A Federal district court in California has overturned the USDA’s approval of Monsanto’s genetically modified sugar beet seed which failed to take into account impacts on environment, health and economics. Health and environmental concerns are still up for grabs with conflicting studies both pro and con but economic side effects can’t be denied.  For example, Oregon produces a huge amount of seed for sugar beets, table beets and chard. Since these are all closely related, it’s tough enough as it is to prevent cross pollination. Introducing another set of unreliable genes via windblown pollen will devastate organic beet/chard farms since contamination would negate the crops’ organic status.

Judge Jefferey S. White: “…the potential elimination of a farmer’s choice to grow non-genetically engineered crops, or a consumer’s choice to eat non-genetically engineered food , is an action that potentially eliminates or reduces the availability of a particular plant  and has a significant effect on the human environment.” Now there’s a judge I can agree with!

Pro-GMO forces (including our old “friends” at Monsanto) plan to fight back of course. The Sugar Industry Biotech Council cites the defense of “farmers’ freedom to plant Roundup Ready sugar beets”.  Freedom to buy seed that is engineered to resist a name brand herbicide instead of bred to benefit human & environmental health? What patriots!

Not only is GMO giant Monsanto on the legal defensive, their finances are also taking a “beeting”: fourth quarter losses are calculated at $233 million.  Of course that has to do with stocks and shares and the Orwellian doublespeak of Wall Street. Their net revenue was still close to two billion dollars. Boo-hoo. But wait…there’s more!

Monsanto was the target of 147 lawsuits in West Virginia alone for allegedly contaminating the area around a now-closed plant with dioxins and furans. The company is also under investigation by the US Justice Department for violating antitrust laws as the largest GMO seed company in the world. Their rivals Dupont and Syngenta AG have also jumped into the fray. Not for any altruistic reasons mind you but just because they want a bigger slice of that Genetically Engineered pie. The states of Iowa and Texas conducting their own antitrust investigations as well.

And to top it off, the contested sugar beet approval has brought attention and back to the EPA’s hurried and premature approval of Monsanto’s SmartStax corn: there was no public notification of the pre-approval comment period. Plus no one in charge seemed to care that this new GMO corn carries eight inserted genes. Previously approved crops have had no more than three.  It appears re-evaluation is in order. On a purely personal and impertinent note I’d turn SmartStax down merely on the basis on misappropriating the name of the greatest soul music label of all time: Stax Records of Memphis Tennessee. I can’t say for sure but I suspect Otis Redding wouldn’t have wanted to eat GMO corn grits.

And on that goofy note: with the exception of the Yippies in the ‘60s, few protest movements have had much of a sense of humor but now we can add Friends of the Earth-Spain to the list of laughing agitators. Spain produces the largest share of Genetically Modified corn in the EU with no law or regulation to protect non-GMO crops from contamination and cross-pollination. Deciding enough was enough, twenty protestors costumed as non-GMO ears of corn stormed the French embassy in Madrid seeking political asylum. Says FOES’s spokesman David Carpio Sanchez, “ With their survival at risk, the non GM maize have no choice but to flee the country.”

YOU CAN HAVE MY CHILE WHEN YOU PRY IT FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS

Case in point: one of my heroes is Fabian Garcia, a seed collector and plant breeder in the 1910’s at what’s now NMSU. He worked with many New Mexico crops but particularly chile. Garcia developed the first commercial variety (the #9) by crossbreeding the wildly variable native chile, the result being uniform in size, heat and production. It might be strange to hear a long time semillero  like myself champion crop uniformity but in those days it gave the small farm a chance to make a few more bucks. Back then, exporting your crop meant packing it onto the old Chile Line railroad to move it between the Espanola Valley and the Mesilla Valley.

For awhile now, I’ve been focusing on the growth in New Mexico of large scale organic farms (dairies, peanuts, cotton) but that’s only because its really new in relation to the many small farms that have been certified organic for years.

The New Mexico Organic Commodity Commission (now in our eighteenth year!) was built on the strength, hard work and tenacity of the small organic grower: a few acres of apple orchards, mixed vegetables and medicinal/culinary herbs. There’s no less small farms than before; just many more new big one. There’s still plenty of “little guys” out there as evidenced by the amazing mix of fresh produce you can find at your local growers’ market.

Many of them grow organically even if they happen not be certified organic. In many ways, achieving certification is harder on the small operation. The paperwork requirements can be overwhelming because certification is built on verification: receipts for organic seeds /seedlings and allowed fertilizers/pest control materials; logging and documenting planting, harvest & sales; soil tests; labeling; pre-cleaning of borrowed or rented equipment that may have been used on non-organic farms. Its endless. 

The dairy or peanut butter facility already has people whose job it is to keep records and meet bureaucratic requirements of up to a dozen agencies for health and safety licenses. Even the large scale family farm is used to keeping some kind of records for taxes and bank loans (and it should be noted --and applauded--that this bookkeeping duty is most often taken on by the farmer’s wife who’s doing this in addition to her family duties). By comparison, the small grower may often be holding down another job in order to keep the place running and can barely-- if at all-- afford hired help in the field. Forget about bookkeepers!

These are the hardworking folks who’ve built the organic movement. Think about it. In all the years we’ve read the word “organic” in major newspapers & magazines, except for a few grains & beans until recently its mostly been used in relation to vegetables & fruit. Raising huge monocrops of organic carrots or broccoli has its own set of difficult challenges but the entire farm is pretty much on the same schedule.

But a mixed acre of two of carrots, broccoli, lettuce, mustards, corn, beans, peas, salad greens, beets, radishes, corn, melons, squash, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, garlic, onions, herbs, a few fruit trees and a flock of chickens? Every crop has its own needs at specific times and they don’t take turns. How do you choose between picking the snap beans that will be too tough by tomorrow or watering the cukes that are beginning to wilt? The zucchini is covered with squash bugs that need intensive hand-picking while the tomatoes desperately need a feeding. Oh, and the irrigation ditch just overflowed and hey how did the chickens get out into the neighbor’s yard again? Its a juggling act more amazing than anything you’ll see in a circus.

Organic Certification was begun by farmers who had outgrown their local markets and customers and began selling to out-of-state distributors. When your local customers know you and the quality of your crop, being “officially” organic may not count for much. But those far-off buyers wanted some assurance of what they were getting, hence the convoluted certification system which is still in its infancy (less than ten years)as a federal program.

If the requirements and fees become to much for the small farm, they may choose to opt out of organic certification altogether and concentrate on the local markets. There’s some incredible certified organic small farms out there but I’ve seen many non-certified farms go above and beyond the organic rule as far as sustainability and environmental impact. And I’ve also heard many a grower tell me he’s organic but uses a little RoundUp herbicide here & there and an occasional shot of MiracleGro.

So how do you as a consumer know whom to trust? Most farmers markets require those folks making organic claims to display their organic certificate. But if the grower you’re talking to doesn’t have one, ask about their methods and inputs. Get to know them and if possible visit the farm sometime. There’s a lot to be said for buying local produce (I’ll usually opt for it myself) but if the farm is using synthetics & poisons, that’s not the local economy I want to support.

In any case we’re fortunate to have many small & dedicated organic farms in New Mexico. Take the time to visit your local farmer’s market and meet these folks. And believe me, no matter what you pay for their products, they’re not making enough.  

The face of organic agriculture is changing. I mean that literally. Since my early days as an organic inspector and now as a certifier, many divergent types of people are stepping up to the plate. Or I should say, plow. As late as the early 2000s, the majority of organic operations were run by children of the counterculture who long ago realized “dropping out” truly means taking responsibility for your own communities’ needs.

Raising food for local consumption. Impacting the health and thereby true wealth of your neighborhood. Recycling the resource locally be it compost or cash.

The self-sufficiency cry of the Mother Earth News back-to-the-land’er came to mean not isolated independence but integrated interdependence. Living in a remote cabin scratching out a few veggies (I tried it) still left a hole in the whole. When the crop fails, the well runs dry or the chickens get eaten by coyotes the homestead can be a lonely place. What many of these Conservationists came to realize is that they had more in common with Conservatives than they knew.

In the past few years the explosive growth of certified organic operations in New Mexico hasn’t taken place in “hip” communities surrounding Santa Fe or Taos but tiny hamlets ringing Portales: Causey, Pep, Rogers, Dora. Folks who grew up in a tractor seat or the dairy barn are moving their sizable farms into organic practices. For many, the transition isn’t actually all that difficult. In grand-dad’s day, expensive chemical fertilizers and pesticides were financially out of reach for frequent use. Aged or composted manure and rotations remained the backbone of these farms even when money was flush for a few bags of 12-10-8.. fertilizer.

It was gratifying and even amusing to see lanky cowboys in new jeans and pressed shirts comparing notes with pierced dreadlock gardeners in drawstring cotton pants at events like the annual New Mexico Organic Farming Conference that took place in Las Cruces this past February. The politics of either side may remain at odds but helping the neighbor rebuild a burnt barn, keeping watch over the next door cows while they calve on a stormy night, lending a hand & baling wire to rescue an ailing tractor: these are all rural values. Farmers (and that term includes ranchers --it hasn’t been all that long since raising crops and raising livestock became separate endeavors) have always banded together.

Anthropology shows that early civilization and villages (soon to become cities) were possible only with a steady food supply. Specialization like making pottery (to better store grain and seed), forging better tools (to ease farm labor) and creating art (not by bread alone) was only possible when there was available food for all.

I still strongly believe in localized production of things like vegetables, fruit and herbs but “commodity” foods like peanuts, wheat or milk are hard to come by if you’re dedicated to shopping in your immediate bio-region. A few mavericks like Virginia’s Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm have shown that sustainable multi-crop/livestock operations are feasible and desirable but they’re few and far between. Its hard to say when this could become commonplace unless or until energy and fuel are just about run out. Anyone remember when we hoped for that? That such a crisis might make only local production feasible? I’m raising my hand with only a little less naivety than I had as a nineteen year old who knew it all.

But as I’ve reported before, if you demand to hop down to your local co-op or local natural food chain for milk or tropical fruit on any day of the year, large-scale commodity production will continue. Heck even that organic broccoli you buy year-round comes from huge monocrop operations.

Some of the eastern NM organic dairies (we have four so far) are moving toward directing some of their production to cheese making, a commodity that-- unlike cartonized milk--doesn’t rely only on big contracts with nationwide distributors.

I’m not putting down the organic dairymen who must use those contracts. Far from it. They (followed closely by peanut growers) are responsible for a huge ripple effect in their communities. The need for more and better cared-for pasture & quality hay coaxes more farms into certified organic production. More jobs for local farmhands and more money channeled to local equipment dealers means more money to local restaurateurs, grocers and hardware stores who were already struggling to hold their own against Wal-Mart.

No this isn’t the only answer to revitalizing community and the local food shed but it sure looks like trickle-up economics to me. There’s some politics I think we can all agree on. I’m proud to know these new-to-organic farmers, folks I once stupidly thought I had little in common with. I am however anxious to see who in Roosevelt County takes that first step to producing vegetables for their local economy. Grandpa did it.

Tune in next month for the small grower in New Mexico and the impact on their communities.

Out To Pasture. Again.

The USDA/National Organic Program rule for organic livestock simply states ruminants must have “access to pasture”.

There’s thousands of acres of native grass pasture for organic beef production in the west. Cows graze year-round (even dry grass is edible and nutritious) with only supplemental feed  given seasonally. Dairy pasture is different. Unlike beef cattle, the lactating cow must be milked daily, not left to wander a vast ranch. Since they are daily producing a product (milk), they need higher concentrations of nutrition than a meat animal which isn’t expected to produce until slaughter. At its best, milk pasture access means leaving it up to the dairyman and their organic certifier to compromise on the best solution for the locale and size of the operation. At its worst, organic dairies become feedlots by merely leaving a gate open so livestock can amble out to pasture when they feel like it. Which of course they tend not to do when there’s abundant feed available.

A top quality organic dairy has a feed station (centered at the milking parlor) surrounded by pasture. Grain, hay or silage given in the morning and milking is followed by grazing. Weather, climate, soil quality and crop suitability play a regional role. Dry grass pasture during a  New Mexico winter is available but feed rations must increase to make up for lack of fresh greenery. A dairy in New England might be under snow all winter and pasture simply not available.

After years of pressure to tighten up, the NOP recently issued proposed pasture changes, some needed & practical, some ill-conceived & costly. Here’s a few key items.

At least 30% Dry Matter Intake must come from grazed vegetation. Putting a number on anything as variable as farming is tricky. Pulling this off year-round in the arid west or snowy north will be tough if not impossible. And if the number isn’t met  --no matter the reason-- the organic operator can lose their certification.  

Reasons for temporary confinement have been narrowed which cuts the feedlot option altogether. This is good but it can also lead to practical problems. Weather (any weather) has been removed as reason for temporary confinement.  Worst of all, the NOP failed to define “confinement”. Does it mean a veal cage, an acre dry-lot or a pen?  Or what of weaned dairy calves that must be bottle-fed until they’re sturdy enough to graze on their own? Lactating cows can’t feed their own young at the same time if they are to be producing commodity milk. Natural?  No. A fact of commercial dairy production? Yes.

Pastures must be managed for year round grazing. But the rule contradicts itself by saying grazing is only required during the growing season.  So what happens if your pasture is under three feet of snow or the grass was bad that year due to drought? You can’t confine the livestock to feed them but neither should they waste energy and risk their health in deep snow; nor should they graze on pasture that needs a rest period to regenerate.

All streams, ponds and rivers must be fenced from livestock access. This won’t affect dairies as much as it does beef ranches but what about intermittent waterways (arroyos, seasonal dirt tank impoundments, etc)?  The larger the pasture, the more costly it will be. In other words, the ranches that are already closest in intent to the rule (highest ratio of pasture acres to head of livestock) will be hit with the most prohibitive expense.

There’s much, much more. The biggest obstacle to perfecting organic certification is that we are trying to quantify something that is by nature qualitative. Truly sustainable food production means extremely localized production. If you want certified organic food available year round in stores, rules and regulations will apply. Interpretation of rules (ask any lawyer) will always vary, for good or ill. There’s no doubt the rule needs clarification but if its based on only figures rather than reason, no one will meet them.  Never ever forget that every farm and ranch must turn a profit in order to survive. Overregulation always kills the little guy first.

GROWING COTTON ISN'T AS SOFT AS IT LOOKS

Despite the "act locally" axiom, some crops just aren't well-suited to a small farm. Take cotton in New Mexico. Sure, the Pueblo tribes were raising cotton long before Europeans arrived but they spun their own yarn, thread and clothes. Even the most die-hard back-to-the-land /Y2K survivalist types don't take things that far. Commercially, we have the Mesilla Valley (Las Cruces to El Paso) and eastern side of the state (which from a bio-regional point of view is pretty much west Texas).

No one hand picks cotton anymore. The most efficient harvesters are the big machines. By efficient I mean they deliver the highest tonnage of mature bolls versus time and effort (we won't enter into the fossil fuel debate here). The small harvesters can deal with plots as tiny as 10 or 15 acres although to most cotton farmers, one thousand acres is leaning toward the small end of the scale.

Pretty hibiscus-like flowers (they're related) produce a pod the size of an unhusked walnut which slowly opens as a wad of cotton (the seed-bearing boll) unfurls in a puffy bloom, like slow motion popcorn. Like any other crop, cotton is ripe during a small window. Fibers don't rot or decompose like an unpicked tomato but quality is of utmost concern since the buyer pays by grade. The better the grade, the better the price.

The farmer must wait until quality is at its peak and its dry enough to haul in the harvesters without excess damage to soil structure. This means if it rains not only is it too wet to enter the fields but the fibers get soaked, droop and "unspool"  to drag in the dirt and mud. That's a drop in grade and price right there.

You can't harvest "green" cotton; that is, from living plants. In the non-organic world, chemical defoliants kill the plant. The organic farmer must wait for a freeze to do the same. That doesn't always happen on a timely basis especially down south. More nail biting follows.

Once the cotton is harvested, its compacted into modules which are the size and shape of a tractor-trailer truck, not at all pillowy. These are hauled to the cotton gin to separate the fiber from the trash, twigs, dirt and seed. Organic cotton farmers must use a gin that's also certified organic. Since no gin can survive solely on the organic trade, they start with the non-organic since it arrived first. This means there's hundreds of non-organic modules in the storage lot ahead of the  organic. Rain won't do too much damage (each module is usually tarped over the top) as long as the cotton is not in a low-lying area. I've seen organic modules in a few inches of standing water. It's a heart-breaking sight. Quality (and price) take a nosedive.

When the non-organic is finished,  the immense equipment is partially dismantled,  painstakingly cleaned and blown with compressed air to ensure no non-organic residue remains. After ginning, the organic farmer waits again, storing his bales at a certified organic warehouse until the buyer is ready for it. Only now is the final grade determined (hence the farmer's price) and the checks start trickling in. Cotton farmers have little room to haggle. The contracted going rate is the only choice. They can produce some extra cash by selling organic cotton seed to organic beef producers. Or running the harvester through the fields again to pick up the low quality "trash" cotton that's good for industrial use. There's no market for organic trash cotton so the price drops again. In all cases, the gin and warehouse take their cut.

From here, the farmer can breath a sigh of relief but in New Mexico by that time its well into January or even March, scant weeks away from getting ready to plant again. He's gonna need those payments to invest in equipment maintenance, fresh seed, fuel and labor to start the cycle all over again.

Its mid-November as I write. Clouds are rolling in statewide and the cotton bolls down south are wide open. Remember the organic cotton farmer when you pray to the deity/entity of your choice.

There's been some bad news in the organic press lately, claiming that many Organic Certifiers nationwide are failing their audits by the USDA/ National Organic Program (which empowers the certifier to operate in the first place). Although I'm certain every certifying agency (including "mine", the  NM Organic Commodity Commission) has improvements to make its not as simple as pass/fail.

By way of comparison, certifiers audit (inspect) organic producers to ensure their compliance with NOP rule. Non-compliances fall into either the minor or major category. A minor could as simple as not updating the farm map or failing to report the use of a different method of pest control than originally reported. After receiving notice of the non-compliance, the organic operator may have two weeks or three months or a year to correct the non-compliance, depending on its severity.

If there is a threat to the organic integrity of the operation, action must be taken immediately as this is a major non-compliance. But even then, due course takes precedence (remember, this is Federal law we're dealing with). Even if  prohibited material (fertilizer or pest control etc) use is suspected, the organic operator by law has thirty days to rebut or respond to the Notice of Non-Compliance. No certifier anywhere has the power to issue an immediate stop-sale order. Only the USDA can do that. If after the operator's response the certifier decides to revoke the organic  certificate, then organic sales cease. Does this mean that a product that is not really organic might be on the shelves awhile before the case is decided? It may. To me that's the lesser of evils rather than having a lockdown slapped on a suspected transgressor no questions asked. I take my job as certifier quite seriously but I sure don't want that kind of authority. Our democracy may have more cracks than the Liberty Bell but its not beyond repair, and innocent until proven guilty is still the ideal.

A major non-compliance can result in either outright revocation of the organic certificate or taking the farm out of organic production for at least three years. But in most cases, the organic operator makes the needed changes to correct the minor non-compliance and everything is jake once again. As most certified operators can tell you, we certifiers  are always on their case about something, being the nitpicky obsessive compulsive hair-splitters we tend to be.

So, its no different with certifiers being audited by the NOP. Audits are either document review, on-site visit or both. We only bug organic producers a few hours a year but I have my auditor as my constant companion for about three days at a time.

So what non-compliances do the NOP auditors find? It could be as simple as we used Document C407a; version G instead of  Document C407a; version H in the Farmer Brown file. Or I've hired a new contract organic inspector whose name was not added to our updated list of staff. These are minor non-compliances that are easily corrected with a few keystrokes or amending our six inch thick Policy Manual to ensure it doesn't happen again.  Thus far, NMOCC hasn't been hit with a major non-compliance but in the past a few certifiers have lost their accreditations (their license to certify) over it. A major could be issuing a certificate to an operator who clearly wasn't meeting the rule (i.e. isn't organic) or having the operator be inspected/certified  by a business partner (conflict of interest clause).

So as the NOP in 2008 completed their first major round of five-year re-accreditation audits, many certifiers, NMOCC included, were found to have non-compliances. These are a matter of public record available on the NOP website (http://www.ams.usda.gov/nop). NMOCC has submitted our responses ( yes, we've corrected our Policy Manual; yes we're pleading with the State Legislature to let us hire more people so we have more than our measly three staff to certify over 170,000 organic acres…). These have been accepted by the NOP. The same is occurring with all the other certifiers in question. No one has failed anything.

But as added insurance, the NOP is sending another auditor or two to see us (and other certifiers) again just to make sure. And we have to come up with another six or eight thousand bucks to cover it. So your federal and state tax dollars are at work making sure us certifiers don't screw up. Bureaucracy yes but that's how it should be. Keeps me on my toes.

NM Organic Commodity Commission get lots of inquiries from folks who think inspecting organic farms would be a groovy little job. To be sure, it is kinda cool. Before I moved into the Certifier's hotseat, I spent twelve years inspecting. I had it easy: up to forty inspections per year when things were much more simple. Times have changed. Since the USDA/National Organic Program rules took effect in 2002 (giving "legitimacy" to a business once seen as a special interest at best, new-age whackos at worst) the number of organic producers has increased dramatically, the operations larger and more complex and the stakes much higher.

Although the certifier bears the ultimate responsibility for the certification, we are at a loss without keen, competent, observant and knowledgeable inspectors. They are literally our eyes and ears in the field. As a certifier, without a well-organized and detailed inspector's report, I'm useless.

First though comes training. The industry standard is the International Organic Inspector's Association (http://www.ioia.net/) who run trainings in Wisconsin and Costa Rica, San Diego to Tokyo. The trainee pays a few thousand bucks for travel, room and the training fee. I've heard stories of sleeping in hammocks under Hawaiian stars to cement block dorms during New Jersey winters. This ain't no vacation and there's little time to see the local sights.

You're expected to show up having done your homework (digesting and knowing NOP rule and IOIA inspector's handbook) as well as having some agricultural background. Back in (ahem) my day gregarious inspectors still found time to unwind in the evenings (especially the Costa Ricans who dragged me out dancing until 3 am more than once, bless 'em). Now, long days of training are followed by evenings of independent study, cramming and more training. A day or two of class (instructed by people among the best in the biz) is followed by a mock inspection of an organic farm, twenty little duckling inspectors peering under every nook & cranny.

You've slogged through three or five days of intensive training with little or no sleep, too much coffee and your head jammed with regulatory issues you never in your wildest dreams considered. You've even passed the final test. I don't even recall a test at my first training in 1991. Just being there was good enough. These days its rigorous as hell making sure you understand the rules & their implementation, production activities & their implications but that you can locate and spout regulation, chapter & verse and say amen.

Does this mean you're ready for some lucky certifier to hire you? Not even close. Trainees must complete many hours of apprentice inspections with a mentor inspector who shows you the ropes (apprentice equals "work for free"). Inspection reports can be extensive checklists or burgeoning narratives or in some cases both. Even when the mentor and the certifier finally agree you're good to go, you're expected to travel mile after mile of bumpy backroads, negotiate unfamiliar airports & cities and know everything there is to know.

Is it possible to get 85 bushel an acre soybean harvests on a farm newly transitioned to organics using only low grade compost, as the farmer says he's doing? How many acres of pasture is adequate, spatially & nutritionally, for a hundred head of lactating dairy cattle? Will the additives used in the hot water boiler at the vegetable canning facility threaten the organic integrity of the product?

Are you ready to slog through ankle deep mud in the rain because you've already driven 400 hundred miles to the farm and there's no time to postpone the inspection? Are you willing to visit an organic meat packer and see dozens of carcasses and possibly witness an actual slaughter? Spend more time poring over hundreds of pages of production records than observing the operation itself? Can you take command of the situation and be professional, calm, courteous and punctual even if the client is not? And don't forget you must attend repeat trainings every few years to keep current. And most of all, are you willing to spend days and weeks away from your spouse, kids, school, job, home, garden, pets and hobbies?

I'm proud to say "my" inspectors do all of this and more. They're valuable to me because they ensure I can do my job. And they're invaluable to you in ensuring that the organic goods you pay for are truly worth your hard-earned dough. Hip-hip-hooray!