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Re: certification

 don't blame
>> the certifiers, blame the guy who cheated. And if you are only doing $5000
>> business get your customers involved so they can see what you do, don't
>> make any claims, organic or otherwise, just explain your system and sell
>> locally. But the fees, whether in dollars or Irish pounds or yen or
>> whatever are to pay to keep out the cheats - and there are plenty of them
>> about wherever you say "premium".    

no wrong if you explain your system and it is organic you must pay. and
jump through the rest of the hoops.  
I say Charge the cheats not the ones that are not cheating.  how about
getting back to innocent till proven guilty.  Why make the folks that are
not cheating pay for those that are.  Anyway it is not true that there are
a lot of cheating.  the state of Ca. has taken Hundreds of thousands of
dollars out of the mouths of organic growers kids and only found maybe 2
cheaters .  now is it fair  to steal money from all  these folks because 2
guys cheated. If the USDA want to regulate organic growing let them pay for
it don't come take my money because of your parinoia. When I  is was young
we use to race cars and some folks use to cheat and if you thought some one
was cheating you pay to tare them down and see and if they were not
cheating you lose your money for calling them a cheater.  if they were
cheating they had to pay a fine and also pay for the inspection but if they
were telling the truth they paid nothing.  The truth is free. I am not
doing anything wrong that I should be burden with all this BS. let me farm
organic and don't be setting up special taxes for me because of my
lifestyle if I am not doing any wrong.  Go tax those folks that are pouring
herbicides in our water and spraying pesticides on our school grounds and
let the good organic farmers go on about there bussiness.   

>indirectly subsidizing the larger growers. Until you've done it you
>can't 
>conceive of the burden of paying the certification fees and doing all
>the 
>organizational and bookkeeping work involved. They can keep their fees
>where 
>they want them but they should up the exemption amount allowable for
>small 
>growers - or I, for one, won't participate in their scheme. 
>I'll just call mine NATURALLY GROWN WSPF (w/o synthetic pesticides and 
>fertilizer) or FC-WSPF (farmer-certified w/o stnthetic pesticide and
>fertilizer).

wrong again the USDA will not let you say farmercertified w/o spf or even
naturally grown there will be a  charge for those words .  There is no
freedom of speech for organic growers .If you can not afford the USDA seal
and special organic tax you are not organic and do not need to be selling
organic food and if you tell folks you grow food naturally you are in deep
do do .  

That'll give them something to think about. EAK's earlier comment to the
>list
>about small growers "paying the $250 and helping to level the playing
>field 
>for all organic growers" and "doing this for the good of the whole"
>(this is 
>just doing it to benefit the 3rd party certification agencies and large
>growers) 
>is still not a reasonable solution for small growers as far as I am
>concerned.
>The small growers aren't the ones likeliest to cheat their customers in
>the first 
>place, so a larger exemption or less fee is perfectly appropriate. Why
>would anyone
>make the move to small scale organic market gardening, to the exclusion
>of working 
>at another, perhaps better paying occupation, live the lifestyle of
>someone
>producing and using clean food, then turn around and use chemicals on
>their crops
>(& ruin their gardens and probably their own health) and lie about that
>to their
>customers. People who would do that are so few in number that they don't
>really 
>count.  
>
>Thanks for your reply and helpful, thought provoking comments. 
>Are you posting from Ireland? If so, where?
>
>Cheers,
>
>Lawrence London
>Chepel Hill, NC, USA
>
>> And in case you are interested I'm an unpaid "beaurocrat" and I would
>Why unpaid? Do you do volunteer work?
>> rather be able to spend the time in my garden.
>Amen to that too.
>> Kathryn Marsh
>
>LL
>-- 
>--------------------------------------------------------------
> Lawrence F. London, Jr. - Dragonfly Market Gardens
> mailto:london@sunSITE.unc.edu - mailto:llondon@bellsouth.net
> http://sunSITE.unc.edu/InterGarden
> http://sunSITE.unc.edu/InterGarden/permaculture.html
>--------------------------------------------------------------
Boy your going to carry that weight carry that weight a long time. I am not
cheating I should not have to pay one extra cent to sell organic produce as
organic if it is. They are getting ready to make a special tax for growing
and selling organic and you only have to pay if your grow organic and sell
organic.  and if you cannot afford to pay  then you have no business
selling organic food.
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