>> Compulsory certification is bad for many reasons:
>If you mean to use the word 'Organic'
>The word ORGANIC is only alowed to be used by CERTIFIED
>growers/farmers in Europe.
>There are lots of farmers working organic but not certified, they
>cannot use the word Organic, or the national equivalent of the word.
Local growers can always say "come and see how we grow it - if you like it
buy it. Don't need to put it on the open market with an organic label. I
know quite a few of these
>>
>> It is inconsistent with the needs of CSA operations and local consumption
>> preferences in general;
>If you know your farmer/consumer this works fine.
>
>> It drives costs up unnecessarily for many long time, truly organic farmers
>> incapable of covering those costs;
>There should be some subsidising from the government.
>conventional farmers let the environment and later generations pay
>for there way of producing.
Hear hear! In Ireland 1/5th of crop certification is subsidised, none of
livestock production
>
>> It is prohibitive of the right to free speech and to offer one's product to
>> the public of one's choice on the basis of it's own merits;
>You can still say that yyour produce is grown organicly but you can't
>prove it.
So long as you don't do it in a shop - private sales only
>>
>> There are alternative and depending on the circumstances, frequently
>> preferable methods of determining whether a given product complies with the
>> standard;
>someone has to check it and someone has to pay for checking the
>farms/products
specify please douglas
>> It is a measure designed to provide unwarranted and unearned advantages
>>to the
>> certifier and/or distributor rather than the farmer and/or consumer, and
>>this
>> explains the push the measure has received from certain quarters;
>The certifier has to be independant in the way they work from the
>government but dependent from international organic rules.
I'm on the board of an irish certifier and believe me Douglas it costs me
to do it - the certifier receives no benefit except hard work - totally non
profit! The distributor gets exactly the same benefit as the farmer -
consumer trust. The most frequently asked question from consumers is how do
I know it really is organic
>
>> Certification is a matter that's best left to be determined by buyers and
>> sellers of organic products. It will be indicated in many if not most
>> instances, but inappropriate to others;
>I would't trust market driven certifiers.
Are you really saying that someone who is selling the produce is the best
person to certify - so if a farmer linked into Monsanto says GMOs are
organic that is fine by you. Or does he have to individually explain to
each customer the precise details of his individually tailored farming
scheme, what organic farming is, what sort of soil and residue tests he
uses, what organic is, the benefits of organic farming etc - and if he does
all this when does he have time to farm. The biggest problem people I know
who run CSAs have is that the time they spend talking to customers makes it
difficult for them to have time to grow food
>>
>> The dangers of compulsory certification under the control of a single
>> governmental agency were amply demonstrated when the word "organic" came all
>> too close to legally meaning things it has NEVER been meant to mean by any
>> serious and dedicated participant, due to the excessive powers granted to
>> government and their "sweethearts" by OFPA;
>Countries like Germany, brittain, belgium have more than one
>organisation for certification. The Netherlands only have one.
We have 3 in Ireland - works fine
>All EU certifiers use the same rules.
Not true Frits - we all meet the same basic set of standards but there are
lots of derogations, local add ons, variations according to local
conditions etc. There are quite a few things in the European standards we
wouldn't allow in Ireland and some that work the other way (potato blight
controls for instance) and there will be even more variation in the
forthcoming livestock standards with some countries demanding permanent
housing because of climatic conditions and others banning it. Nearly all
individual standards are higher than the EU basic.
But a good law allows for this - the proposed USDA rule was just
unbelievably bad in all sorts of ways
On points made by Sal and others in the past - EU governments license local
certifiers free, gratis and for nothing - they just let them do the hard
work for no government pay so European growers don't have to pay anyone
except the local certifier they have always been with. If your local
standards and inspection schemes are as good as the EU minimum they can be
approved
kathryn
To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with "unsubscribe sanet-mg".
To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"subscribe sanet-mg-digest".