If you are not certified organic you cannot market your produce as organic no matter how you grow. I do grow Organically and my farm used to be certified so unlike many market farmers who claim to be Organic (they don't spray much roundup or sevin, or whatever, and they use compost but they do not understand the complex process of managing a farm organically).

I have a big demand for my produce because it is the real thing and the organicness of the produce is very very important to my long term best customers and all my CSA members. It is also important to most people who come to the farm store (they look us up on the web, see we are deeply Organic and stop by) but the people who do not research and just stop on a whim organic is usually not important. So I would say around 75% of my customers find organic growing, including fertilizers (how the soil is treated is the MOST IMPORTANT thing in organics and the avoiding 'cides an incidental. As any good Organic farm manager know, the soil is the soul of the farm and the most important thing we grow on any Organic farm is soil)

You should go to Marvin's Organic Gardens or the Feed Barn if you want organic inputs. they both carry Fertrell Products among other things and should be able to order you pallets of fertilizer. Buying via a box store for market farming things is generally the most expensive way to go about it.

At any rate, you cannot market your stuff as Organic unless you make under $5000 gross annually AND you follow the regulations to a T, including record keeping of all farming and marketing activities (and I believe you also have to register with an Organic certifier, in Ohio that would be OEFFA) or you go through the 3 year transition period and finally get certified organic after the transition period.

Personally I grow organically not for the money and marketing opportunities but because I feel it is the right way to grow food. I have not been able to market my food as Organic since Oct 31st 2002 when I allowed my organic certification to lapse. This has not hurt my sales what so ever but it has been a challenge to come up with terms that convey the idea of organic farming and that people understand.

I started off excepting to be organic, I was very strict, more so than what was required. To me, it was not worth the extra work. The customers at my market would not pay 1 cent more for organic, and turned their noses up at something that might have a speck on it. I found that in the amount of land and lack of labor that I have, I couldn't continue completely and certifiable organic. I still try to limit the amounts of non-organic methods.

So, in my market and for me, it was not worth it.

I do have some customers that come and talk to me regarding what chemicals or methods we use. I can tell me exactly what I put on the ground or plants. If I buy from non-organic farmers, I tell them also. I do buy from organically certified growers, and mark that produce as such.

If I was to go back to the 1/4 acre of ground, I might consider it again. But not at the 5+ acres level.

Marla

A lot of people might use organic methods but live right on top of large farms that use lots of chemicals so these chemicals are within an 1/8 mile or less. I believe as this is just my opinion that this negates any claims that their stuff is chemical free.

Runoff is water from rain and melted snow which is not absorbed and captured by the soil, but runs over the ground and in and out of loose soil. Farm runoff is water leaving farm fields because of rain - melted snow - or possibly irrigation methods. As runoff moves, it picks up and carries pollution, which it can deposit into rivers,small ponds, lakes, coastal waters, and underground sources of drinking water.

Agricultural runoff include,s pollution from soil erosion, livestock feeding systems, grazing, plowing, animal waste, and herbicides-pesticides, irrigation water, and fertilizer. Pollutants from farming include soil particles, pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, salts, and nutrients such as excessive nitrogen - phosphorus. Large levels of nitrates from fertilizers in the runoff can infiltrate drinking water

I wonder if these so-called organic method gardeners that say they are chemical-free explain this to their customers.

All certified organic growers are the proper distance away from farm fields that use lots of different chemicals to prevent cross contamination or at least they should be.

When I choose to grow produce for sale I do not mention anything even close to the word organic because I am NOT certified and tested and inspected and licensed ORGANIC

If people ask me what chemicals I use for my operation they get all of my information. If they don,t ask I do not say anything because the weed/bug sprays that I use are available over the counter and are legal to use without special fed, or county-govt. permits. Nick

Nick, I agree about needing the buffer between regular farm fields and vegetable fields, whether organic or not. Alot of the sprays that corn/bean farmers use will kill or at least harm some veggies. I believe destroying the 'farm fence rows' has harmed more than it's helped. Those fence rows helped to protect from loss of topsoil and they also helped keep some of those chemicals within the field that was intended.

I keep my fence rows and they're great for the wild berries, plus a buffer. I also have a minimum of 50' from ANY bean/corn field. This year I may need to change this statement, due to new farmer next to me. For years, a small corner of field had not been tilled for corn/beans, but I don't know if he will try to farm it or not.

I don't have any special licenses, nor buy items that are not over-the-counter (I know that isn't safer, but it's what I've got).

Personally, I believe people just really want to know what is on their produce. Some people are sensitive to certain things, and hopefully they know what those sensitive things are.

Marla

i took a class last spring and this was a topic for about two weeks.. If can sell up to 5,000 dollars and call it organic each year , not certified but you can call it organic. Every market has its nitche, in this small town pop about 35,000 has a certified organic csa of 90 members and she says they are there because she is organic. She sells some surplus at the market. She did her work and found her customers first. Many do not start out as organ but are very sustainiable.

dirtdigging, as I mentioned there is a lot more to being able to call one's produce Organic if they make under $5000 (which is a true hobby farmer as no one can make a living much less run a farm on $5000 gross a year) keeping the records, both financial and farming takes quite a bit of time every day (I usually do around 30 to 45 minutes a day inputting data of various kinds) and I believe the people following the $5000 rule have to go through the 3 year transition just like the for real certified organic farms have to do.

It's been a long time since I got my farm certified Organic but the regs have not changed all that much since 2003.

oh and if you do claim to be Organic be prepared to be deeply quizzed about the Organic methods you use on your farm by some of your potential customers if you claim Organic and expect some confusion about hybrids as more and more people getting into local and Organic foods think that hybrids are GMO (as in biotech crops like RoundUp Ready) as these folks too often do not do their homework and learn what Organic farming is nor how farming in general works.

But this should be our opportunity to teach people about what we do as it is a complete mystery to most Americans.

I do not plan on calling myself organic - for one thing I've used MG potting mix and Oasis Horticubes. But I will let buyers know I use only organic fertilizers such as Tomato Tone, Blood/Bone Meal, Compost tea. If I have to use insecticides, they will (Hopefully) be nothing but Neem Oil, Safer Soap and boiled tomato leaf juice.

Besides, Tomato-Tone seems to be less expensive than what hardware stores sell 10-10-10 for $12.50 for 20 pounds vs. $15 for 18 pounds) and 50 pounds of Blood Meal is only $43 - and 50 pounds will go a very long way.

I also plan to be very conservative in the total amount of ferts I use. We always broadcast spread it, at least for many plants, which led to a lot of waste. There is no reason to fertilize 36" when the plant will only have roots that are 4-6" wide. We found that sidedressing, when the plants were just a few weeks old, worked much better.

Mike

One could be selling $ 60,000 dollars and be using organic practices and calling $ 5,000 of it organic and be ok. I was not implying to just call it organic. That is how the rules read. Note I never said to call it Certified Organic, You can not use the word Certified in the $ 5,000 rule. "Cetrified Organic" actually now has a legal definition!

DD,

We may be splitting hairs here, or at the least, not communicating. My original question was more to find out if selling only Certified Organic produce is worth the effort to get certified, especially in markets that are not upscale. The consensus I read is NO!

Ohio has rules regarding who and who not cannot claim "Organically Grown." All I'm doing will be stating facts - grown using only natural fertilizers. Plus, I will not be charging organic prices, just giving buyers another reason to buy from me.

Mike

DD, no you cannot gross $60K and call $5000 of it Organic. While they are not clear on this rule that is what they mean. Plus the paperwork one would have to do to accomplish this (because the USDA NOP would more than likely check this out through their office of non compliance and if you do not have you ducks 100% in a row you have a real risk of being fine $5000K for each offense (which could be each time you sold something as Organic).

so I cannot have a conventional set up, decide that I will sell all apples as Organic under the $5000 while I sell the rest of my food as conventional and gross say $45K on the conventional. There there are some real problems with this set up. One, unless you have been certified Organic and gone through the 3 year transition period you really don't know how to grow organically nor do all the paper work involved. And remember ALL people who wish to use the O word in their marketing scheme all have to do the same record keeping, be they a 5000 acre certified farm or the back yard hobbyist who does indeed make under $5K and does uncertified Organic. And they all must use certified organic seed, OMRI approved inputs as well as have a 4+ year crop rotation plan, a fertility plan and a farm map.

Mike is quite correct that Ohio (and the federal gov't, which supersede the OEFFA regs) have strict rules over the use of the term Organic and they do enforce these rules with hefty fines

Here is a link that might be useful: National organic rules

Well I guess it is up to interpetation. back to the topic.
I thought there was no market in my area for certified organic and along comes a grower with a 90 share CSA that is certified. At $ 600 a share. She got her start seling organic herbs and grew the business from there. Just to say that at times we do not see the market but some one else does see it. I have talked to this grower and 90 percent of her customers are there for the organics.

I think profitability would depend on who you are selling to and what the customers are like at YOUR markets. I think at some markets spending more to be certified is not worth it, but in more urban markets it would be.