You never know for sure but it looks like our SPCA inspection today went well. Funny how all you see is the shit and knee deep mud, all manner of crap laying in the pasture and enough unfinished jobs to bury you while our inspector, Mona, describes why our farm is her dream farm as she spins in a circle with her arms out. How easy to forget how lucky we are. Because Mona also does organic certification inspections for livestock she asked why we were certifying SPCA but not organic. I told her we believed humane animal treatment was more important as livestock growers. She cleared up some misunderstandings I had about organic certification. I tend to see rules and regulations as black and white but it turns out, in terms of organic certification for livestock, it’s more about intent and willingness to bring your operation within guidelines than strict and immediate compliance. For example, while organic certification requires untreated fence posts, if you replace existing treated posts with certified posts when they need replacing, you are satisfying the intent of organic certification for that requirement. You don’t need to replace every treated fence post on your property. Regardless, it was nice to hear we were doing what we say we do, raising our animals to a high standard, worthy of organic certification excepting our uncertified (and completely healthy) hog ration and uncertified compost/recycled food (no meat, of course) both of which I would gladly eat myself were there no pork in the freezer. I bring a tear to my eye. No pork? Of course, our brew mash from the legendary Nelson Brewing Company is, and always will be, organic and tasty as... If youve never seen a pig smile, youve never seen them eat the remnants of a batch of Harvest Moon Organic Hemp Ale. I do have a list as long as my arm of items to submit in support of our application in terms of feed/mineral content, farm and barn layout, rotational movement of animals, why I’m such a shameless hussy and swell guy and how I grow such Havesome Hogs. May the Fork be with you.
Posted on: Sat, 23 Aug 2014 02:19:14 +0000
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