Is Organic for you?

Organic farming isn’t simply conventional farming without inputs, or with different inputs. It’s a whole different approach to farming.

Organic farmers manage the whole farm system to prevent problems, rather than use “the fire brigade approach” of dealing with crises, as described by Frazer Hunter, a dairy and sheep producer from Nova Scotia who made the transition from conventional to organic farming. There is more emphasis on improving soil health and increasing diversity (of crops, wildlife and soil life), than on maximizing short-term production.

To make the change to organic farming, it’s essential that you are willing to learn new skills, and accept this new approach. If you have a pest outbreak or a sick animal, the main question is not, “What do I use to get rid of this?,” but rather,  “Why do I have this problem?” If you learn what the cause is, you can work on preventing future problems.

There aren’t any quick fixes in organic farming. The farmer must be adaptable, creative and flexible. For example, if it’s a wet spring and you couldn’t get your grain crops cultivated in time, the weeds might be so heavy that there won’t be a crop worth harvesting. You can’t spray, but instead you can plow the field under and plant a late crop, or cut it for silage later in the summer. Over time, through soil management and developing a crop rotation that works best for your farm, these problems should become less severe and less frequent.

When making the decision to go organic, you might decide to change your crops depending on the ease of production, cost of production and expected returns. Some crops (e.g. apples) are more difficult to grow organically than other crops (e.g. salad greens). Also, certain types of livestock may be more expensive to raise organically than others. For example, the high cost of organic feed may be a challenge for organic pork and poultry producers who do not grow their own feed; however organic beef can be raised with minimal or no grain, and therefore the cost of production may be lower.

After changing to organic farming, many growers were surprised that neither weeds nor pests caused serious problems. Through crop rotation, organic soil management and other methods, they could, after a few years, have yields close to or as good as they had before. Finding markets for organic products, however, could be a challenge. Many organic farmers report that at some time, they have had to sell their product on the conventional market because they couldn’t find an organic market for it. In the ACORN Organic Path, we will discuss organic marketing strategies and ways to minimize financial risk.

Throughout the decision pathway, we will provide information (and links to information) on costs of production for various crops. This can be useful when deciding if you want to change what you grow, as well as how you produce it, during the process of transition.

Next page

• HowToGoOrganic.com’s list of barriers to organic transition.