Soil & real organic farming
The most important part of the farm is the soil, especially in organic farming.
Creating a healthy soil will lead to healthy plants which will help people be healthy.
We have been very lucky to be farming land that has been farmed organically for more than 30 years and the veggies that we harvest off of it show the health of the soil.
In addition to being certified organic, last week we became certified Real Organic which is an add-on certification where crops must be grown in the soil
The Real Organic label was created by the farmer-led nonprofit Real Organic Project to differentiate organic food produced with healthy soils and pastures from some of what is now being allowed under USDA organic.
From the beginning of time soil has been at the core of organic farming. Without good soil you can’t grow good crops unless you add a lot of chemicals which cause harm to the environment and only benefit the soil in the short-term.
Unfortunately in 2017 the National Organic Standards board, which is under the USDA, voted against making a rule that organic crops needed to be grown in soil and banning hydroponics from organic.
This allowed the small but burgeoning organic hydroponic farms to expand rapidly and now many organic berries and tomatoes in grocery stores are not grown in the soil where they are able to get their excellent flavor.
They allowed these hydroponic farms to be certified even though under the law, the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990, an organic grower must have a plan to foster soil fertility ‘primarily through the management of the organic content of the soil through proper tillage, crop rotation, and manuring.’
As a result of that decision many of the leading organic farmers came together to discuss what to do in response and the Real Organic Project emerged from that. It is a free certification for farmers as the nonprofit is supported through donations.
There are a number of certifying groups that are not certifying hydroponics as organic because they believe the regulations don’t allow them to.
Many of the pioneering organic farmers agreed that managing soil health was central to organic and that adding organic matter through cover crops, compost, manure and crop residue was how you preserved the soil health.
Even the Hydroponic and Aquaponic Task Force, which was put together by the National Organic Program, said that organic growing should only take place in the soil.
The gist of what guided their conclusion was that in organic fertility management the majority of crop nutrients come from biological activity decomposing organic molecules and minerals in the soil. While in nonorganic crop nutrients are most applied as synthethic chemicals in easily accessible forms.
‘Soil management is at the heart of organic production, while fertilizer management is the basis of nonorganic systems.’
At the same time as this exciting new certification for our farm we are busy harvesting, planting fall crops and spreading compost.
