand, so I believe that organic crops will eventually replace conventional crops. We think that this is the best way to ensure the survival of producers, as the price wars in conventional products are reaching unsustainable levels."
Publication date: 8/28/2017
Author: Joel Pitarch Diago
Copyright: www.freshplaza.com
The Perils of Pesticide Drift
The Perils of Pesticide Drift
By Sara Novak on August 18, 2017
Running an organic operation in a sea of conventional farms isn’t easy. One waft of pesticide from a neighbor, and tens of thousands of dollars—and your organic certification—is down the drain. But there’s hope in the air. PHOTO BY: Daniel Martin
`Chemical spraying misses its mark with alarming frequency, and neighboring farms—especially organic ones—often pay the price. Luckily, hope is in the air.
“It’s like riding down the highway and expecting to keep the exhaust from your car within the boundaries of the road.”
ANDREW AND MELISSA DUNHAM spent years transforming their farm, which has been in his family for five generations, from a conventional producer of corn, soy, and alfalfa into a diversified operation with 40 different kinds of fruits and vegetables, a herd of 20 grass-fed cattle, even a few beehives. Finally, in May 2009, the couple’s 80 acres in Grinnell, Iowa—now named Grinnell Heritage Farm—became certified organic.
Just two months later, the Dunhams’ pickers spotted a crop duster flying low over nearby seed-corn fields, then noticed a cloud creeping toward them. The crew got out of the way as a fog of fungicide descended on two acres of hay, effectively revoking the acreage’s organic certification for three years, the chemical-free transition period required by the USDA.
The Dunhams’ farm regained full certification in 2012, and the following year, trouble was in the air again. “I could smell it,” says Andrew. “A metallic smell, like a railroad tie.” On the back of a 15-mph wind, a plume of insecticide from a spraying rig began wafting onto the Dunhams’ asparagus. Andrew jumped in his car and rushed to the neighbors’ farm. “To their credit, they stopped spraying,” he says. But the damage had been done: The tainted acre cost the Dunhams tens of thousands of dollars during the three years the produce couldn’t be sold at premium organic prices.
Andrew (left) and Melissa Dunham, both 37, operate an organic farm in Grinnell, IA, that has twice fallen victim to pesticide drift. PHOTO: Kathryn Gamble
Grinnell Heritage Farm is an island of sustainable agriculture in a sea of commodity crops. Iowa leads the nation in corn and soy production, with 13.8 million acres of corn and 9.5 million acres of soybeans that together generated $14.6 billion in revenue last year. The state is also a hotbed of chemical application. Most of its farm acreage is sprayed with herbicide twice a season. Roundup Ready seed remains the norm, but many producers don’t stop at glyphosate; they also apply other powerful weed killers, such as atrazine, and insecticides, including neonicotinoids.
The Dunhams attempted to mitigate their risk by posting “No Spraying” signs and installing a 30-foot-deep perimeter of buffer shrubs; both methods obviously proved inadequate. “Applications usually result in some deposition away from the targeted site,” accord- ing to an Environmental Protection Agency spokesperson.
Though neither the EPA nor various state agencies could provide reliable statistics on the total number of drift incidents, experts agree that reported cases represent the mere tip of the iceberg. “We don’t have a good count due to underreporting,” explains Linda Wells, the Midwest director of organizing for the nonprofit Pesticide Action Network. “Many people neglect to report or do not know who to report to.” In Iowa, it’s the state department of agriculture’s pesticide bureau, which offers no online information about reporting drift. Mark Hanna, an extension agricultural engineer with Iowa State University, says, “The state receives around 200 drift complaints per year, but it’s difficult to grasp the magnitude of the problem.”
In one test, a plane retrofitted with 80 of these temporary vortex generators reduced chemical drift by 40 to 45 percent. PHOTO: Daniel Martin
Minimizing it, however, may be possible. Drones can hover close and spray with great precision, and electrostatic spraying uses an electric charge to attract pesticide droplets to target plants. Both technologies are still years away from widespread implementation, but a potential quick fix has emerged out of the USDA’s Aerial Application Technology Research Unit (AATRU) in College Station, Texas. Large-scale farms like the ones surrounding the Dunhams’ typically opt for aerial application over ground-rig spraying, because planes cover huge swaths faster, decreasing the time workers must be sidelined (per EPA regulations that prohibit them from reentering treated areas for up to 72 hours).
Starting in 2013, Daniel Martin, a research engineer at the AATRU, and his colleagues conducted a study to determine how small wing-mounted blades called vortex generators (VGs)—intended to increase pilot control of commercial and military airplanes—might affect the way agricultural aircraft spray chemicals. Martin’s team outfitted planes with VGs and used dye in place of pesticides. In one test, the VGs reduced the amount of drift by 40 to 45 percent.
Martin, 50, hypothesizes that the tiny vortexes created by VGs help pull pesticide spray down below the plane, thus preventing it from getting caught in the airflow coming off the wings, which can cause the droplets to drift off target (see “How Vortex Generators Work,” below left). He continues to test the concept, and hopes that aerial applicators will retrofit their planes with VGs (at a cost of only about $2,000 per plane).
Illustration by Susan Huyse
David Eby, a veteran aerial applicator in Wakarusa, Indiana, believes that pesticide drift will persist as long as wind and human error remain factors. “It’s like riding down the highway and expecting to keep the exhaust from your car within the boundaries of the road,” he explains. Nevertheless, the 68-year-old is intrigued by the prospect of VGs. “Reducing drift is a win for everybody,” says Eby, whose firm received only one such com- plaint after spraying 375,000 acres in 2016. Already, he employs a digital service called FieldWatch, which allows farmers with vulnerable crops and livestock to register their properties online, alerting aerial applicators to sensitive zones.
Though the Dunhams listed Grinnell Heritage Farm on FieldWatch earlier this year, they’re not overly optimistic. The couple managed to recoup some of their drift-related losses after settling with the applicators’ insurance carriers—but only after producing years’ worth of records and receipts. “It was an all- consuming task,” Andrew explains. “I’d rather have been in the fields.”
Chinese Consumers Increasingly Seek Organic
The Chinese government has required a deepening of supply-side structural reform in agriculture, improving of the sector's structure, the promoting of green production and innovation, and the extending of the sector's industrial and value chain.
Chinese Consumers Increasingly Seek Organic
As the Chinese pay more attention to food safety, customized farm produce, grown without using pesticides or fertilizers, is attracting growing interest from well-off urban consumers, especially the young.
The Internet is assisting supply-side reform in agriculture. Customers can rent a piece of land online and choose which varieties of vegetables they want to have grown there. Many farms have cameras so that customers can monitor the growth of their produce on their mobile phones or computers.
"This not only ensures green food, but also offers an opportunity for our family to enjoy pastoral scenery during our free time," said Xu Li, a Changchun resident.
"Our fruit and vegetables are all organic. We adopted a membership model for the sale and delivery of produce to our clients," Chen Zhao, general manager of Chunjiangyan farm in Nongan County, Changchun, said at the 16th China Changchun International Agriculture and Food Fair, which closed Sunday.
The farm has 47 vegetable and fruit greenhouses and 1,000 members. Each day, more than 100 Changchun residents receive vegetables delivered from the farm, according to Chen.
The Chinese government has required a deepening of supply-side structural reform in agriculture, improving of the sector's structure, the promoting of green production and innovation, and the extending of the sector's industrial and value chain.
According to a report released last year by Ali Research Institute affiliated to e-commerce giant Alibaba, China had 65 million "online green consumers" in 2015, 15 times as many as in 2011, showing a strong growth in demand for organic produce.
Read more at news.xinhuanet.com
Hydroponics Proposals See Little Agreement From Organic Advisory Board
Hydroponics Proposals See Little Agreement From Organic Advisory Board
In a webcast discussion, members did not see eye-to-eye on whether plants grown outside of traditional soil environments could receive the USDA certification.
Author Megan Poinski@meganpoinski
August 17, 2017
Listening to the National Organic Standards Board’s discussion Monday afternoon on hydroponic crops, one thing was clear: There is no consensus on whether crops grown without soil should be able to be certified organic.
“Clearly, this is not an easy subject to resolve,” said Tom Chapman, the board's chairman. “It’s been on the board’s agenda since 1995.”
The panel, which advises the U.S. Department of Agriculture on issues dealing with certified organic food and ingredients, has passed the hydroponic issue from meeting agenda to meeting agenda for years. The board has discussed and failed to act on proposals several times. An April vote on the issue was deferred, with members saying they needed more time, research and input from stakeholders in the organic community.
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Monday’s meeting was a web conference call for members of the public to listen to board members discuss where they stood on potential proposals on hydroponics, aquaponics and container-grown produce. No votes were taken and no finalized proposals were discussed. The next time the board may take action on the issue is at its fall meeting from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2.
The regulations dealing with whether hydroponic crops can be certified organic are unclear. Last November, the Cornucopia Institute filed a formal legal complaint against USDA, claiming while the NOSB has barred hydroponics from bearing the organic seal, USDA has allowed more than 100 foreign and domestic growers to receive the certification.
In 2010, the NOSB issued a recommendation that stated “Hydroponics...certainly cannot be classified as certified organic growing methods due to their exclusion of the soil-plant ecology intrinsic to organic farming systems and USDA/(National Organic Program) regulations governing them.”
A motion to allow hydroponic crops to be considered organic was on the table for the fall NOSB meeting in 2016, but not voted on because it was unlikely to pass. Instead, members passed a resolution that stated a consensus of members wanted to prohibit hydroponic systems from being used that were entirely water-based.
On Monday, Chapman said he’d be likely to support the 2010 recommendation — but the problem is that it doesn’t truly address what’s prohibited. Are there substances that can be used for growing more hydroponic-based crops? And if so, what would be allowed?
“Clearly, this is not an easy subject to resolve. It’s been on the board’s agenda since 1995.”
Tom Chapman Chairman, National Organic Standards Board
“We know this is a controversial topic, so I’ve tried to find things that are on common ground for the whole NOSB and work our way up from it,” said member Steve Ela.
There wasn’t much common ground, however. Some members of the board said they would support certifying hydroponic systems.
When discussion moved to aquaponic systems — where fish live in the tanks of the liquid used to grow crops — members were divided. Some said they should be prohibited because of the untreated waste from the fish going straight into the crops, which would not be permitted for organic crops growing in soil. But others said there has not been much study on any negative impacts, so not enough is known to take a stance on this issue.
Heated discussion also took place on how much soil or water would be needed in container-grown crops. A potential "compromise" proposal from the NOSB’s Crops Committee set limits to what would be needed for an organic crop – only 20% could be supplied by liquid feeding, no more than 50% of nutrients could be added after the crop was planted, and at least 50% of the container would have to be from a substrate such as compost. Supporters said this was based on similar limits set in the EU, which has also struggled with the issue.
Members had mixed opinions. Some felt one of the main benefits of organic farming was using the crops to improve soil over time — something that this sort of farming would not do. Others said setting hard limits of amounts that can be used in a container and not allowing more flexibility could be detrimental. Another group on the panel said the fact that some growers using these methods are already certified as organic would cause economic harm.
“There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground that’s acceptable,” Chapman said.
Members of the Crops Committee pledged to revisit their proposals before the fall meeting, but there are no guarantees that the issue will be included on the agenda — or would be voted on even if it’s there. After the board did not vote on anything dealing with hydroponics at its April meeting, many said they thought it would be unlikely to see any action on the issue at all this year.
Follow Megan Poinski on Twitter
Lettuce That’s Head and Shoulders Above The Rest: Real Dirt
Lettuce That’s Head and Shoulders Above The Rest: Real Dirt
Quality soil is the secret to Greenbelt’s irresistible, award-winning lettuces.
Ian Adamson, president of Greenbelt Microgreens, and head grower Alice Farris show off their totally organic lettuces that have won an Agri-food Award of Excellence from the Ontario government. (SONIA DAY)
By SONIA DAY | Fri., June 23, 2017
Let us talk about lettuce.
The truth is, I’ve wimped out. I no longer grow any. The likes of Lactuca sativa got banished from my garden, because infuriating intruders kept beating me to the punch.
Caterpillars, earwigs, rabbits, groundhogs, birds, deer . . . They all dropped by. Plus, of course, slugs, scores of those slithery, slimy horrors that sneak in after dark. And chomp, chomp. The next morning, fantasies of fresh salad fixings vanished — faster than ice cream in a heat wave.
There was also the bothersome business of bolting. Just about every lettuce variety I tried went whoosh, like a rocket into space, if the temperature soared suddenly in spring (which unfortunately happens a lot, in our yo-yo climate.)
And although we home gardeners love to kid ourselves that our misshapen, nibbled, less-than-perfect produce is still fine to eat, (because hey, didn’t we grow it organically, from non-GMO seeds?) some just isn’t. Elongated stalks and past-their-prime leaves of a bolted lettuce head taste so bitter, I once spat them out at the dining table.
Yet I love lettuce. And like everyone, I worry about questionable residues left behind on specimens sold at the supermarket. So good news: there’s a new Canadian outfit that produces such tasty, fresh, totally organic lettuce, I have no qualms about not growing my own anymore.
Greenbelt Microgreens came on the scene about a year ago, started by a former landscaper named Ian Adamson. And he’s sure done his homework. Eco-conscious himself, he decided to figure out exactly what modern consumers would like to see in salad greens — and the results certainly push all the right buttons.
Greenbelt’s lettuces (plus pea greens and a variety of microgreens) are grown locally in greenhouses, like so much of what we eat today. Yet they’re not hydroponically raised, with chemical nutrients added to the water around the roots. Instead, these lettuces develop in their own individual small pots filled with soil — just like out in the garden. Does that make flavour better? I think so.
Farms On the Fringe: New Takes On America’s Farming Tradition
Farms On the Fringe: New Takes On America’s Farming Tradition
These six farmers have found innovative ways to grow plants in today’s climate, whether in corn country or coal country, with fish tanks or smartphones.
August 01, 2017 Tracie McMillan
How do you feed a hotter, drier, more inequitable world? A new generation of American farmers are coming up with answers that rarely resemble the cornstalks and cattle pens of mainstream agriculture.
Today’s American farmers are less white. They’re also increasingly experimental. Even as our biggest farms get bigger, small producers are innovating in countless ways as they grapple with the serious questions that face our food system. Some prioritize making high-quality food affordable to folks on minimum wage and accessible in places where fresh produce is scarce; others are learning how to farm with far less water on drought-prone fields. They may be discovering hidden super fruits, reinvigorating coal country, or bringing urban farming to the mountains. Here are six who will change your mind about what it means to farm.
Fish Farming on Dry Land
Ouroboros Farms
Half Moon Bay, California
Chard grown in Ouroboros’s aquaponics system reveals its colorful roots.
Courtesy of Ouroboros Farm
When the recent six-year drought hit California, most farmers were screaming for water. Here’s one who wasn’t: Ken Armstrong, owner of Ouroboros Farms in the Bay Area. And that is more than a little strange—because for Armstrong, water is actually a growing medium. He specializes in aquaponics, a system of raising fish and vegetables in tandem.
Armstrong founded the farm in 2012 after watching a YouTube video about Will Allen, a MacArthur Grant–winning urban farmer in Milwaukee. Inspired, he gathered some potential partners and attended a four-day workshop in Florida, then went home and got to work. Today, Ouroboros’s greenhouses sit on a sliver of land, just one-third of an acre. Nutrient-rich water from the farm’s 9,000 gallons of fish tanks circulates out through neighboring “raft beds,” which hold floating frames with sprouting greens whose roots are suspended in water, and through “medium beds,” which use clay pebbles to filter and disperse water for the vegetables. The roots take up the nitrogen from the fish, and clean water circulates back into the tanks.
Aquaponic farmers Jessica Patton and Ken Armstrong at Ouroboros’s farm stand
Courtesy of Ouroboros Farm
The system, says Armstrong, produces mature lettuce more quickly than soil planting and uses less water, too. The monthly output of 12,500 heads of lettuce requires about 8,000 gallons of water—a little less than two-thirds a gallon per head, as opposed to 12 gallons on traditional California farms. And output is constant, allowing his fraction of an acre to match the annual production of five acres of soil.
Armstrong says he launched Ouroboros to prove that the method could work commercially. He sells greens and other vegetables to local restaurants, and an on-site farm stand offers direct sales, with salad mix going for $4 to $5 for an 8-ounce bag. He also hosts training programs and farm tours and consults with new growers looking to run commercial aquaponics operations.
“Being able to bring high-quality, nutritious food closer to urban areas is going to be one of the agricultural paradigm shifts for the future,” he says. “I think more and more it’s going to be popping up.”
Mountainside Urban Farming
Tassinong Farms
Crested Butte, Colorado
Tassinong Farm utilizes a hydroponic system housed in repurposed shipping containers to grow vegetables year-round in the harsh Colorado climate.
Courtesy Tassinong Farms
Local food in Crested Butte, Colorado, has long been a summer-only affair. For residents, there has been little choice in the matter: tucked into the Rocky Mountains at 8,900 feet, Crested Butte doesn't exactly offer optimal growing conditions. Its night temperatures drop below freezing nine months of the year. But Kate Haverkampf saw a way around this obstacle. She launched Tassinong Farm, a year-round hydroponic facility housed in repurposed shipping containers, in December 2015. “It was such a difficult task to get fresh local food year-round,” says the former tech consultant. When her husband, who works in logistics, ran across a story about farming in containers, she was sold: “I just decided to make that my job.”
Inside four containers, which Haverkampf bought from a supplier aptly known as Freight Farms, LED lights illuminate shelves of plants rooted in a growing medium made from recycled plastic bottles. With a smartphone-enabled tracking system, Haverkampf can monitor her crops closely. If the nutrient mix gets out of balance in the irrigation water, she can swipe and tap to fix it, even from across the country. Because there is no soil, there is no need for herbicides to control weeds. There’s little need for pesticides, either, in this tightly controlled indoor growing space. Haverkampf’s biggest cost is electricity—the lights run 18 hours a day—so this year she’s exploring her options for solar.
Kate Haverkampf, owner of Tassinong Farms
Courtesy of Tassinong Farms
Perhaps most important for an arid place like Colorado, water usage is minimal. Agriculture accounts for 80 percent of water usage in the United States, and a typical pound of lettuce requires 34 gallons of water. At Tassinong, says Haverkampf, each container uses about 15 gallons a day—roughly equivalent to a quick shower―or 105 gallons weekly. At peak, this turns into about 60 pounds of greens a week—less than 2 gallons per pound.
Today the shipping containers churn out greens ranging from lacinato kale and purple spinach to romaine lettuces and lemony sorrel. They end up in salads and atop burgers at five local restaurants and are sold at a local food co-op. Haverkampf also takes individual online orders, and later this summer she’s opening a farm stand.
“I’m trying to prevent all of these miles and miles of driven produce,” Haverkampf says. With the new shop, “I like to think that people will come more often and know they can get their greens when they need them.”
Superfruit in the Heartland
Sawmill Hollow
Missouri Valley, Iowa
Andrew Pittz of Sawmill Holllow Farm carries aronia berry seedlings.
Nati Harnik/AP
If you think about the typical Iowa farm, you might picture rows of corn and soy; the state leads the nation in both. But Andrew Pittz, a sixth-generation Iowa farmer, is not typical. At his family’s Sawmill Hollow Farm, the fields are covered with certified organic aronia berries.
The project began in the 1990s, when Pittz’s mom and dad decided to branch out from the corn and soy both their parents had grown and began cultivating a berry farm. When Andrew graduated from Texas A&M with an agricultural degree and a passion for organic farming, he returned to the family homestead on the rolling hills of the Missouri Valley with a vision: he wanted to be part of “a rural renaissance, and create more farmers,” he says. To do that, he knew, he’d need to grow crops that both yield income and preserve land.
Aronia berry bush
Flickr
The key to specializing in aronia, says Pittz, has been figuring out how to market the berries, which are highly astringent and bitter when fresh. The farm sells aronia jelly and syrup, aronia salsa, and even a spiced meat marinade, sold online and during on-site events like an annual Aronia Berry Festival. The berries also have one of the highest antioxidant ratings of any fruit, according to the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, making them desirable to consumers enthusiastic about so-called superfoods (a designation, it must be noted, met with less enthusiasm by health experts).
But above all, says Pittz says, he’s chosen to stick with aronia because it makes sense for the environment. The plant is native to Iowa and grows readily on his farm without irrigation. Between the bushes, a carpet of native grasses fixes nitrogen in the soil and boosts yield, limiting the need for chemicals. It’s a winning combination for the local turf, which is made of fertile but highly erodible soil called loess. Pittz points out that farmers planting annual grain crops like corn inadvertently increase erosion each time they pull out plants, turn over fields, and replant. Aronia berries, on the other hand, are perennials, so both the roots and the soil around them stay put.
And that, says Pittz, sums up his favorite trait of the aronia berry: “It is meant to grow here.”
Planting Justice
Soul Fire Farm
Grafton, New York
Leah Penniman, co-director of Soul Fire Farm
Capers Rumph (circa 2014)
Rocky hillsides don’t get much play in agricultural daydreams. But when Leah Penniman and Jonah Vitale-Wolff laid their eyes on the thin, rock-strewn soil of Grafton, just outside Albany, New York, they decided to go all in. They applied soil remediation methods they had learned on urban farms and began contouring the hillside, removing rocks, planting crop rows, and even building a house. Five years later, in 2011, they opened shop at Soul Fire Farm, a CSA-only family farm focusing on environmental justice and supporting Albany’s low-income communities of color. They look beyond Albany, too, and run an agricultural training workshop, the Black and Latinx Farmers Immersion, which draws aspiring farmers of color from around the country.
Soul Fire’s CSA offers its 100 customers weekly one-bushel boxes selected from the farm’s 70 crops, which include beets, cucumbers, squash, corn, tomatoes, and peppers, among other veggies. All are grown without synthetic chemicals, and the farmers rely on compost to boost productivity, says Penniman. At the heart of the program is a careful sliding fee scale that can drop as low as zero for struggling families, and a doorstep delivery service to make sure everyone has easy access.
Participants in Black Latinx Farmers Immersion harvest cilantro at Soul Fire Farm.
Capers Rumph (circa 2014)
That focus on accessibility comes in part from personal experience. When Leah and Jonah’s two children were very small, the family lived in a neighborhood where getting high-quality, fresh food meant walking to a farm CSA a couple of miles away. It was, says Leah, “really unfair as an expectation [of what was necessary] to feed families well.” So when the time came to start their own CSA, Penniman and Vitale-Wolff made access a priority.
Many of the couple’s customers share that concern. Francine Godgart, a married mother of two who works at the local hospital, chooses to pay extra every week to keep the costs down for low-income members. “It’s very expensive to eat organically,” she says. “I think it’s important for people who don’t have those resources to be able to be included.”
Re-energizing Coal Country
Fiber Flame/Pumpkin Vine Creek Farm
Paint Lick, Kentucky
A customer chooses Kentucky-grown kenaf.
Jdeg Video & Photo
The hilltops of Kentucky have seen some tough times. More than 500 mountaintop removal sites dot the state’s Appalachian landscape, bringing with them a host of environmental problems: increased dust and toxins, contaminated water, and buried streams. And now that coal is on its way out, questions arise: How do you deal with all that degraded land? And is there a way for residents to make a living off it?
One entrepreneurial farmer, Robin Richmond Mason, has an answer: kenaf, a relative of hemp, okra, and cotton. Native to Africa, the plant has long been used for its fibers and is already cultivated in several states. Moreover, Mason says, it’s unlikely to spread, kudzu-like, since a shorter growing season means that it is harvested, or dies, before it goes to seed.
Working with researchers at a local commercial lab, Mason discovered kenaf is a potent source of fuel, burning longer and hotter than conventional firewood—a bonus in rural areas, where wood heat is common. (In 23 Kentucky counties, more than 10 percent of homes rely on wood heat, according to statistics from the state’s Energy and Environment Cabinet.) One log of firewood tops out at 4,800 BTUs and burns for two or three hours, but a log made of compressed kenaf silage, Mason says, can provide 7,500 BTUs and will burn for four hours. The firewood alternative also helps ease the pressure on standing forests wrought by the harmful biomass industry.
Robin Richmond Mason of Fiber Flame/Pumpkin Vine Creek Farm
Jdeg Video & Photo
Mason wants the mountaintop removal sites “to be restored to Eden” and sees kenaf as an initial way to boost plant life there. “Let’s work toward the very best possible remediation plan. But unless there is economic motivation, I don’t see those developing.”
Last year’s initial run—farmed on an ex-miner’s land and hauled out by a trucker who worked for years with coal—was so successful that this year Mason has expanded to four growing sites across Kentucky. The biggest is at a former tobacco farm in the central part of the state that has dedicated 100 acres to kenaf. Judging by the yield from prior test plantings, Mason expects about five tons per acre. All of it will feed into Mason’s line of Fiber Flame products, including a sextet of logs sold with matches and instructions. She calls it a Pit Kit, and it’s currently being sold in local Whole Foods stores.
Old Farm, New Tricks
Santa Cruz Farm and Greenhouses
Española, New Mexico
Don Bustos, organic farmer and owner of Santa Cruz Farm and Greenhouses
Gabriella Marks
There aren’t many farmers in the United States who can lay claim to their land the way Don Bustos can. His family’s been farming a patch of New Mexico for three centuries, and today he and his nephew still use the ancient community system of water ditches, called acequias, to feed their crops. And just as his parents did before him, much of what Bustos grows is sold within a 25-mile radius of his farm. But those traditions are only a foundation for this most modern of family farmers.
When Bustos left a construction career to return to the farm in the 1980s, the easy choice was to grow the staples that his parents had grown: crops like corn, potatoes, chilies, and squash. Instead he decided to try something different and set his sights on high-value organic crops, aimed at farmer’s markets and public schools. He began transforming his humble inheritance—three and a half acres across the road from a desolate stretch of federal public land—into something not just environmentally, but also financially, sustainable.
Santa Cruz Farm and Greenhouses, New Mexico
Gabriella Marks
Today Bustos grows nearly six dozen varieties of fruits and vegetables year-round using a series of low-tech greenhouse structures, known as hoop houses, and a solar water heater. In any given month, it might be arugula or strawberries, salad mix or green chilies. Going solar, he says, made a huge difference in his livelihood. Not only did his energy costs plummet, from $750 a month to 7 cents a day, but the hoop houses “let us create income 12 months a year instead of trying to risk everything for 3 or 4 months.”
His market savvy has helped earn Bustos wide acclaim, including a 2015 James Beard Foundation Leadership Award. He’s also been recognized for his passionate activism on behalf of small and sustainable farmers who fall outside the conventional image of American growers. Bustos has advocated for female farmers and farmers of color in both Washington, D.C., and New Mexico; created a farmer training program that also connects small growers with public school cafeterias; and supported the state’s acequia system, which dates from the 1600s.
That history, says Bustos, is part of what makes New Mexico, where nearly one-third of farmers are Hispanic, special. “We’re not inventing anything new,” he says, with regard to his growing practices and local base of customers. “That’s all been done by our ancestors."
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13 Facts About "Organic" Foods That Will Shock You
image: http://mobile.wnd.com/files/2017/07/organic-fruits-vegetables-tw-600.jpg
No Testing, Mostly Imported, More Sickness, Higher Costs, More Subsidized
WASHINGTON – Do you choose “organic” produce because it’s healthier and locally grown?
Think again.
And that’s not the worst of it, says the report by the Capital Research Center.
Here are some shockers about how the “organic foods” phenomenon is costing you more, making foods less safe and costing real American organic farmers marketing share:
http://mobile.wnd.com/files/2017/07/USDAorganicbudget-386x1024.png
1. So-called “organic food” in America tests positive for synthetic pesticides four times out of 10.
2. Up to 80 percent of food labeled “organic” in American stores is imported. This increase has coincided with incidents of organic food-borne illness.
3. The USDA tripled its organic foods budget over the last eight years without requiring any field-testing of either domestically grown produce or imported.
4. During that time, tens of millions of dollars in subsidies were given to preserve the 0.7 percent of American farmland devoted to growing organic food.
5. The USDA has increased spending to $9.1 million on the organic bureaucracy, yet none of its 43 staffers are responsible for finding fraud, field-testing for safety, recalling unsafe food or encouraging domestic farming.
6. About 43 percent of the organic food sold in America tested positive for prohibited pesticide residue, according to two separate studies by two separate divisions of the USDA, conducted in 2010-2011 and 2015.
7. Organic groceries accounted for 7 percent of all food sales in America last year, but the U.S. government contracts out organic inspections to a total of 160 private individuals for the entire country. There are only 264 organic inspectors worldwide.
8. The USDA’s National Organic Program tests only finished product and only 5 percent of the time covering only pesticides, never looking for dangerous pathogens from manure. Yet synthetic pesticides show up 50 percent of the time. It took until 2010 before any field-testing at all was required by the USDA.
9. The USDA “certified” label for organic food is not based on any objective, scientific process that ensure authentic or safe produce. In fact, the program is regulated by the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service and not connected to the department’s food safety, research, inspection, nutrition or risk management services.
10. Many natural pesticides approved for organic use are more toxic than the synthetic ones used by conventional farmers.
11. Though the USDA insists on an annual onsite inspection of every organic farm and facility it certifies, the inspector (regardless of country) needs permission from the farmer or processor whose facilities he or she intends to inspect, and he or she makes an appointment weeks in advance. Individual inspectors can be refused contracts to perform inspections by any USDA-certified organic entity, with no reason required.
12. Many of the 79 certifying agencies that grant USDA organic certification to farmers and processors receive 1.5 to 3 percent of gross revenue from their clients – this “royalty” from an industry worth roughly $40 billion a year. As noted, certifiers collect these royalties only on shipments they approve.
13. Many farmers make use of manure, but usually not on crops for human consumption. Only in the organic industry is manure routinely applied to fields growing crops for humans, a practice which can be detrimental to human health – even deadly, especially when manure is not fully composted. Even so, the USDA does not require field testing for possible fecal contaminants on the organic crops it certifies, even though such testing costs less than $25 per episode.
As long as consumers believe organic food is worth more (that it is “wholesome,” “natural,” and “authentic,” so certified by the USDA) no one making money in the organic sector will be obligated to prove organic food is worth the extra cost. Meanwhile, the interests of non-organic consumers, conventional and biotech farmers, processors, and wholesalers recede as the organic movement, with its knee-jerk opposition to modern farming, dominates the debate and sets the rules.
How to Start a Garden – The Ultimate Guide
How to Start a Garden – The Ultimate Guide
I have gardened for many, many years and have many, many books ranging from communing with nature spirits to controlling pests with their natural enemies.
What are the most important lessons I have learned over the years? How would I advise someone to begin for guaranteed success?
People garden with different objectives in mind.
Some are seeking a serene oasis, a time they can spend alone in nature, even if it is just a tiny plot on their urban lot. Many do not know of the serenity gardening brings until they have one.
Some simply want an ornamental garden, pretty landscaping to admire.
Some people just want tomatoes and basil for spaghetti sauce.
A widowed mother with three young children my primary goal was to grow fresh organic food we could eat during the growing season, enough to store for the winter, herbs to heal our illnesses and injuries and flowers to fill the house.
I didn’t have extra time on my hands to be weeding the garden every evening, which may be a peaceful mantra for some after a day at the office, but was a disastrous waste of time in my book.
Nor was I interested in scouring plant leaves for camouflaged sacs of insect eggs and pulling slimy caterpillars from tomato plants they were devouring at alarming speed.
So I read and experimented, experimented and read. And after many years I came to understand what it takes to start a garden that yields the crops I want with minimal effort.
Table of Contents
- Garden with Nature
- Follow the Sun
- Don’t Try to Keep Out what you Can’t Keep Out
- It’s All in the Soil
- Organizing the Garden
- Buying Seeds, Starters, Bulbs and Seedlings
- Companion Planting
- Supplies
- Glossary
Garden with Nature
The first rule is to garden with nature, not against it. What type of soil do you have? Is it sandy or is it clay or is it a mix? What is the acidic level? How long is your growing season? How hot does it get? How cold does it get? How much rain do you get?
You will want to select plants that thrive in your soil in your climate.
It’s not hard to do. There are thousands of plants out there. It is nothing to be bemoaned if for, example your soil is clay and you cannot easily grow potatoes, which prefer sand. Well, then grow corn, cabbage, squash, echinacea, and black-eyed susans.
Most leafy greens prefer a good rich soil and the clay stays cooler longer than sand so it extends the growing season for this cool-weather crop.
Too, there are many different purposes you can grow plants for apart from beauty and food. I have grown plants for natural dyes and fibers.
I have grown plants for making gifts like sunflower wreaths, table centerpieces or raspberry liqueur filled chocolates.
I have grown plants to make insect repellent, set broken bones, heal sprains and clear congestion.
So when you are considering the plants you can grow in your area, broaden your horizons.
A good place to find out what grows well in your region is your extension office. This is what they do and they are paid tax dollars to do it, so don’t hesitate to stop by or call them.
I had an extension agent spend an afternoon on my farm discussing the site I had in mind for my vineyard. It would have taken two years of college classes and many growing seasons to learn what I learned from her in one afternoon.
Be aware, however, that many of the university agricultural departments in part subsidizing extension offices are themselves subsidized by large agricultural corporations that profit from the sale of fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides.
Here, for example, is the 2017 Midwest Fruit Pest Management Guide which recommends extensive spraying of pesticides on the very fruit you will be eating.
It is worth opening just to the first page to give you an idea of how much the university agriculture departments contribute to the knowledge base of extension offices.
Their advice may be skewed toward priorities antithetical to a sustainable view of the planet. Take what you need and ignore the rest.
Check around. There are probably co-ops of sustainable and organic farmers in your area happy to help as well.
Pick up a farmer’s almanac too.
Back to your soil. We will talk about the beauty of compost fertilizing your soil and breaking up dense clay clumps that deprive roots of needed oxygen and drown them in mud.
Compost can also augment your sandy soil with some substance so that water doesn’t just rapidly drain through the soil leaving your plants thirsty only moments after it’s rained. Although there are many varieties of potatoes: red, gold, white and blue, perhaps you don’t want to be eating potatoes until your ears fall off.
You can add sandy soil to clay soil and clay soil to sandy soil, but the truth is unless you change the soil’s ecosystem, which happens over time when you shovel in compost, the soil will probably ignore your efforts and return to its natural state.
So unlike many guides out there, I am not going to advise you to believe that you can actually do much to permanently change the soil by adding amendments.
I have heavily compacted soil around my side door that seems to have served as a construction debris dump when my cabin was built. Attempts to change the clay by adding some of the sandy soil from other parts of the yard proved futile.
I didn’t want to use my compost, reserving it for the garden. At last I found gypsum, renowned for being nontoxic and for breaking up clay. Although touted as natural and nontoxic, I am a mistrustful soul.
Still, I did not intend to grow a food crop there, so I wasn’t terribly concerned about an unknown negative effect on the soil. I figured the soil would heal itself once I got some healthy growth activity going.
The immediate results looked promising and some plants were able to struggle through, but the results were, as with all of the other soil amendments I have tried short of compost, short-term.
Our focus on composting will be to add nutrients to the soil, which is always good as plants will deplete the soil of nutrients as they grow.
Consider a forest floor. Fragrant with the aroma of decaying leaves, it is replete with nutrients. Rain and wind have worked to bring down twigs, leaves, and nuts from the trees and pummel them all back into the earth along with animal scat. Fungi and bacteria feeding on the plant life further the decomposition.
The forest floor becomes even richer and will yield fiddleheads and morel mushrooms for a divine Spring breakfast. Where the tree canopy is not too dense, berry bushes will take over in the summer.
Nature regenerates itself and that is what we will emulate in the garden.
Follow the Sun
Where are you going to place your site? And how large should it be?
First, what are you hoping for?
If this is an ornamental garden, go with the contours of your land. An excellent book to assist you here is Ann Lovejoy’s Organic Garden Design School, published by Rodale in 2001.
My advice here is going to focus on the small home garden that includes herbs and vegetables for the kitchen. I say small because that is how you should start out.
You can easily expand it once you know how much effort it is going to take and have identified what else you might like to grow in a single season.
Go out to your proposed site and take a look at where the sun is in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening. Bear in mind that if it is winter, the arc of the sun is going to be a bit different than in the summer.
What you are trying to determine is where any trees might be in relation to the sun that might block your garden for periods of the day. You can use this to your advantage.
I like to plant leafy greens where they only get morning and evening sun and the blazing midday sun is blocked by a copse of tall evergreens. Direct sun makes lettuces bolt, that is, the center core shoots up to reach the sun, to the detriment of the tasty leaves that would otherwise grow.
If you have the luxury of a lot of land, by all means take a shovel and dig up the soil at a few different sites to see what you’ve got. The best soil is a mix of clay and sand, a rich loamy silt that will hold water and nutrients, without forming into hard clumps of mud. The acid level should be a pH between 5.5 and 7.5. It probably is, but a simple soil test kit from the garden center will conform this.
Do not at any cost choose a site humans have contaminated with poisons of any sort. That includes Round-up, termite spray, and debris from a burn pile. If you wouldn’t eat it by the forkful, you don’t want to grow edible plants in it. Plants absorb nutrients from the soil and they will absorb toxins as well.
Consider too, who might be living near your garden. You won’t be able to keep them out, but if you have rabbits living nearby, at least make them have to cross a broad open field if you can. This is something they are reluctant to do as it makes them visible to hawks and other predators.
To save work, you will want the garden near your compost and your kitchen and reachable by a water hose.
Don’t Try to Keep Out what you Can’t Keep Out
You might mistakenly believe the woodland creatures or those in the shrubbery of your suburban neighborhood to be of lower intelligence but trust me, they were actually born highly psychic and are greedily contemplating the abundance from your garden even now as you are indoors innocently planning it.
There are gadgets and gizmos and wives tales of many a fix to deter animals, but save your money and just nod kindly at the neighbor telling his tall tales. The scarecrow with the banging pans, the sensor flood lights, the hose blasting shots of cold water, the fox urine, the Irish Spring soap, the locks of cut hair… these things may cause a deer or groundhog to hesitate once, but the second time they will simply ignore it.
You might try a kinetic sculpture like one of these. You could strategically place bells on it to further terrify the foraging beasts.
Then even if it doesn’t work to deter deer or groundhogs, birds or rabbits, you will still have a cool piece of artwork to console you.
A lot of the advice about deterring animals appears to have a solid premise, but don’t be seduced. I have an entire book on deer proofing my garden by planting only plants that deer don’t eat.
But I have seen them eat them.
The other premise is that deer don’t like to be near plants with a pungent smell because it will mask the smell of any predators they are on high alert for. But I have seen them linger near the mint as they demolish the corn.
And I have seen them leap over posts freshly smeared with fox urine.
With much effort, I erected a slant fence around my vineyard upon the advice of a USDA pamphlet, indicating that tensile wire a foot apart at seven levels spanning a 75 degree plane confused deer. They wouldn’t jump it.
One of my gun-slinging neighbors showed up drunk one evening itching to shoot into the horde hovering patiently on the hill across from my vineyard waiting for me to finish my chores and leave.
In a deep Southern slurring drawl he argued, “But deer don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no optical illusions.”
Turns out he was right. Or if they did know anything about optical illusions, it was how to ignore them.
I do plant dark orange and gold French marigolds around the perimeter of my garden in the belief that the fragrance discourages rabbits. I don’t know if it does or not. This is the first year I have had a lot of rabbits, but the ground hogs beat them to the feast.
French marigolds do deter whiteflies from tomato plants though, and after they are fully established, they control nematodes, so along with their burst of color, they are welcome in my garden.
Your best defense against warm-blooded pests is a good fence and a smart, frisky, hunting dog that keeps vigil around the garden.
Your best offense is a catch and release trap. Or, uh, so I am hoping.
Turns out that the ancient androgynous groundhog who has been content living alone under the smokehouse these past sixteen years up and gave birth to a litter of strapping lusty sons.
Did you know that young groundhogs become teenagers and move out before their first summer is over? And that they each strike out and build a summer home and a winter home and multiple exits and entries to each?
And that throwing hot peppers and rocks down these holes does not discourage them at all? They just toss them right back out.
I can personally corroborate the veracity of much of Michael Pollan’s results in his war on woodchucks described in his garden manifesto, Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education, Garden Press, 2003, available through Amazon.
My farmstead is now littered with piles of rocks surrounding holes leading to long tunnels under each outbuilding and my cabin. It was after I was startled by the scratching awfully close to my dining table that I bought the trap.
I was already a bit put off that the ground hogs did not spare any of the five varieties of squash I had planted.
I had been particularly inspired by the previous summer’s crops of acorn squash and winter squash. They were tasty and lasted well into the winter months. So I got carried away and ordered five varieties.
I don’t mind sharing ten percent of the garden with my woodland neighbors, but I lose my will to share beyond that. Maybe if they helped with some of the work on the farm, I’d feel differently.
But when I heard that unnerving scratching, I mean how does an animal bury beneath a cellar? That ‘s when I started seriously shopping for a catch-and-release trap to be delivered as soon as Amazon could get it to me.
I caught that fat sucker too.
First thing I read when I was reading about how to trap a woodchuck was how much they like watermelon and wouldn’t you know, for the first time ever, I had a watermelon growing? Indeed it was tiny, but it was perfectly formed and showed tremendous promise.
It was growing just outside his door, the entry to the long sandy tunnel running beneath my house. He would have to step over it until he felt like eating it.
This perpetual threat was eating at me and I threw the juiciest produce I could conjure into that trap and set it immediately outside his hole.
I caught him not long after I set out the trap. Nervous that somehow the door would open, I put him in the back of the car and drove him to the abandoned farmstead in the hollow a couple miles down the road.
I drove pretty fast. The sun was setting behind the mountain and my imagination was at its peak.
Next I caught a possum. That scared me a bit as well.
He kept his very sharp teeth bared as he looked at me. His fur was matted with goo and blood and he had a wild look about him that made me uncomfortable.
The trap I bought is supposed to be humane. I’m not sure what happened, but there was some bloody hair pasted to the bottom piece of metal.
I don’t mind possums around, but I drove him out to the abandoned farmstead too, for practice and to rule out possibilities of revenge.
The next day when I woke it seemed like maybe the skunk and one of the groundhogs had got in a standoff during the night. This got me to thinking: what if I caught a skunk? What if I caught a skunk?
I couldn’t leave him in there and I had no idea how I’d get him out. I still don’t.
But it’s winter now and I’ve been traveling, so I am just going to have to ponder this one and redouble my efforts in the Spring if I want to reap the bounty from my garden.
It’s All in the Soil
Healthy soil hosts a web of life from tiny one-celled bacteria, fungi and protozoa to the more complex nematodes and small arthropods to earthworms, insects, and small vertebrates.
These organisms interact beneficially with plants.
By-products from growing roots and plant debris feed soil organisms. Soil organisms help plants by decomposing organic matter, cycling nutrients to make them more available to the plant, enhancing soil structure and porosity and controlling the populations of soil organisms, including crop pests.
Healthy soil means healthy plants.
The way to healthy soil is to add compost and not till the ecosystems, the webs of life, to shreds.
Buddhists, who do not believe in killing sentient creatures, manually crumble soil, so that earthworms are not killed.
Farmers use tractors pulling tillers and most gardeners use rototillers to turn the soil. I use a shovel rather than till.
Compost is just earth that has been made from decayed organic matter. It is called black gold because it is a sure-fire medium for producing healthy plants.
Nothing is more valuable to a gardener and it’s free. It solves the problems of what to do with dinner scraps and yard debris and it helps everything grow abundantly.
I have a pretty big compost pile that should steam but it doesn’t. Because I travel, I do not have animals, whose feces would go along way to heating up the pile, but eventually, I suppose the enormity of the weight helps a good deal, it creates lovely compost.
The compost pile requires turning with a pitchfork, the romance of which appeals to me whereas the actual doing it, does not. I highly recommend a compost tumbler.
This is a good video on how to make compost. The tumbler makes it even simpler.
I try to till and compost in the Fall, so that the soil is open to receive the compost and the compost is open to the winter snow and sun which help integrate it into the soil.
You will have to turn over the soil in Spring. Turning the soil aerates it. You need only shovel down about six or eight inches or till across the garden two or three times to get it to the consistency where it will allow germinating seeds to poke through. You can turn the compost into the soil again in early Spring.
Organizing the Garden
I would recommend a garden no larger than 25 x 30 feet to begin.
Most gardeners plant in neat rows as it is easier to weed.
Habitual walking (and of course driving heavy machinery) across the soil compacts it and makes it pretty much useless for growing anything but plantain, called by Native Americans, “white man’s footsteps.”
On the subject of weeds, you should understand the following.
Soil organisms are not distributed evenly about the soil. Each species exists where it can find the right amount of space, nutrients and moisture. This is generally around organic matter.
Thus, my sandy soil is as sterile as the desert away from plants.
But around roots there is a region called the rhizosphere where bacteria feeds from old plant cells and proteins and sugars released by the roots. Protozoa and nematodes feed on the bacteria. They cycle nutrients and help retain beneficial ones, change the structure of the soil to help the plant better access water and nutrients and suppress disease by feeding on pathogens and excreting metabolites toxic to them.
Gardeners weed to remove the competition for nutrients. However, root systems can interact in a synergistic way, providing nutrients for each other.
Tall weeds can also provide welcome shade to plants sensitive to the relentless rays of a midday blazing sun. So unless the weeds are blocking needed sun or overtaking my plants, that is, the weeds are strong and healthy and my plants weak and stunted, I let them do their thing.
If you are not going to use a rototiller and you don’t care that much about weeds that will grow among the rocks, you are not bound by the rules of symmetry and can plant in circles if you wish. You can make a rock or brick path in your garden to walk on. You can build rock walls or mounds of rock that retain moisture so crickets and small toads can live. They are priceless predators of insects who would otherwise forage your plants.
Lately I have been allowing narrow grass aisles to grow between my plots, but you do have to keep the grass down or it will attract too many grasshoppers. They will quickly devour a number of plants.
If you are more comfortable with straight rows and weeding as much as you can, by all means go for it.
Some say that a man’s footsteps are all a garden needs for fertility. Along the same line, a friend told me of an old man she knew with an abundant garden who took only one cup of water to feed his garden each evening. The point is, follow your passion and it will yield good things.
I like to intersperse flowers, herbs and vegetables and to follow companion planting suggestions.
Planting too much of a single crop creates an ecosystem vulnerable to pests and diseases of that crop and eradicates the natural system of checks and balances of a diverse ecosystem.
Over time, growing a single plant will also deplete the soil of the nutrients that plants needs. Farmers alternate their crops, often planting a cover crop that will add back in the nutrients the former planting has taken.
Certain pests like certain plants.
In your garden too, you should not plant the same crop in the same area. Last year’s pests are waiting.
Buying Seeds, Starters, Bulbs and Seedlings
I can’t say definitively where to buy seeds. I feel like I’ve had good luck and bad luck with every place from which I’ve bought.
And that’s not to say it was a problem with the seeds not germinating. It could be that birds ate the seed. Or that I pulled up the seedlings thinking they were weeds.
It’s an odd thing, and just one of many spellbinding revelations you will discover watching the world up close and personal, but almost identical plants will grow next to the seedlings you’ve planted.
After awhile, you can get cocky and think you know which one is which and before you know it, you’ve got a bitter weed growing rampant where the arugula would be if you hadn’t yanked it.
By the way, don’t be yanking plants. When you are old you might end up with very painful elbows on cold, damp days. Move as a dancer, with thought and balance.
I did grow a notable crop of amaranth, an edible red grain the Hopi also used for body paint from seeds I bought from Seeds of Change.
I also grew some very pretty Peruvian chili peppers a couple years in a row that glimmered like jewels in my garden. They were very hot and kept well dried for many years.
I think they were Peruvian. Maybe they were Bolivian. But they don’t carry them any more so it doesn’t matter.
I have also got some very cool sunflower seeds from them and good broomcorn seeds.
I like Peaceful Valley Seeds because they carry organic seeds.
I have a soft spot in my heart for Johnny’s Selected Seeds, but I think it’s just because they carry a xylene-free weatherproof marker, which is something otherwise impossible to find.
It’s a good idea to have a diagram of your proposed plantings before you start, but sometimes I also mark off the seeds as I plant them by writing their names on a popsicle stick and placing them at the edges of their little plot.
I wouldn’t do that if I didn’t have a xylene-free marker. Xylene gives me a spinning headache that makes me believe it is probably not a substance I want the rain to wash into my garden soil.
I’m not obsessive-compulsive, just circumspect. You will find if you breathe deeply and are open to sensing the world around you while you are gardening, you will become sensitive to the rhythms of the earth. You will feel rain approaching.
The reason the farmer’s almanac advises against planting root crops while the moon is waxing is because the moon is pulling the earth’s water closer to the surface during that phase, and root crops like depth and dryness. Plant them when the mood is waning and them gravitational forces are weaker.
The moment of their planting, as in astrological signs, makes an imprint upon their lives and influences their growth.
Biodynamic farmers also believe that the earth is part of a single organism, a living universe. They, too work with the energy fields of the planet for abundance, mixing plants in their compost known to have synergistic properties and making a fertilizer of compost tea at a particular favorable time in the earth’s rotation.
Back to seeds. I like to look through the catalogs with the cheesy graphics that come in the mail starting around January when it is cold and stark outside.
I have no idea how many times I have ordered and tried to plant a “crimson carpet.” Maybe I never did. I don’t have any.
I hope to this year.
I love the idea of heirloom seeds and get lost for hours on the websites for heirloom seeds thinking I will plant this or that.
Looks like there is a whole cult of people dedicated to preserving species, which is a pretty cool idea and makes me want to accept the few they divvy up to me and responsibly grow them and harvest their seeds.
But I also want to be an astronomer and a physicist and an enologist and a traveler and, well… you get the picture. I’m afraid I would not follow through and disappoint them.
Although I am truly afraid to ask anything about their origin, I can generally trust that the seeds I get in bulk at my farmers’ co-op will grow.
They are very practical farmers. I also trust in whatever seeds they have decided to stock in regular-size packets.
Their prices tend to be less than online stores too.
Chances are good there is a farmers’ co-op near you. Don’t be intimidated. You don’t have to wear overalls to go in there. You can tap their knowledge about a lot of things too.
They will generally only carry sound seed potatoes and onion sets that are going to grow well in your area.
So shop around and buy a good variety of seeds. If seedlings don’t come up in the time it says they will on the back of the package and you haven’t had super crazy out-of-season weather, then just plant something else there.
Epictetus, a Greek Stoic philosopher born in A.D. 55, said, “Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor, nor should life rest on a single hope.”
True now as it was then. Have back-up seeds.
Some plants, like lilies and rhubarb, grow from bulbs. You can get these, as well as seedlings, at the farmers’ co-op or a nursery.
You will want to buy seedlings for crops that require a longer growing season than you have or for crops you want a head-start on. Seedlings can grow in a greenhouse before the ground outside warms up enough to allow anything to sprout.
When you buy your seedlings, you will need to “harden them off,” which means to help them acclimate to the cold world so they don’t just freeze to death.
Plants by their nature need to be planted in the ground and do not like a lot of change. They easily die of transplant shock, so it is important to try to keep as much of the old soil on them as you can and introduce a similar environment if possible, added by a bit of fish emulsion or liquid B-12.
Keep them watered and out of the wind at first. Hardening off involves setting them outside for progressively more hours each day until they have been able to weather a few of the coldest nights you are getting.
Once they have proven strong enough to endure that, you can plant them in the garden.
Ask around and check customer reviews to learn about your local nurseries for buying seedlings.
Once you have been gardening awhile, you will learn to recognize an unhealthy plant and to look for certain types of pests hiding on them, but until then, you’ll just have to go to a reputable place and ask the person near you.
It’s not exactly easy to find organically grown seedlings. You can of course grow your own seedlings indoors. But unless you are around 24/7 or have greenhouse conditions in your home, it is a ridiculous amount of work.
I buy what I can get and hope the soil and sun detoxifies whatever the plant’s previous owner has done.
While we are on the subject of buying plants, if you don’t know I should explain the difference between annuals and perennials now.
Annuals are plants that you have to plant or grow from seed every year. If you leave annuals in the ground and let them grow long enough to produce seeds and those seeds drop to the ground, take hold and sprout the next season, you can let them grow there of course and that’s great.
But don’t count on that happening.
You can also collect the seeds from your annuals and try to use them the next year, but again, until you learn to recognize when seeds are ready to harvest and ideal storage and nurturing conditions, don’t count on this as a money-saver.
Perennials are plants that will weather your winter and just keep on growing. They may go dormant, that is, fall into a deep sleep during the winter months and look quite dead, but they will perk up in the Spring and sprout buds. Don’t dig them up.
This is true of a lot of herbs, like rosemary and marjoram, some flowers like lavender and all of the bulbs that I can think of.
Research what you want to figure out what to do. Bulbs multiply at their roots and can be pulled up and divided in the Spring. Replanted them with more space around them and, ta-da, you’ve got many more.
Companion Planting
When I am considering the year’s plantings, I usually look through an old thumbed-through book called Carrots Love Tomatoes written by Louise Riotte and published by Storey Communications in 1975. It is based upon observations of plants that grow better together, due to the nutrients their root systems exchange and because the pests they naturally attract are pests that control the population of pests of their companion.
Because they are healthy, they are less vulnerable to diseases too. Disease happens when a healthy plant is compromised, generally from insect attack or lack of nutrients.
Plants can be compromised from temperature and humidity or arid extremes. Disease comes looking then. A good companion plant can bolster strength in troubled times, so it’s a no-brainer to follow these principles and a lot of fun.
Anyway, that’s how I recommend beginning your plantings. After a few seasons, you will formulate your own conclusions about invisible interactions happening. You may find that chickweed likes lavender.
Or you may feel a little splash of color would be delightful between the meadows of basil you have planted and the garlic.
This video explores the beneficial effect of interspersing your food crops with flowers.
You will appreciate that you have cast dahlia seeds when you are mesmerized by the swan-like curvatures of the garlic, with their long needle-noses, astounded to find they are having dancing parties behind your back. They freeze in their new graceful positions when you turn to look.
You take photo after photo on the cell phone you should never garden with. And these photos you show your friends, though barely capturing the thin arc of the garlic are replete with colorful dahlias.
Many gardeners subscribe to companion planting principles.
When do you plant? Look in your farmer’s almanac. It will tell you what you can plant in your area when.
Cold weather crops that can be planted early include onions, potatoes, radishes and beets.
You can follow up with planting seeds for hardy greens and then the more delicate greens.
About then, the soil will have warmed up enough for the rest of the seeds to germinate and to accept your transplant of seedlings.
That’s not to say a late killing frost doesn’t come along and undo what you’ve done. Measures can be taken to save plants if you have warning. This might be something you want to research in advance.
Recommendations range from spraying a preparation with valerian to warm the plants to erecting a row cover.
Glossary
Annuals – Plants that die off at the end of a growing season. They must be planted anew every year
Companion Planting – The practice of planting sympathetic crops next to each other to improve crop yield.
Compost – Organic matter which has decayed and turned into rich soil
Perennials – Plants that live through the winter, though they often appear not to.
Seedlings – the first shoots of a plant’s growth. They are often grown in small cells until they are large enough and strong enough to plant in the garden.
Weeds – plants you are not intentionally growing.
Supplies
You need very little, apart from a composter and seeds or plants to garden. A good shovel, possibly a hoe, a trowel and good pruners are essential.
Take good care of your tools and make sure they are always clean. Be sensitive to what you are doing. If you cut off a diseased leaf, clean the shears with soap before you use them on another plant or you are likely to spread the disease. Keep them sharp so that your cuts are clean, not sloppy and tearing, thus weakening the plant.
It is important to be comfortable. I once only wore Japanese farmer pants, which were loose and made of light but durable cotton and had pockets in the knees where you could slide knee-pads, but I can’t find them for sale anymore.
If you find some, buy enough for the rest of your life.
Dirty as you are going to get it, I highly recommend the full coverage of a long-sleeve shirt. Not only does it protect you from the sun, but it will spare you the nasty sting of sweat bees if you dally in the garden a little too late in the morning.
So now that you look awesome and have a cool compost tumbler in your back yard, grab your shovel and trowel, maybe find a straw hat and head out to create a magical garden.
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Award-Winning Re-Nuble Lays Waste To Malnutrition
Re-Nuble Inc., founded by scientifically oriented business IT specialist Tinia Pina, has snagged a 2017 American Entrepreneurship Award and the $25,000 interest-free loan that accompanies it – the latest feathers in the cap of a 2015 startup that transforms food waste into fresh produce.
Award-Winning Re-Nuble Lays Waste To Malnutrition
Growth mode: Founder Tinia Pina's (multiple award-winning) biotech Re-Nuble is pacing the waste-to-table field.
JULY 17, 2017
By GREGORY ZELLER //
An outer-borough biotech with a Long Island lineage is racing to the head of the organic-fertilizer field.
Re-Nuble Inc., founded by scientifically oriented business IT specialist Tinia Pina, has snagged a 2017 American Entrepreneurship Award and the $25,000 interest-free loan that accompanies it – the latest feathers in the cap of a 2015 startup that transforms food waste into fresh produce.
The American Entrepreneurship accolades are doled out by the Libra Group, an international business group containing 30 subsidiaries across several core sectors, including finance, energy, real estate and shipping. The awards program is exclusive to the borough of the Bronx and Florida’s Miami-Dade County, communities that “face disproportionate lack of opportunity,” according to the program website.
That’s similar thinking to the mindset that first set Re-Nuble in motion. Concerned equally by chemical fertilization, the massive waste of “leftover” food and the poor nutritional choices available in Harlem, where she taught an SAT prep class, Pina began researching anaerobic digesters, biological processes in which microorganisms break down biodegradable materials.
That creates both harvestable energy and a residue goop that turns out to be a plus-grade fertilizer – and a super-effective hydroponics growth accelerant.
The leftover liquid is also a rocket fuel for Pina’s primary mission to convert individual communities’ leftover consumables into a renewability-focused product promoting healthier eating within that community, all with zero environmental effect.
The innovator and her research teams have fine-tuned the science as a “virtual tenant” of Stony Brook University’s Clean Energy Business Incubator Program and an actual tenant of the Harlem Biospace biotechnology incubator. Re-Nuble outgrew the uptown incubator in the fall of 2015 and split its operations in two – formulation in a large Long Island City-based shipping container, front office in the Brooklyn Navy Yard industrial park.
Neither of those locations are in the Bronx, obviously, but Re-Nuble was close enough: The $25,000 capital infusion will be used primarily to deepen the biotech’s longtime connection with Baldor Specialty Foods, a regional distributor based in the South Bronx’s Hunts Point section.
Christopher Upperman: Inspirational journeys.
In fact, the award was granted with the specific understanding that at least part of the $25,000 loan would be used to co-locate some Re-Nuble operations at Baldor’s distribution center – something “we haven’t had the working capital to do sooner,” Pina noted.
Such forward thinking (and geographic preferences) perfectly match the sentiment behind the American Entrepreneurship Award, according to awards program CEO Christopher Upperman, who said Re-Nuble and the other AEA winners “remind us of the importance in continuing to work on their behalf.”
“Hearing their inspiring entrepreneurial journey, I’m reminded why more emphasis should be placed on communities such as the Bronx,” Upperman said in a statement. “There are eager business owners and those with aspirations to become successful business owners in communities … all throughout the United States who will take advantage of continued support and additional resources, if offered.
“I commend each of the finalists, and certainly the winners, for their commitment to serving the Bronx and building successful businesses in the process.”
The other Bronx-area AEA winners include Duro UAS, which manufactures drone systems, sensors and components for marine-based industries; NoLogo Backpacks, focused on wearable technology for students, cyclists and pedestrians; Spadét, which is modernizing a 19th century extra virgin olive oil formula into a line of safe and sustainable skin, body and hair products; and Sustainable Snacks, a natural-foods company serving up gluten-free, vegan dark chocolate treats packed with plant-based protein, Omega-3s and fiber.
In addition to the $25,000 interest-free loan from Libra Group, winners receive business support including legal, accounting, communications and IT consultancy services. Each is also assigned a business mentor to provide guidance through the startup and early developmental stages.
While Re-Nuble is several steps beyond the typical startup stage – and gaining speed fast – Pina said she expects the advice to come in handy as she continues to fine-tune her growth-accelerant formulas and expand her product line.
The $25,000 capital infusion, she added, will also help the B2B enterprise – Re-Nuble sells primarily to specialty retailers, with some direct-to-farm business – expand its market horizons.
One key objective sure to offer a bottom-line boost is third-party organic certification, and “part of the $25,000 will definitely go toward that endeavor,” according to Pina.
The entrepreneur is also aligning her enterprise with Cornell Cooperative Extension researchers and “definitely” plans to continue leveraging SBU’s laboratory resources through Re-Nuble’s ongoing CEBIP affiliation.
“We’re B2B and we’re not deviating from that,” Pina told Innovate LI. “What we want to do right now is strengthen the efficiency of our products and get more published research.”
And while teams of scientists maximize the hydroponics growth formulas to deliver exacting nutrient levels during plants’ changeable growth cycles and otherwise tinker with the delicate intricacies of microbial science, they’ll also investigate some “deodorizing” options, according to Pina, who senses another important step in the commercialization process.
“On the hydroponics side, which is a soilless system, the vegetative growth comes from the nitrogen,” she said. “And the nitrogen comes from a fish hydrolysate.
“Not everyone has the tolerance.”
TOPICS:American Entrepreneurship AwardBaldor Specialty FoodsCEBIPChristopher UppermanCornell Cooperative Extension Of Suffolk CountyDuro UASHarlem BiospaceLibra GroupNewsNoLogo BackpacksRe-NubleSpadetSustainable SnacksTinia Pina
Organics: Ferreting Out the Fraudulent Few, While Demanding Higher Standards, Better Enforcement
Organics: Ferreting Out the Fraudulent Few, While Demanding Higher Standards, Better Enforcement
July 18, 2017
Organic Consumers Association | by Katherine Paul and Ronnie Cummins
A recent series of articles by a Washington Post reporter could have some consumers questioning the value of the USDA organic seal. But are a few bad eggs representative of an entire industry?
Consumers are all for cracking down on the fraudulent few who, with the help of Big Food, big retail chains and questionable certifiers give organics a bad name. But they also want stronger standards, and better enforcement—not a plan to weaken standards to accommodate "Factory Farm Organic."
The Washington Post exposed a couple of companies, certified organic, that don’t strictly adhere to organic standards. The Post and othersalso recently reported on what one lawmaker, who serves on a key U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) committee, called “uncertainty and dysfunction” at the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB).
All these reports are troubling on multiple levels, especially to consumers who rely on the USDA organic seal to help them avoid pesticides, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), synthetic ingredients and foods produced using methods that degenerate soil health and pollute the environment. (It's important to note that none of these reports address the biggest marketing and labeling fraud of them all—products sold as "natural," "all natural" and "100% natural," a $90-billion industry that eclipses the $50-billion certified organic industry).
What can consumers do to ensure that the certified organic products they buy meet existing organic standards? And how do we, as consumers, fight back against efforts to weaken those standards?
The short answers: One, there are about 25,000 honest organic local and regional producers, vs. a handful of big brands, mostly national, who flout the rules. (Most "Factory Farm Organic" companies sell their products, and provide private-label products, for big retail chains like Costco, Walmart, Safeway, Albertson’s, Kroger’s and others).
Two, if consumers want stronger, not weaker organic standards, we need to demand them.
Bad actors hurt consumers and legitimate organic producers
Over the past several months, the Washington Post has reported the following:
• Eggland’s Best eggs, marketed as certified organic by Herbruck’s Poultry Ranch, come from hens that never go outside. (Even before the Post’s expose, OCA had called for a boycott of Eggland’s Best eggs).
• Aurora Organic Dairy, which supplies organic milk to Walmart, Costco and other major retailers, doesn’t adhere to organic standards that require cows to be outdoors daily during the growing season. (OCA, Cornucopia Institute and other groups have been demanding better policing of Aurora Dairy for more than a decade).
• Some “organic” soy and corn imports aren’t actually organic.
• Some “organic” foods contain a synthetic oil brewed in industrial vats of algae.
Stories like these erode consumer confidence in the organic seal. When consumers give up on organic, legitimate organic farmers and producers lose sales, too.
But that’s only the part of the problem. By cutting corners on organic standards, big producers can sell at lower prices—that puts the smaller, local and regional organic producers who don’t have big contracts with big retailers, and who must charge more because they actually follow organic standards to letter, at a competitive disadvantage in the market.
In some cases, it puts them out of business.
The Washington Post’s Peter Whoriskey recently interviewed Amish organic dairy farmers who are struggling to compete against companies like Aurora, which the farmers say, don’t deserve the organic label. The Post reported:
Over the past year, the price of wholesale organic milk sold by Kalona [Iowa] farms has dropped by more than 33 percent. Some of their milk — as much as 15 percent of it — is being sold at the same price as regular milk or just dumped onto the ground, according to a local processor. Organic milk from other small farmers across the United States is also being dumped at similar rates, according to industry figures.
After the Washington Post ran its April 30 exposé on Aurora, Liz Bawden, an organic dairy farmer in New York and president of the Northeast Organic Dairy Producers Alliance and member of the Northeast Organic Farmers Association (NOFA-NY) board wrote:
A consumer reads “Why Your Organic Milk May Not Be Organic” on the front page of their newspaper. That might be the end consumer for the milk from my farm. And that person is sitting in front of a bowl of cornflakes wondering if she has been scammed all this time. Just a little doubt that the organic seal may not mean what she thought it meant. That is real damage to my farm and family income.
Boycott the organic imposters
Consumers choose organic for many reasons. At the top of the list health. Consumers believe food that doesn’t contain pesticides, genetically modified organisms and synthetic/artificial ingredients, all of which are largely prohibited under USDA organic standards, is better for their own health.
That said, many consumers have an expanded list of reasons for buying organic, which include concern about the environment, animal welfare, fair trade and the desire to support local farms, and farmers committed to building healthy, rich soil capable of drawing down and sequestering carbon.
It’s naturally discouraging to read articles that sow doubt about whether a certified organic product meets your expectations. Fortunately, there are things you can do to minimize the chances of ending up with an organic carton of milk or eggs produced by an “organic imposter.”
• Boycott large, national brands. As demand grows for organics, Big Food is scooping up smaller organic brands. In most cases, nothing good comes this for consumers, as large corporations apply the “economies of scale” theory and ultimately skimp wherever they can on quality and production. As a general rule of thumb, the big players—like Aurora Dairy and Herbruck’s Farm (Eggland’s Best)—don’t play by the rules.
• Steer clear of private-label organics. It’s easy to identify the bad actors when they market products under their own names. But when it comes to private-label organics (think Safeway’s O’ Organic, Costco’s Kirkland, Walmart’s Great Value), it’s not readily apparent who is producing those products for big retail chains. We know that Aurora, which doesn’t market any milk under its own name, supplies organic milk to Walmart, Costco and Safeway. But in general, lack of transparency in the organic private label arena is a “huge problem,” one industry consultant told us. Most big retailers are complicit in organic fraud. The best strategy is avoidance.
• Check the codes on your milk carton. In her response to the Post’s story on Aurora, Bawden told consumers how to avoid milk produced by Aurora Dairy by checking the code on the carton. If you find the number 08-29, you’ll know that the milk comes from a plant that processes milk from Aurora Dairy. You can look up all the milk carton codes on the “wheredoesmymilkcomefrom” website.
• Do your homework. It would be great if you could rely entirely on the USDA organic seal. But given what we know about the weak links in that otherwise valuable chain, it pays to research. Googling brand names is one way to find information—but don’t rely on company websites, which are often loaded with false claims. Visit the Cornucopia Institute’s website, where you’ll find organic dairy, eggsand other products “scored” according to various criteria.
• Pay attention to who certified your milk or eggs as organic. In addition to the USDA organic seal, certified organic products must list, on package, the name of the independent body that certified the product to organic standards. There’s an argument to be made that certifiers should be held accountable for certifying products that don’t adhere to organic standards. Until that happens, avoid certifiers like Quality Assurance International (QAI) and the Colorado Department of Agriculture, which certify Aurora Dairy. Some of the more reliable certifiers include Oregon Tilth, PCO (Pennsylvania Certified Organic) and California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF). For a complete list of organic certifiers, consult this list.
• Buy local. There’s a lot to be said for getting to know, and for supporting, your local organic farmers. They are more likely to follow organic standards, partly out of dedication, and partly to protect their own reputation within their communities. Here’s some advice for identifying local authentic and ethical farmers.
• Report suspected fraud. If you think a brand is violating organic standards, or falsely advertising/labeling a product “natural,” “all natural” or “100% natural,” email us at fraud@organicconsumers.org.
Consumers will have to help protect organic standards
Organic Consumers Association was founded, in 1998, when the USDA was writing the very first set of organic standards, as required under the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA). The policy writers wanted irradiation to be allowed in organic. And sewage sludge. And GMOs. We fought successfully to keep them out.
Since then we’ve had to go to battle with every administration since over the integrity and enforcement of organic standards. The Clinton Administration tried to get GMOs into organic. The Bush Administration made it easier to get synthetics into organic. The Obama Administration made it harder to get synthetics out of organic.
It didn’t help any that in 2005, Congress passed a law that made it a lot easier for the largest food companies to create “organic” versions of their factory farm and processed foods.
Now those companies are stepping up their game, threatening to make changes to the OFPA and NOSB that could weaken organic standards beyond recognition. Why now? Two reasons.
One, as consumer demand for organic products grows, Big Food is buying up organic brands. This gives them a seat at the organic policymaking table, where, naturally, they are hard at work to lower standards in order to raise profit margins.
And two, they smell opportunity. The Trump Administration has made its position on regulations clear: more industry involvement, more concern for corporate profits, and less concern for consumer rights, public health, the environment.
Congress needs to hear from consumers—often, and in large numbers—that we want stronger, not weaker organic standards. Standards that support small, authentic producers.
Putting it in perspective
Organic isn’t perfect. The standards aren’t perfect. The enforcement process isn’t perfect. And some of the players are downright crooked.
That said, consumers can by and large trust all organic produce. And if they’re willing to do a little homework, they can identify the producers in the organic processed food arena who abide by the rules.
To put things in perspective, compare the $50-billion organic industry with the $90-billion “natural” industry. No standards. No ethics. And the clear intention to increase sales by falsely claiming that products that contain all manner of “unnatural” substances, including pesticides, synthetic ingredients—even drugs —are the “healthy choice.”
So let’s keep policing the organic industry, exposing the fraud, working for stronger standards and better enforcement of those standards.
But let’s be just as vigilant about exposing the “Myth of Natural,” and cracking down on what is arguably the biggest food marketing scam in the history of advertising.
Katherine Paul is associate director of the Organic Consumers Association.
Ronnie Cummins is international director of the Organic Consumers Association.