Meet this week’s vegetables:
With this week’s newsletter title (‘Organic labels’) I’m not referring to food labels—I want to talk about labeling of the people who grow organically. We have had two interesting interactions with conventional farmers this week that made us think hard about what other farmers think about us.
For example: Monday afternoon, we were transplanting turnips when we smelled something very chemically in the air. I looked up and saw a large tractor in the field to the east with a spray boom, spraying less than 50 yards from our field (full of plants for the fall share). And the wind was blowing from the east.
We immediately sprinted over to the field and caught the farmer’s attention to ask him what he was spraying. His answer: “Just 2,4-D.”
Just 2,4-D, a broadleaf herbicide capable of killing almost every crop in our field.
Casey mentioned that we were certified organic, and the farmer (very kindly) responded with reassurance that his product wouldn’t contaminate our crops, followed by a long lecture-like monologue on how organic farming in established agricultural areas is ‘like building a dam in the middle of a lake.’ The gist of his response was: we (conventional farmers) were here first; organic farmers are going to have problems and are causing conventional farmers problems.
My guess is that we are likely the first organic farmers to ever ask him about his spraying, but he did mention that residents in the area had inquired before. It was obvious to us that as a farmer he is feeling the pressure of encroaching development.
However, we also walked away feeling as though he hadn’t really listened to our initial concern: that what he was spraying might not just contaminate but kill our crop. A conventional broccoli grower would have the same concern, as would anyone else not growing grass. We realized our mistake in saying the word ‘organic,’ that a genuine cross-boundary farming concern was replaced in his mind with something different—something more conceptual and perhaps uniquely ‘organic.’ What exactly, I’m not sure.
The conversation reminded me of one we had at the end of market last week. As we were taking down our booth, we were talking with another farmer when he asked us an unexpected question: ‘Do you really think that organic is better?’
Casey and I met this question with a shared silence, not ignoring the inquiry but momentarily speechless. ‘Better’ is not a word we immediately choose to describe our motivation in growing organically. Again, there was this sense that by our growing organically we were inherently adhering to something ethereal, and even something that inherently passes judgment on conventional farmers. As though our choice to grow this way somehow is a finger pointing at another farmer’s 2,4-D.
In conversations like this, I can’t help but feel as though I am being treated like a religious evangelist. Not as though I am an evangelist, but that the other party sees me as one. And I think that this accurately describes this vaguely spiritual or moral defensiveness in both conversations. In the case of the farmer at market, as though we grow organically because we think it is somehow morally or spiritually superior to the conventional methods commonly used in the last five decades. As though we’re in the ‘organic religion’—woo woo hippy earth mama/papa organic vegetable growing priest and priestess.
Okay, now I’m exaggerating for humor, but maybe I’m not off the mark in how some people see us upon learning that we’re ‘certified organic.’ Casey and I have great respect for both of these farmers and other conventional growers (as well as for woo woo hippy earth mama/papas, even though we don’t necessarily self-identify that way). To choose farming as a career is an act of faith, trust and love, regardless of how it is done in the short-run. And conventional farmers do have many obstacles these days as they have to respond to development pressures, changes in the market, etc. But as far as we’re concerned, no farm system is static—farmers of all kinds are constantly readjusting their methods for greater long-term success.
And that is a more accurate way to look at our choice to grow organically. We don’t know that there is a ‘True’ way to farm, let alone whether that is the current standard organic practices, but as we walked away from our neighborly conversation about spraying Monday we realized that we do have many reasons why we chose organic. We returned to our turnip planting and noticed that both of us had burning throats—perhaps from the 2,4-D and perhaps from our sprint to the field. Either way, our consciousness of 2,4-D’s toxicity finally provided an answer for the farmer at market:
Do we think organic is ‘better’? Maybe not in those terms. But we do think it’s safer.
Growing organically is a conservative choice on our part. If we can eliminate toxins from our growing practices (especially when we feed people), then we will. If we can build a farm that is less dependent upon foreign sources of fossil fuel and expensive chemical inputs, then we will. For us, these differences make us feel more secure and safer, in terms of our health and our business’s viability.
We know that our practices will evolve from year to year as we learn new things—we are not holding up the current understanding of ‘organic’ as the ‘end all be all’ of farming. By no means. But it’s a place to start today. A safe place.
I know that there are folks out there evangelizing for organic as ‘the answer,’ and we’re grateful for that act too. We just hope that it can lead to a discussion and common ground with other farmers rather than the canned reactions we sometimes experience. (I also hope that Casey and I can continue to respond graciously to being made the ‘organic’ conversational whipping boy for frustrated growers.)
In the meantime, we’re grateful that the agricultural community in this valley is as communicative as it is—that we can have friendly conversations about differences rather than stand-offs. We’re grateful because it feels healthy and productive, and also because we have so much to learn from other growers that we don’t want to be held separate just because we’ve made a different choice from the start. Every conversation, including the two cited here, gives us new understanding of what it means to make a career out of agriculture. These are invaluable gifts.
As are you, our community of eaters. Enjoy the vegetables!
Your farmers,
Katie & Casey Kulla
Oakhill Organics
