What is "Organic" on this sort of farm?

When I first worked on a vegetable farm back in 2005, we sold at dozen DC-area farmers markets each week with our tent proudly displaying, in brief, our farm identity:

NO PESTICIDES
NO HERBICIDES
NO FUNGICIDES

Sure, they used baking soda to ward off fungus on melons, and, in later years, a natural enzyme to prevent caterpillars from eating their crops, but the meaning was clear: we farmed without chemicals.

This simple sign differentiated our farm—in the 90s and until the farmers retired in the aughts (and later began renting to me, incidentally)—from how all the "regular" conventional farms grew: with plenty of pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides as an integral part of their farming systems. At market we spoke with customers one-on-one and answered their questions about how our food was grown. Often people would ask, before committing to set foot under our tent, "Are you organic?" and we'd reply, "Well we aren't Certified Organic but we don't use any pesticides, herb—" "OH, of course, that's what I mean! Wonderful." We were one of the few farms of that type at the market, and we were the market stand they were looking for. I can't remember anybody ever being disappointed and leaving to go find a Certified Organic farm. This was, of course, at a time before Certified Organic vegetables were sold at Wal-Mart, before major brands had bought out the small, trusted Organic brands, before there was mass marketing of "natural" and "safe" food that met no industry standards, and before Certified Organic food became ubiquitous enough for customers to seek it out by name. At that time, organic was simply a shorthand people used to ask whether we spray stuff on the vegetables.

But as farmers markets multiplied across the country and Whole Foods became a household name, interest in organic food caught fire and the large-scale players in the food industry took notice, followed the money, and got to work developing the full line of Certified Organic products found in nearly every grocery store today. Many people think the Organic label means it was grown without any pesticides or herbicides at all, viewing Organic certification as an ideal reached by small, forward-thinking, maybe even 'hip', farms that are trying to do right for environment. Perhaps it was that way when organic food was a niche movement out of Berkeley in the 70s, but governmental regulatory standards are meant for the major economic players, and USDA Organic Standards are no different. As in any industry, big businesses try to do the least that they can while still complying with the rule, all the while working from the inside to alter the regulatory standards to be more favorable to their own interests.

Today, all that USDA Organic Certification actually means is that food was produced only with inputs listed on the Organic Approved List. While the ubiquity of Organic food is a big win in principle for the original organic farming activists, certification doesn't have anything to do with a farm's growing principles or actual environmental impact—the very principles that customers, not to mention the original organic farmers, are most concerned about. There are plenty of pesticides and fungicides on the approved list, and most Certified Organic farms use plenty of pesticides and fungicides as an integral part of their farming systems—they just happen to be from organic sources. And many products are completely safe yet not included on the list. I use a biodegradeable plastic mulch to block weeds, but since it includes an ingredient made from oil it isn't allowed (Certified Organic farmers use miles of regular plastic and just throw it away). The Organic regulation serves a critical purpose in providing an economic reason for agribusiness to use less-destructive methods, and when you buy from big business, I do hope you look for the USDA Organic label.

But for me, I use the same growing practices as those farmers I learned from: NO PESTICIDES, NO HERBICIDES, NO FUNGICIDES, not even the organic ones (apart from the occasional anti-caterpillar enzyme). As a small, local farmer that does care about the principles of low-input, environmentally-sane agriculture, trying to communicate those principles and methods with a governmental regulatory label meant for industrial-scale farms selling in a national market has never made sense to me.

Thankfully, I can talk to you all directly rather than referring you to a third-party certification. When you buy from local farmers like me, I hope you talk with them about what you care about, rather than finding meaning in the Organic regulatory label. Over the last decade, the more Organic products became ubiquitous in national supermarkets, with USDA Organic products from industrial-scale food producers on every grocery store shelf, the more customers began to demand that label in their local farmers market and other small-business settings as well. It is a triumph of the small activist organic farms that the big players have been turned to growing some food with Organic methods (even though Organic food comprises not even 6% of national food sales), but when this increasing customer demand for the USDA Organic label drives small direct-marketing farmers to grow and sell under the same rules as the industrial players, certifying under a program guided by and most appropriate for big business, agribusiness has won at our own game. This is why I am not Certified Organic, and why I encourage you not to care about such labeling when buying food from people like me. In choosing to sign up for this CSA—whether just last year or many years ago—I appreciate that you read the information on the farm website, asked me any questions that were important to you, and decided that my un-certified, old-school, somewhat-contrary farm is the sort of farm you're looking for!