When you go to the store to buy food, do you prioritize food that is certified organic?

Recently we received a grant to get Certified Organic (should we so choose). From the farmer's commercial perspective, certified organic products sell for more money & it seems the consumer base is really looking for these products lately.

Let's not get confused here: not all organically grown food is certified organic.

In fact, these are two drastically different things and this is the subject of the video today. Certified organic food simply constitutes food from farms which have gone through rigorous regulations.

Organically grown kale from our homestead

Because we are interested in this economy and in selling our products at some point (value-added products mostly and not ephemeral vegetables - subject for a whole other post!), we went ahead and had an "Organic Plan" drawn up for us. As mentioned above, we got a grant to do this and so incurred no "out of pocket" expenses.

As we talked with the woman who was to write up our plan and realized all of the "hoops" we'd have to jump through in order to qualify for Organic Certification through the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), we started to have second thoughts.

We share many of these thoughts in the video and I'll encourage you to watch it for the details!

In short, it may not be worth it for a small farm like us to go through the trouble of getting the Organic Cert. In fact, our standards that we already grow by are even higher than those stipulated through the certification process. However, it is a costly and timely process and one that requires a lot of documentation.

We are already “beyond organic”!

Is it worth it in the end?

organic leek in our high tunnel

• Do you prioritize buying certified organic food from the grocery or farmer's market?
• Is a relationship with a farmer who grows organically with all natural methods and perhaps sells the produce at a lower cost something you are actively seeking out?
• Do you think small farms should bother going certified organic to "stay in the game" or should they focus on building relationships?
• Is it worth it for small farms to get certified given the fact that it may cost them more than they're able to make in an annual cycle?

This is a large conversation and really with this first vlog we're simply opening the door. We have a few months to decide whether we want to go through with it and want to hear from you all who are more open minded and educated than the general populace.

I remember hearing a story about a small farm who netted $40,000 in one year through growing and selling organically grown vegetables, yet after expenses (which for farm labor, equipment, inputs, seed, and other expenses cost $38,000) made only ~$2,000. Such is the case with many small farms where each person works over 60 hours/week and I'm not sure the average consumer is aware of this.

It's so important to support small farms for this reason and many others -- that is, unless you want the groceries to be filled with mass scale farm products instead of a diverse host of small farms throughout the country.

We are already losing our farmers at incredible rates.

This is obviously a huge conversation, but it boils down to this:

Where do you put your money?

Please watch the video and let us know what you think.