Having also gone through certification, the first statement would certainly
bear some closer examination. We have six telephone poles on our property
and our land got through certification without that ever being an issue.
As for the second issue, "angry and disillusioned" is a relatively common
part of the process. I won't say whether it's justified or not; that's
something each person has to decide for themselves. For some of us, it's
relatively easy to get certified depending on our operation, our
circumstances (clean land, simple business model, etc). In other cases,
it's almost Mission Impossible. In my own particular case, we went for a
fairly complex combination of both crops and livestock certification. Our
croplands (telephone poles and all) came through with flying colors. Our
livestock operation missed by a few points related to animal housing. We're
working to correct those issues and then we'll go through the certification
process again. It's a helluva lot of work for us to tackle some of these
advanced issues to make some certifying agency happy, but then again for us
it's worth that hassle. That's not true for everyone.
Having said that, and even after having tackled our known issues, I'm not
sure we'd be able to get our bees certified. That's one reason I'm so
interested in reading through the new rules. That's almost become the holy
grail of certification, for many of the reasons we've already discussed.
As an occasional mentor who helps guide folks through the process, I will
say that people come to the point of applying for certification for a lot of
different reasons. Some just want the marketing benefit. Some pay lip
service to the ideas, but balk at the actual requirements. Some are already
committed to the resource conservation/sustainability element, and want
formal recognition for holding themselves to that higher standard. Some
want to support the NOP as one of the world's better overall certifying
entities. For us, it was a combination of most of the above. But the
motivations for coming into the program, will often dictate the frustrations
and/or rewards of participation. For some, they're surprised at how
rigorous the process actually is. For others, they're disappointed that
it's not more strict. I've seen reactions all over the map.
Bees present some unique management elements in certification, which makes
certified honey even more challenging than standard organic certification
would be. Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about that. I tend towards the
"hold the higher standard" end of the spectrum, and want that label to mean
the sum total of the best possible practices. So concessions to logistical
reality can sometimes seem to be caving in. On the other hand, none of us
have ideal setups. If I could buy enough of the county to guarantee my bees
never left clean lands, that would be wonderful. What's the likelihood?
Not high. Does that mean that we can only get certified organic honey from
some other country where standards are lower? That's the part that bothers
me the most.
One of the things about the NOP which creates a lot of frustration for
growers and consumers alike, is that it's still in motion. These standards
are evolving over time as our understanding of the natural world improves,
and as we shake out some of these production issues. Where bees and honey
will land after all that is said and done, I don't know. Somewhere that I
hope satisfies as many people (and their divergent goals/expectations) as
possible.
Kathryn Kerby
Frogchorusfarm.com
Snohomish, WA
-----Original Message-----
From: Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of randy oliver
Sent: Thursday, March 12, 2015 6:58 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [BEE-L] Certified Organic Honey
As it happens, in the past two days I've spent time speaking with two
different growers in the process of obtaining organic certification.
One was trying to get certification for a mandarin and hops farm. He was
told by the certifier that if there was a single telephone pole in any
remote corner of his property, that that would kill the possibility of
certification, due to the creosote on the pole (I haven't checked his
statement for factuality).
The other has managed to get certification for his long-time vegetable
farm. The experience left him angry and disillusioned. He considers
certification to be an expensive "tax" and paperwork burden upon him in
order to put the work "organic" upon his unchanged product (although he
still couldn't sell any honey produced on the land as "organic").
--
Randy Oliver
Grass Valley, CA
www.ScientificBeekeeping.com
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