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Re: SMALLFARM-MG> Organic Produce



On Fri, 17 Oct 1997 Erorganic@aol.com wrote:

> Subj:	 Re: comments onUSDA/NOP cost and benefits to organic farmers  and
> handlers
> Date:	97-10-15 15:43:57 EDT
> From:	cvof@iquest.net (Cecilia Bowman)
> To:	sals@rain.org (sal)
> CC:	Erorganic@aol.com, sals@rain.org, sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu,
> Majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu, smallfarm-mg@maat.reeusda.gov, wfof@ptel.net,
> Sprinkraft@aol.com
> 
> >At 01:13 PM 10/10/97 -0700, sal wrote:
> >what does foil mean?  
>Cissy Bowman, 
>Organic Farmers Marketing Association Telecommunications Office

Message to Sal:

Forget about trying to get any helpful feedback or support where it is 
needed from these folks. Move on, go around them, let them eat your dust.
Get on with growing and selling your organic fruit; build a clientele
in your region that has confidence in you, with or without certification.
Its not like you're not nationally known from your famous "Don't Panic.
Eat Organic" Noah's Ark homepage. Call it biointensively grown with no
synthetic pesticides or fertilizers if they want a label. We will all
have to put up with the boondoggle for small & smaller organic gardeners
and farmers that is the OFPA until it is fully implemented and tested and
those good people in our society who assume responsibility for such
things take the bill back to Congress for proper rewriting to really
level the playing field and create a law that is fair to the small
growers as well as the consumer and the larger farmers. Big organic
product businesses will own the show in the not very distant future. They
can afford to share a to-them-a-pittance with small farmers and gardeners
who seek to be part of local economies and build the Fertile Crescent
concept in their bioregion. The crisis brought about by the tobacco buyout
will make it necessary that this happen; folks who want to be part of
agribusiness in their region will have to stick up for themselves. 

You'll not see many non-profits or government beaurocrats helping the
small grower despite their protestations to the contrary. They are much
too busy keeping their attention affixed to the magabucks they think
they'll get from collusion with big organic agribusinesses.

Again, as I've said over and over, small growers will have to look after
their own interests, gain buyer confidence, build their clientele,
develop niche markets and select cash cropping plans and try to hold 
on to their fair market share. 


Lawrence F. London, Jr.
Venaura Farm - Dragonfly Market Gardens
InterGarden - http://sunSITE.unc.edu/InterGarden
london@sunSITE.unc.edu - owner: organic-certification mailing list
References: