Starting next week, I will attempt to eat only organic or natural foods. Do you think I can do it?! I'll be researching health benefits, cost analysis, and ease of access for these foods vs traditional supermarket foods.
Stay tuned for a day-by-day breakdown of how everything is going to happen!
Drew
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Starting next week...
Saturday, February 20, 2010
O'Daniels Organic Growing
At a balmy 50 degrees, I set out to visit Joe O’Daniel of the 116-acre O’Daniel farms on Friday afternoon. O’Daniel, who grew up on a farm and began maintaining his own farm in 1991, grows most of his products organically and is one of the only local growers who refrains from using pesticides and herbicides. 
“At first, I didn’t think I could make the leap to grow without pesticides,” he said. However, after 7 years, O’Daniel’s fears about being able to succeed while growing organically have been assuaged.
A steady profit was one of the reasons to convince him that he had what it takes to grow this way. He said that the farm grosses approximately $100,000 annually, with a majority of the sales coming from the SKy Farmers Market, delivery orders, or orders that customers pick up from the farm on Fridays.
“Customers seem to be happy with the farm,” O’Daniel said, “They like being able to see where the products come from.”
Although O’Daniel grows organically, he has not been certified by the United States Department of Agriculture.
“Until my customers demand it, I won’t switch,” O’Daniel said. Although he is not certified, O’Daniel Farms is one of the only organic growers that attends the SKy Market, automatically giving him a leg up on the competition.
On the farm, the O’Daniel works with his wife, Debbie, and their daughters to prepare the land, plant the seeds, grow and maintain, and harvest a myriad of crops, including: lettuce, arugula, peas, strawberries, raspberries, peaches, asparagus, carrots, kale, leeks, and multiple other types of produce.
O’Daniel said that he once had a family of nationalized Mexicans working at his farm, but he prefers for everything to be done by the family for the sake of carefulness and privacy.
Chicken and eggs are two of the O’Daniel’s other endeavors.
“I like to eat chicken and their eggs,” he gives as a reason for getting in to the chicken business, “But then I saw that there was more demand for them and they were more profitable.” This moment was when O’Daniel decided to raise chicken in a larger quantity.
Currently, he has a flock chickens that roam around a small pasture area and lay eggs everyday in their covered-wagon style coop. These aren’t all of the chickens that the O’Daniels have on their farm. Inside the dining room of their house, 153 three-day-old chicks peep and peck around as they bathe in warmth underneath 100-degree heat lamps. These chickens have been given no antibiotics or hormones, adhering to O’Daniel’s pure ideas about farming.
O’Daniel said that he likes to keep his chicken products and all of his other growth in the local community. While in one of his hoop-houses, he also said that he was proud to own a small, yet productive farm.
“I don’t see how they can be big and make it. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
The Organic Trade Association
The Organic Trade Association’s mission statement outlines the main goals of the organization: to “promote and protect organic trade to benefit the environment, farmers, the public, and the economy.” Barbara Haumann, press secretary and staff writer for the organization, said that the association provides a network for organic growers and the distributors through which organic food is sold. 
Haumann said that a current goal of the organization is to allow farmers to see past the initial costs for going organic. “OTA has asked for money to be provided for a certification cost-share program,” Haumann said. This new plan would pay half of the farmer’s cost to be a certified organic grower.
Another way that the association promotes organic growing is by creating working relationships with seasoned organic growers and younger, traditional farmers to dissuade the thoughts by some farmers that organic cannot produce a profit.
“Costs or production for organics is higher, but the sales are higher,” Haumann said. “Farmers have pre-conceived notions that it will be too hard.” Haumann postulates that this is the reason that most greatly deters farmers from organic growing.
When converting a farm to organic growing, there is a period of time where the land must be weaned off of the previously used chemicals and there will be a major drop in production. However, when the yield returns to its normal level, the profit margin will be greater because organically grown plants have a higher return value than non-organics.
“It’s entirely possible to go organic,” Haumann said.
The association also believes that organic growing is not only better for those who ingest the products, but also for the health of the Earth.
Haumann said that traditional synthetic materials used by non-organic farmers are dependent upon fossil fuels for creation. Haumann hopes that as people’s ideas about food become more progressive, those thoughts will be transferred to care for the Earth.
Another goal of the organization is to make organic food more accessible to all, especially low income people.
“Some farmers’ markets accept food stamp type coupons to get organic food to those who might not get it,” Haumann said. This procedure seems to be taking off in various parts of the country, especially in Chicago. Haumann discussed a low-income neighborhood who grows organic community gardens for sustenance and for a community farmers’ market.
Unfortunately, a program like this would not be able to happen in Bowling Green, Ky. According to Laura Goodwin, manager of the Sky Regional Farmers Market, there are no organic growers who attend this market.
Goodwin hopes that within the next year there will be at least one organic grower and distributor.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Where are the organics?
According to a recent study by the U.S.D.A. there are approximately 2.6 million acres of organic farmland in the United States. That may seem like a lot of acreage, but when compared to the over 300 million acres of traditional farmland, cited by the U.S.D.A, it isn't much land. . 
Perhaps this is the reason that in the past couple of years many organic products have been undersupplied in major grocery stores and in the diets of Americans. In the 2008 Farm Act, congress appropriated an initial $5 million for "an expanded organic data collection initiative" and an annual $5 million for the research team to conduct their studies. This decision was made after evidence from grocers indicated that more and more people are trying to go organic.
Although there is a relatively small number of organic farms, the number could be increasing more and more within the next few years. The U.S.D.A. has issued several stipulations in order to be a certified organic farmer. A report by the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service broke down the steps that are required to meet the certification. The most stringent parts of the process are the need for a third party organic observer and three years of organic growing before the certification process can be finalized.
A three, sometimes more, year waiting period can pose problems for farmers who want to sell their organic products but are not allowed to marked them by what they really are. In those three years, a farmer could lose out on a large amount of profit from the organic community. Because of the time requirement, the journey that "organic" food takes from farm to fork turns into a much longer travel.
The sales of organic products has increased over six-fold since 1997 and only shows signs of increasing if the amount of farmland is able to multiply as necessary to meed the ever-growing demand. 
In 2005 the largest quantity of an organic crop was grain, with over 607,000 acres; however, organic produce accounts for the most sales of any product. If sales are so good, then what is keeping some farmers from becoming organic growers.
For next time, I'll dig more into they WHY of organic farming, and for some, the WHY NOT. I am also interested to find out: if any requirements were changed, would farmers make the switch.
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