Halleluiah! Just completed filling out our annual Organic application. This is a LONG process, that while it is gruelingly detailed and time consuming, I believe in the OG program integrity and continue to make the commitment every year to maintain our certified organic principles. The organic system plan is 22 pages long. We also have to fill out the organic handlers plan (7 pages) because we wash, weigh and bag some of our produce, which puts us into a different category. For those of you that are not sure about using your purchasing power to buy certified organic, let me go into more detail of what we have to do to prove ourselves worthy of this certified organic label: We are required to use only certified organic seeds and plants and be able to prove and verify origin with seed packets, labels and receipts as well as have the certificate verifying who certified that seed or plants as organic. We have to verify and document every fertilizer or soil amendments going into the gardens along with application records, dates, and receipts. We have to maintain records of cultivation practices, weeding and planting dates; track our cropping history, land use, crop rotations for a minimal of three years (we’ve done it since 1992). We maintain field maps, storage records, labor records, input records, filed records, and sales records. There’s more to it than all of this, but I didn’t want to bore you. The point here is, we spend an exorbitant amount of time documenting and tracking what we do as well as having an annual inspection, annual audit, and annual fee totaling around $800. When asked “why does certified organic cost more?” This is one of the reasons why. We take measures to assure you, our loyal customers that we do what we say we do. When you buy certified organic, there is integrity, pride, and sweat equity that goes into providing you with the best our gardens have to offer. And I am speaking not only for Greentree Naturals, but for every small acreage farmer who chooses to make the commitment to being certified organic. Know your farmer, know your food!
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 18:01:32 +0000
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