Lets protect the integrity of certified organic farming

OPEN LETTER TO CERTIFIED ORGANIC GROWERS

RE: NEED FOR TOTAL SEPARATION FROM THE CONVENTIONAL SYSTEM

The recent article titled “Secret tests reveal cattle feed contaminated by animal parts” in the Vancouver Sun of December 16th, 2004 is another piece of evidence that confirms the need for certified organic agriculture to be totally independent from the conventional agricultural system. This article confirms that many of the conventional feeds that are labeled vegetable only are in fact contaminated with animal by-products. This is verification of rumors we hear weekly in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.

It is especially frustrating to me as an organic producer of animal products. I am competing in the market place with products that are making the natural (vegetable only diet) claim saying it is virtually organic. Other then a few credible specialty stores retailers are indifferent and have no interest in a certified organic product that is higher priced when they can flog these dubious natural products with little or no verification systems. I believe that the retailers that sell these ‘so-called’ natural products with out verification of the inputs used are complicit in a marketing fraud.

Conventional agriculture has not taken any meaningful steps to understand certified organic production or the consumer fear it is designed to alleviate. One recent quote I have heard from the conventional feed system is that “an organic feed producer is intellectually incapable of making a good feed”. This quote lies at the root of what is wrong with the conventional system when it comes to accommodating organic producers. They so fundamentally disagree with our desire to avoid antibiotics, GMOs, hormones, and animal by-products that they believe we could not put together a feed ration that would effectively nourish and provide health to our animals. They further believe that the marketing of organic products is just a scheme to capitalize on consumer fear. Because they do not believe in the organic system or the organic feeds they have no compunction when marketing a product and labeling it as natural without full verification of the feed or other inputs used. Some of those that produce the natural products have told me that they feed animal by-products as part of the ration for all but the last 2 or 3 weeks of production. They deem this as a vegetable fed/natural chicken.

There are two serious issues that must be addressed by the certified organic system if it wishes to remain credible with the consumer it serves. These are the issues of parallel production and the use of manure from a convention farm.

We must return to the prohibition of parallel production and move to the need for total farm conversion to organic production if the farm is to be certified organic. The risk of cross contamination is too great when you allow the production of a conventional crop or animal within the same farm system that produces an organic product of the same species. We can no longer ignore this very real risk and the signal it sends to the consumer.

In our rush to try to bring conventional producers into the organic system we have compromised a lot of the ethic that made us organic producers in the first place. It is fundamentally wrong to allow a farm that produces tens of thousands conventional birds fed prohibited materials and kept in an inhumane environment to produce a few thousand birds organically and sell them under a certified organic label. It is ironic that the drive towards the policy of total separation of the two farming systems may be coming from other than the organic movement. SPCA has come out with a statement that they would not allow the use of their humane label by farms that also raises animals conventionally. SPCA has come to recognize the ethical problem of allowing the use of their label by farmers that don’t completely convert to humane agriculture. The conventional system itself is recognizing that the two systems are incompatible within the same farm. They see the cross contamination threat in the opposite direction that we do. It is their believe that a farm system that has both outside birds and totally enclosed birds runs the risk of introducing a disease such as avian influenza from the exposed outside birds to the inside birds. Thus they are recommending no parallel production. It is time the organic system did the same.

The second issue is that of using conventional manure and animal by-products such as blood meal and bone meal on organic farms. It is my believe that if the organic consumer realized that this was allowed they would be outraged. We allow this practice with the caveat that the manure be composted first. We state that the materials that are used in the composts must be free of contaminants and yet we require no testing for possible contaminants in conventional manure. I believe we do not test for contaminants because we know that the likelihood of contaminants being present is too great. GMOs will contaminate any manure produced from animals fed feeds produced from GMO altered canola, soy, or corn. One of our main arguments against GMO products is that we do not know how they will manifest themselves in the environment over time. The organic system steadfastly contends that it has strict avoidance of GMO products but allows the use of manure likely to be contaminated by GMOs. The risks go well beyond GMOs. The Vancouver Sun article highlights the problem in general. The problem is that when taking manure from conventional farms you have no idea of what is actually in the manure. You have no idea of what went into the feed that was fed to the animals in the first place. You have no idea of what pesticides were used in barn clean out or what antibiotics were given to the animals. The list of possible contaminant ranges from the pesticides used on the crops fed to the animals or in the clean out of the barm, antibiotics, dead animals, and GMO products.

Finally there is the ethical problem of taking manure from conventional farms. By taking the waste from conventional farms we are condoning their methods of production and the inputs that they use. Organic producers who use manure from conventional farms are tacitly saying that there is no problem with the conventional methods of production and their wastes are safe. These same organic producers then somehow turn around and sell their products at a much higher price to a consumer that is willing to pay the higher price because they wish to avoid buying from the conventional farms. There is something fundamentally wrong with this.

The underlying need of the organic movement is to totally separate certified organic production from the conventional system. The alternative is to risk being contaminated by the conventional system in a real and ethical way.

Yours truly,

Fred Reid