I have been seeing a few posts come through my news feed, both locally and on other more national groups about truth in advertising especially when it comes to the organic food movement. I thought maybe I would reiterate, update and clarify some information on how we do things here at Cornerstone Acres Farm. First let me say that anybody is welcome to come visit our farm at any time. We allow visitors into almost all areas of our farm. Why not all areas? Well for one my house is generally a blooming mess I prefer not to “show it off”!! Some of our paddocks and pastures we keep off limits for biosecurity issues when it comes to livestock. It doesn’t mean you can’t look around or come into our barns and in some instances if you are willing to submit to wearing boot covers we are happy to allow you into the living quarters of the livestock. We are what I say we are. However if I omit something it is never intentional. I deal with quite a few people both in person and via the net each and every day and to be honest I don’t always remember what conversations have taken place with each person. PLEASE ask me questions as that will help make sure you are getting all the information you need. Here is something I recently told a friend. Is the sale of a $20 rabbit, a $100 pig or even a $500 goat worth the reputation of your person or entire business? Is it worth the moral issues of a lie? In all reality there is a market for conventionally raised items as well as all naturally raised items. That is the truth. So why would there even BE a reason to lie about a product you are selling….somebody will buy it either way. I call us an “all-natural” “chemical Free” farm and a farm that “follows organic principles”. What do I mean buy that? Well for our gardens and land it means I don’t use any chemical pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers or soil additives. So what DO I put on the garden? (Note: more on our livestock coming up.) Here are some examples: I use egg shells from our chickens if we need calcium. , manure from our animals to fertilize, a shop vacuum to remove rose chafers, hand pick tomato worms, put rabbits in between rows to eat the weeds, manually remove weeds, put used hay from the goat barns down as mulch, use companion planting methods, utilize row covers to keep pests off and other things along the same lines. To be honest other than some of the plants themselves we haven’t purchased anything to put on the plants or in/on the soil in 5 years now! I buy and save seed stock from non-GMO plant stock and try to purchase organic as well. However in the interest of full disclosure, we have not ALWAYS done this. Our journey into non-gmo and organic has been a short one as far as the years go. I have asparagus, rhubarb, strawberries and raspberry plants that I can’t confirm their origins. I do know the rhubarb belonged to my husband’s grandfather so I’m guessing it falls into the “safe zone”. While I can’t confirm their organic origins, I can say they have been free of man-made (is that the best way to put it?) chemicals for at least 4 years. Our hayfields are maintained without chemicals and so far without additives. Maintaining isn’t always just about what you put on your soil, but also how you manage the plants on the soil (how we cut, when we cut, how often we cut, etc.) Our pastures have done pretty well so far with grazing both the horses and the goats on them. The goats really relish the weeds the horses won’t touch. I hope to be able to say the same thing in a couple of years of grazing this way. Our livestock has been one of the hardest transitions. Our progress with the livestock is still ongoing and not yet fully transitioned. We are getting there though!! There are lots of facets of this on our farm and will just touch base on a few of them here. Our goal has been to totally eliminate chemical wormers, antibiotics and GMO feeds. We were on the right track until some of the bigger companies began implementing GMO alfalfa in 2014. Our grow out rabbits are eating barley fodder, a grain mix and our own hay. Our breeders however are still offered conventional pellets at this time. The goal is to be totally off them entirely within the next few months. The only treatments we have had to give rabbits are the occasional grape seed extract in their water as a parasite preventative, an essential oil and herbal flea powder, and once we had to treat a rabbit for ear mites using an oil and EO mix. We don’t give routine vaccinations to our goats any longer unless requested by a buyer (except for the goats leaving with the fair kids). We have done really well as far as the wormers go, but have had a few cases of a nasty (and deadly) stomach worm in our goats. I am finding a fine line between using chemicals as a lifesaving measure only and losing an animal. We just recently lost one of our bucks, dear darling handsome Shadow. We did try a chemical wormer on him and supported him with herbal therapy. He did quite well for a while, but then he took a turn for the worse and neither chemical treatments nor herbal therapies worked to save him. Antibiotics are used even less. We had a piglet that had been stepped on as a newborn and she had a very extensive set of skin wounds on her. We ended up giving her an injectable antibiotic when the antibiotic herbs didn’t work and she ended up with a pretty nasty infection. She was sold as a breeder to another farm but we were honest about the use of antibiotics on her. Our cow is currently only grass and pasture fed. We fed her some of our non-gmo grain mix when we first brought her home just for training purposes. She is currently wormed with our herbal wormer. We still currently offer a Kalmbach mineral mix to our goats but are working on transitioning to an herbal vitamin and mineral mix. PLEASE, our livestock is one area where if you are looking to buy from us and organic is important to you, that you should be asking AT LEAST the following questions (or at least let us know that organic is important so we can touch all the bases with you): Has this animal or it’s parents been vaccinated? Has it been treated with antibiotics? Has this animal been wormed with chemical wormers? As a general rule we sell most of our live animals to people who are NOT overly concerned with the organic side of things so disclosing certain things aren’t common place. HOWEVER, any of our animals that are part of our CSA are NOT treated with anything other than herbal treatments nor are they fed GMO feedstuffs. IF we come across the need to treat an animal that is slated to go onto somebody’s table we will pull that animal from the “menu” so to speak. We would still offer the animal via other avenues, but of course with full disclosure. We have found that finding the correct genetic stock that does well naturally is a big key to success. For example, not all pigs are built to be grazers on pasture and not all goats have the make up to be naturally parasite resistant. Not being prepared for these factors has caused a few minor set-backs. Now I have a confession of sorts. How did we begin doing what we do? I mean as far as the going all natural and organic? I sure would like to say it was a noble and well informed reason, but……truth is I’m cheap…..or perhaps more correctly we were broke. I knew I needed a garden to help feed us. Of course when you are broke, it can be hard enough coming up with the money for seeds and plants, but just wrap your head around coming up with the money needed to try artificially maintaining soil health (hardly possible to be honest), keeping insects at bay and getting rid of weeds. Please don’t get me wrong I wasn’t REALLY looking to buy all that stuff nor have I ever been of the mind to throw chemicals about willy-nilly, but I was in the past a more conventional gardener That included using whatever plants or seeds I found at the local big box stores. With more research I started finding out more about GMOs and HOW (and why) to garden without them and the chemicals. I learned how to make do with what we had available - our hands, other plants, manure, etc. Of course it then just naturally progressed right to our livestock. It turns out it really works for us as well has having a ripple effect of benefits for everything around us!! And another confession? If you check my cupboards in my house you will find we ourselves are not completely GMO free in that area. (Note: You will never see me mentioning that we use household scraps to supplement our animals or compost for this reason) Too many years for us to quit cold turkey, but we are getting there. For us it is a transition that will take time. I feel that it is a very important goal to reach. However, I think that my husband and I as people will have better luck at holding to a complete lifestyle transition if we have a method to our madness and take a little time to get it fully transitioned. With putting this entire thing out there I think one of our more pressing matters at hand will be to get some certification from those we buy from and will also be searching out some certifications for ourselves. I will NOT be pursuing USDA organic certification, but perhaps Certified Naturally Grown and/or Animal Welfare Approved. From the looks of it there are only two CNG farms within 25 miles of our area and only 30 or so in the entire state! The more I learn the more I find I HAVE to learn. I feel we will never reach any sort of ending to our journey but will certainly enjoy the trip itself. I’m sure we will take wrong turns and have to backtrack (like we have found necessary with some of our livestock) and start different legs of our journey over again. At least I’m happy to say we will learn from our mistakes. I tend to be stubborn and often take my own path therefore I sometimes make more mistakes than others.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 23:16:59 +0000
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