The Ruminant: Audio Candy for Farmers, Gardeners and Food Lovers - Did Certified Organic Pay a Price for its Success?

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

This episode: Rebecca Kneen, a BC-based organic farmer & brewer, whose roots and activism in the organic sector go back decades, on the evolution of organic standards and oversight over time, some aspects of which she has misgivings about. Rebecca put her thoughts down in an open letter that was the basis for this coversation; you can download a PDF of that letter here.Also: Jessica Bell of Split Creek Farm Grade A Goat Dairy in South Carolina answers our first ever Farmer Questionnaire!

Hey, I'm Jordan Marr, and you're listening to The Ruminant Podcast, a show for farmers, gardeners, and anyone else interested in the culture and practice of food production. You can learn more about the show at theruminant.ca. All right, let's do a show. Hey, everybody, it's Jordan. My guest for this next segment is Rebecca Neen. I am Rebecca Neen, owner, operator, co-owner, co-operator of Leftfields Organic Farm and Kronog Ales in unceded Sequetmuck territory on Shuswap Lake in sort of south central, the interior of BC. I have been farming organically on this farm for 21 years.

I grew up in a... Rebecca is a friend and colleague who farms a little north of me in the foothills of the Rockies. She and her partner Brian's delicious organic beer is legendary in BC's craft beer circles. But Rebecca is also known for her outsized contributions to the organic farming sectors in BC and Canada. She has given countless hours to the various boards and committees that have shaped certified organic agriculture here,

and was present and active at the dawn of British Columbia's certified organic movement in the late 80s and early 90s. Among other current commitments, Rebecca represents Organic BC at the Organic Federation of Canada, the body that manages the updates to Canada's organic standards. The only other thing I'd say about my background is that my family have been involved in food systems analysis since, again, before I was born. And so my perspective tends to be from that sort of background of looking at the entire system and thinking about things in that way. I think that's all I got. Rebecca's deep history with organic agriculture in Canada is the reason I invited her on the show today. Organic certification has come a long way and has achieved many successes around the world.

But as Rebecca sees it, those successes have come with some compromises. She recently wrote an open letter about those compromises that you'll find a link to in the show notes. When I read the letter, I knew I wanted to invite Rebecca on the show to talk about it. So you're about to hear that conversation. And after that, a brand new segment for the podcast. I'll talk to you about that in a bit. So Rebecca, thanks a lot for joining me on the Ruminant Podcast. Well, thank you. Glad to be here. Rebecca, we are both certified organic farmers in British Columbia. And a few months ago, I was one of a number of colleagues who received an email from you with an attachment of kind of an open letter that you wrote. And you had a title for the letter.

It was called Peer Review and Standardization, the Devolution of the Organic Certification Model. And in it, you know, you kind of made, I don't know, I would call your letter like equal parts, equal parts, rants and history. And in the letter, you just kind of made an argument, summarizing how you've been unhappy with the way that the organic industry in Canada has evolved or in your view devolved over time. And I thought I would start by asking you before we get into your letter, what motivated you to write this letter and send it to a few colleagues? Oh, well, it was sparked by I think a couple of things. In the big picture, it was sparked by, I think, a couple of things. In the big picture, it was sparked by our ongoing struggle at the Organic Federation of Canada, at the federal level,

to ensure that the principles of organic agriculture are actually being upheld in the standards, because it has become very clear to all of us that are working on that on the standards at that level that the pressure from the federal government is has nothing to do with principles it has to do with making things easy for industry and the language is very business and industry oriented and the approach has has absolutely the overall approach of the Canadian General Standards Board has nothing to do with organic agriculture. So there's pressure on the system that is moving us away from our principles. And we're really struggling, having to struggle to try to put them back. So that's been an ongoing piece of my reflection. The other is that I also sit on the certification committee for the North Okanagan Organic Association. And so we are one of the peer-reviewed regional certification bodies within BC. So we operate on a different level than the organic standards that are federally administered do. We can get into the complexities of that system, but I'm going to assume that people

understand that there are two parallel systems. One is federal, one is regional. We are a regional body. And that means that we are peer reviewed. So farmers review farmers farmers and we've been undergoing a lot of pressure to basically operate exactly the same way as people who have paid certification reviewers to look at everybody's farm and to look at their at what they're doing in a very particular through a very particular lens. And that lens just to me just doesn't fit. So those were the things that kind of sparked this. Right. OK, so I think we'll dwell really briefly just to expand a little bit on the concept of peer review and the parallel systems that you just described, just because I think it's important. little bit on the concept of peer review and the parallel systems that you just described, just because I think it's important. Real quick. So here in British Columbia, to all listeners from outside BC, we've got a bit of a unique aspect of the organic system, which is that

British Columbia is part of the federal organic standards that most organic operators in Canada are kind of signed on to as far as their organic certification. We also have, as Rebecca describes it, a parallel system that is regionally based. So what it means is that it allows, it still follows essentially the same national set of regulations, essentially the same national set of regulations. But it allows us to do a few things differently, including conduct review of applications by committees of peers that are unpaid, like volunteers. And that goes back to the roots of organic agriculture that we'll talk about in a little bit. One restriction placed on the regional system is that it's regional. So as a regional organic farmer, I'm not allowed to sell my produce, say, into the neighboring province or into the U.S. and call it organic. It cannot be called organic if it moves outside B.C. So I wanted to

expand in that way, Rebecca. I also, before we delve into your letter, I just want to, I want to, I want to make an attempt to hold on to listeners who aren't specifically interested in organics. This, this, this letter and what we're going to talk about today is kind of an interesting case study or a useful stand in, I think, for any, any movement, any values based movement, political or otherwise, that grows and becomes more mainstream. A lot of the problems that Rebecca has outlined in her letter are the kinds of challenges and problems that frequently come up when a movement gains popularity and needs to change to kind of accommodate a larger scale.

Fair to say, Rebecca? Absolutely, yeah. a larger scale. Fair to say, Rebecca? Absolutely, yeah. And I think this is also a good reflection on the way the food system as a whole is structured. We just, because of the way we organize ourselves in organic farming, we tend to see it differently, or see it potentially a little more clearly. So I think this is a good reflection on the entire system. So Rebecca, let's start with a little bit of history then. So the opening line of your letter, uh, is one of the great strengths of organic agriculture from the earliest days has been that the standards that were developed were descriptive.

So tell me what that means. What do you mean when you say that the standards originally were descriptive? means? What do you mean when you say that the standards originally were descriptive? Well, that means really that instead of giving people a sort of super precise, you know, you can only use a soil mix that contains 10% of this and 5% of this and 1% of that, we had instead a standard that said the soil mix that you use to propagate plants needs to be alive. It needs to have a living component. We would say things like stocking density and the way that livestock are managed must allow livestock to exhibit normal animal behavior,

whether that's flocking or individual behavior, you know, being able to move around in a field or a pasture. So, and essentially what that turns into is things like you can't use tie stalls in a dairy barn because the cows have to be able to move around like cows actually like to do. And so, so that kind of general description allows people to create systems that are appropriate for the land with which they're working and for the animals that they're working with. And so it actually is incredibly flexible and very adaptive. So that's, that's what the, I hope that explains it well. I think so. So essentially, you're saying like, many, many years ago, before we had like a federal

set of standards, the approach as as the organic industry took shape was kind of an overarching set of principles that, you know, with an emphasis on soil health, with on animal welfare, on environmental stewardship, and then a simpler set of standards that just described the outcomes we're after and provided flexibility on how certified growers and farmers reached those ideals. Yes, exactly. Okay. So, but then that, that's a good segue in. So how then, how did certification function in terms of like, okay, that's, that's, that's, that's how we presented it to the farmers. How were they overseen at that point? Like, how did we make sure that we were happy as a group of farmers who were certifying each other in a peer review system with what

each individual operator was doing? Well, in much the same way as we do now in the broad strokes. So we had verification officers who were trained once we got started, we got that anyways, who were trained by the Organic Inspectors Association. So we had people who were professionals who could sort of walk around and look at things. But what we were looking at was things more like, what does your soil actually look like? Is there evidence of soil health? Is there evidence that you've actually been doing crop rotations um does your soil look and feel healthy and is it different over time so this is something that is

often missed in the more precise uh and more document oriented work um is how is a firm changing over time? And is the firm's or the farmer's practices, are they shifting to create a healthier firm overall? So, you know, the inspectors, for example, would be looking, would be walking around the farm and digging their fingers into the soil in different places. They would be looking at they say in our case with a flock of sheep looking at the overall behavior of that flock of sheep when you when you look at them out in the field do they look contented how how does the pasture actually look

does it look overgrazed or not um are when you walk around on the farm, are you seeing specific weeds? Are you seeing, and because of course as farmers we all know that the kind of weeds that you have can tell you an awful lot about what issues you may be having on your farm. Whether it's compacted soil or an excess of particular kinds of nutrients or a deficiency. So, you know, the inspectors would actually be able to look at those things because it wasn't simply a matter of looking at your paperwork. Right. Okay. Well, let's, let's stop there for a sec. So little more context for those who have never been a part of like organic certification. With, with some exceptions, most farms that are being organically certified get a yearly visit from what we call a verification officer that comes to, in really looking at the farm itself and not just coming and auditing a bunch of record keeping and paperwork. Is that fair?

Yes. Yep, absolutely. Right. Okay. And then how did, what was the relationship between the farmer, the verification officer, and then the certification committee? So this is the same as it has been in terms of the peer-reviewed system. So we, as a farmer, you would submit your application with the, you know, generally long essay forms about what are you planning on doing for the year. And another group of farmers would sit down and look at your application and read through it

and say, well, this looks good, that looks good. This particular practice is questionable. I'm trying to desperately to think of an example here, but you know we because often we're farming in the same area we can say you know well that hasn't worked for anybody in this area yet maybe it'll work for this farmer maybe it won't but we're going to need to keep an eye on it um because we've seen that doing x can result in problems down the road um we can also see things like well that farmer is consistently saying that they can't access let's say organic chicken feed well let's just give them a call and let them know where the organic chicken feed is because there is some locally available and it's good so we could actually do that and then we would send out an inspector and the inspector would have a look and say, yep, I agree with these things. And this farmer is doing a good job in their management of

these various things. But they do have some very serious weed pressures in a certain area of a kind of weed that indicates that there is a problem with soil fertility. So we then can go back and say, okay, Joe, or whoever, you know, what's your plan on soil fertility? we then can go back and say okay joe or whoever you know what's your plan on soil fertility because there's there's a potential indication of a problem and did that kind of thing did it really happen like you you were i wasn't even a farmer back then did did you really have examples where the committee would be would be saying something like well that presence of that weed might suggest this and you should try doing this and we'd like to see this? Well, often it would be a little more complex than that.

So often the verification officer would actually be able to say, I am seeing this, which indicates X problem, because often they had some they had really high level experience. And so they could actually highlight things for people but the but the committee would be able to actually go back to the farmer and say hey you know what we're um doing some work on um on soil building and um we think that you could benefit from that. Or a member of the committee could simply call them up and say, hey, you want to talk about this? We were allowed to have that kind of relationship with people. So, you know, it was a combination of the committee themselves doing the work, but also the whole community actually working together to make a better system. And now I don't want to give the wrong impression, you know, if

we're going back 25 or 30 years, there was still, there still must have been, you know, a permitted substances list. There, there, there still were prescriptions about, you know, what, what, what farmers in the organic system could not use on their soil and stuff like that. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. We had, we had allowed and allowed, and we had, you know, use this, but only use it like that. We had, we did have, you know, rules about stocking densities, for example, specifically for a lot for poultry and beef,

because we were really trying to move out or get, avoid situations of people attempting to use feedlot style or CAFO systems, confined animal feedlot systems. So yeah, we definitely had lists of stuff you could and couldn't use. They were a lot less detailed than they are now. Right, right. And I guess that's maybe we'll segue into that. So we're going to do some serious, like, I haven't made it clear to listeners that what we're sort of describing in a way is just like the beginning, you know, the early stages of an industry that would evolve a whole bunch over time. it was really regionally based groups of farmers coming together, all of whom were kind of believing in and practicing organic principles and realizing that it was going to serve everyone's purposes to,

to kind of come up with a common definition of organic so that they could properly communicate to their customers and to larger groups of customers what they were doing. And, you know, slowly over time organic took on steam as something that meant something to the eating public and the industry grows or the sector grows and it grows and it grows. And that kind of starts necessitating changes and, and, or evolution to, to what eventually became the need for unified standards and so i can take it to the extreme and say like as the sector grew suddenly there's opportunities for organic orchardists in

british columbia to ship their organic cherries to europe but how the heck is europe going to be able to verify that those um you know those those cherries were uh produced in a way that European consumers could have faith in as far as an organic product. And so I'm glazing over so, so much so that we can just continue with our conversation. But essentially, yada, yada, yada in a major way, fast forward 20 years, and eventually we end up with, you know, a Canada wide set of standards that has been designed to communicate with other organic standards all over the world, so that someone buying a Canadian product in any other company, a country labeled as organic that has an agreement with Canada about organic products can have some degree of faith in the integrity of the product.

Yeah, Jordan, I think you've nailed it there because the thing about writing a standard in first place and the whole reason for certification, there's two big pieces to it. One is that it allows people to, well, it's a training tool, to be frank. It allows us to say, let's do a better job. And this is what a better job can look like. But it is also a means of allowing distance in the food system and replacing trust with a piece of paper. with a piece of paper um and that and to me that's that's exactly it's it is in fact both the strength and the weakness of where we're at now right and so so um in a sense i believe and perhaps probably more than you i believe that a lot of the a lot of the evolution that has taken place has been just an inevitability or required to accommodate like the sale of products across borders and long distances however it has pained you to see like the way the

system has developed some of these whether you consider them inevitabilities some of the ways the system has changed you get at in your letter and essentially in the same way i asked you to summarize early organic certification now we're going to talk about the modern system that you call much more prescriptive and reductionist can you can you elaborate on those two words sure so by prescriptive I mean that that we have a very specific list of things we are allowed to do and use and things we are not allowed to do and use. And they are, they're very, very detailed. There's an awful lot of requirement for pre-approval of, for example, what we like to call inputs, as in anything that comes in to your farm. what we like to call inputs, as in anything that comes in to your farm.

So that the prescriptive part is this, this like super detailed, super analytical way of looking at what we're doing. The reductionist part is that everything has to be measured. So instead of, for example, looking at the way a farm is changing over time, the way a farmer is changing over time, like, hey, your paperwork's getting really good now. Your record keeping is awesome. It really sucked five years ago. Thank you. We don't say that anymore. We are instead looking at have you filled out X, Y, and Z form? Have you gotten every eventuality that might happen on your firm and your response to it pre-approved before it happens, which is, of course, completely impossible. So there's a rigidity in the system. The level of detail and this sort of quantification

of what it means to be farming organically means you can use only X parts per million of product Z. This is a result of the standards, the international idea of standards, which says that everything has to be the same. Differences are a problem because they don't fall within the scope of the thing that we're trying to measure. And therefore, they are a problem. So what we want is for everything to be the same. And I don't, I'm pretty sure, Jordan, that your experience as a farmer echoes mine in the sense that there is very little that is the same from year to year when you're farming.

There are a few things that are, that are, you know, relatively, what we're all about with farming is constantly adapting to change. So we need to have systems that actually change with us. happening to change. So we need to have systems that actually change with us. Yeah. And so at this point, I want to I want to kind of interject and say, well, first of all, I get a lot of what you're saying resonates with me in terms of my experience. But definitely, I mean, you know, you alluded earlier just to like in a system that is international, there can be no true trust. So in place of trust, we have an audit trail but the and but but i i really want to emphasize the principles are still there and and that that that isn't super clear in in the letter you wrote but i think i think a lot of the core principles are still there

but i will say so in my application i have to fill out every year it still asks me what kind of weeds i have and what what i'm doing to control them it still asks me what kind of weeds I have and what I'm doing to control them. It still asks me if I have a crop rotation and what that looks like. But I almost never, that never becomes a focus when the verification officer visits. And I can attest to some things in your letter that really it's about most, the vast majority of the visit is about like, let's open your books and look at your books and let's, of all of your record keeping, I'm not so concerned about those weeds. I'm concerned of what inputs you used, where you store them. You know, let's do an audit of your seed purchases to make sure that you didn't buy a seed, a type of seed you

weren't supposed to. And it really does become kind of a checklist. And so the principles are there, but they're not, they're really not the focus. It's almost like a nod to them. And definitely if I wrote, I don't do a crop rotation, I would probably hear about it from the VO or the cert committee, but it becomes so much less about that. And it's very, very much not as hands-on on the farm as in the way that you describe under the older system. Yeah. And I guess I should

actually say as well that I am certified organic. I and I firmly believe that the process and the methodology of organic farming is incredibly valuable. That's why I get excited about it and want to make sure that we're doing the best job we possibly can. And I fully recognize that our agricultural system is a system that is based on export. We're part of this mode in the economy. And therefore, there are things that are going to happen that are focused specifically on that. And that is what this is all about. In fact, that's the entire reason why we created a national standard in the first place instead of keeping with independent regional certification.

It was precisely so that we could import and export and have some protection in Canada against stuff coming in that made organic claims that we didn't trust, but also so that we could sell stuff outside. These are important and valuable within the context of the world that we live in at this moment. I just really feel that we could be doing better. And I just really feel that we could be doing better. It seems to, I mean, if you read the letter, it really seems to bother you as it does a lot of organic operators, especially, I guess, the ones that go back a long way that really, for whom it was about the principles, that the modern system allows for farming practices within the rubric of organic, um, that are a fairly far cry from those original principles as far as allowing for monoculture or the ways that, or like, you know, the, the ways that say poultry can be raised mostly in barns and,

and that sort of thing, because it's become so much about ticking yes but i don't use this type of feed and i don't use these kinds of inputs yeah yeah i think that's i think that's true um i you know actually one of the other things that i just realized that was behind this discussion is that a few years ago um a new farmer a member of i think it it was one of the young agrarians folks, stood up at a meeting of the Organic Association and said, yeah, well, we're farming because we actually care about the soil. Not like you guys. You all started this because you wanted to make more money. And all of those of us who'd been doing it for you know more than at that point I think it was more than 15 years sort of looked at each other went oh dear if that's the impression that we've been giving by the way that the structure is is created then we have some serious work to do to

fix it because that's not why we started before we we move on, Rebecca, to talking about peer review more specifically, I just want to touch on some of these examples of inflexibility that you see in the modern system. Sure. So, I mean, give a couple examples. Like British Columbia had a really tough year for like weather related disasters. related disasters. Can you specifically talk about how the system is inflexible around instances of, say, a farmer desperately needing to feed an animal hay that they may not have an organic source for during a crisis and what that would mean for the future sale of that animal? Yeah. Well, this has happened to quite a number of growers this year, whether it was fire or flood. We had people whose animals were unhoused. that animal? Yeah, well, this has happened to quite a number of growers this year. Whether it

was fire or flood, we had people whose animals were unhoused. So they might have been, you know, stuck at the fairground with a bunch of other non-organic animals with no organic feed in sight. And those animals then, because the farmer didn't have an advanced plan for a wildfire or, you know, the once in a hundred year flood that happened in the lower mainland, a lot of these animals got decertified. breeding stock, but not, and be able to sort of return them into the organic system. But none of their animals that were destined for slaughter that year would be allowed to be sold as organic, which of course is a huge financial hit on top of what they were already suffering. Because there simply was no ability for the system to say, right. That was a very special circumstance. You were in the midst of a crisis.

Your animals were being held somewhere else. They ate some conventional hay. We can see that that makes perfect sense, and therefore we're not going to penalize you. We can still call the animal organic. Exactly. So there are other examples in your letter. Still, how do we reconcile that with the need for the future European eater of the beef from that animal to be able to believe in the organic integrity? Hmm. That is a really good question. I think that we have to find a way to build that understanding of flexibility into our entire standard and then go and talk to the Europeans about it and say, so how do you guys adapt to random stuff that falls out of the sky um because we're not alone in this um and and this is you

know especially when we're talking about unforeseen climate issues it's going to get worse not better so we're going to have to find a way to adapt to this that doesn't just result in nobody farming anymore um i don't i don't have a particular answer to how we deal with it as an export end of things um maybe the answer then is that if some of those farmers you know with with a herd of beef cattle they're allowed to sell within bc under the regional program but they're not allowed to export those but as you say that but doesn't seem like the end of the world to me that seems like it's a possibility right right and but but as they're written our national standards that we all adhere to regional or not don't don't really allow for

that sort of flexibility so let me let me shift gears a little bit rebecca can you can you in your letter you talk about a feeling that the peer review system that is still currently practiced in the regional system in bc you and i are part of a certifying body that that does peer review is is under crit like under frequent criticism or attack. Can you elaborate on that? Sure. There seems to be an ideology that says that if people are not operating at arm's length with professional paid reviewers that do nothing else but do this, that the system cannot be trusted. That if we have farmers certifying other farmers, if we have people actually communicating with each other about

what they're doing on their farms on an you know either formal or informal level if there's a back and forth within that process if there's any feedback in that that that is illegitimate and jeopardizes the integrity of organic certification. So what that means is like, we're not allowed to say to somebody, you know, if you just put a white background instead of the green background on your label behind where the organic logo is, we could just, then you'd be done. You'd be good. What you're saying is, what you're saying is on the certification committee, some years ago now, you started being discouraged from passing on guidance and advice to individual farmers.

Whereas that was once a common practice. Hey, we're your peers on the certification committee and we have some advice for you to do better in your system. That's now seen as a conflict of interest that is to be avoided. And so you're literally not allowed to give direct guidance anymore. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think for me, I find that incredibly disrespectful, actually. I think it's ludicrous to think that being able to give each other advice and support is somehow jeopardizing the integrity of the system. I think that's just silly, to be honest. I mean, I think that's an idea that, I mean, I guess it's predicated in this idea that if we talk to each other, we be therefore biased and we'll let each other we'll be letting each other get away with stuff well rebecca let's stop there

though because like yeah let's talk about that you and i had a conversation like ages ago about this and and a difference of opinion i think i really like i think i think farmers organic farmers in a peer review system are easily capable of of biased thinking and conflicts of interest whereas you in your experience I think communicated to me that you didn't think that was a major problem on certification committees that are peer peer-based well I I yes we're absolutely capable of it for sure um we're human just like you know just like everybody else um and so obviously we have we have the capacity to say well i know joe's having a really tough go of it right now so if he has not managed to get this thing done the way it's supposed to be done

don't worry about it he He'll be fine next year. And then next year comes and you give him another year of grace. And all of a sudden you realize that you've actually been allowing something wrong to happen. That is totally possible. We could be giving each other a pass. But my experience generally is that where we are easier on each other, I guess, where we are giving that grace, it's out of a sense of community caring, not a sense of letting somebody get away with it. And in fact, it allows for, there is the potential there. And I think, I mean, we inspect each other, we talk to each other, right? So in the certification committee, we can say, hey, is this an acceptable thing? Or do we

really need to come down on so and so? To me, that's a reasonable level of discussion and feedback and the ability for people in that in that group to say uh no actually that's a problem don't let that happen um but it also there's the so there's there's that um ability for people within the group to check each other. And we feel, I would say that within that committee, that we have that, we have a system where we have different people reviewing the same farm at different stages, which allows us to check each other. But we also talk about it like we

talk about things where we might have questions or we might be kind of going i feel like i can give him a pass on this what do you guys think and so there is that discussion i think that's really healthy um i think it's a lot there's a lot more potential for there to be support for a farmer who's having a really hard time within that than there is within a system where it's simply yes, no, check the box. You didn't do it, you lose. And so whereas you as a proponent of this way of overseeing members really believe in its power to work together to make practices better over time and support each other, proponents of the more modern approach, which is a professionalized committee of maybe people who are farmers but certainly don't have any connection to this specific certification body. These are just paid people on a committee with a very arm's length relationship

to the farmers whose applications they're reviewing. So proponents of that system just really point to how much more integrity there is in that and how much it reduces the potential for a conflict of interest to arise. Well, we'd have to have farms. I mean, in our area, we all know each other. So if we have to go to only people who don't know each other, we're to wind up having people from alberta certifying farms in bc um or possibly further afield depending on where you live like it's not that big a community at this point we tend to know each other very quickly um

so i'm not sure i believe in this quote unquote arm's length stuff. To be honest, I don't think it's all that arm's length. And I am, well, I guess this is a philosophical stance. The same way that I don't believe that any journalist is unbiased, I don't believe that simply paying somebody to be on a certification committee makes them automatically unbiased um i don't believe that simply paying somebody to be on a certification committee makes them automatically unbiased and i think do you think but do you think we lose something by making the members of certification committees professional and in many cases not farmers themselves what do we lose if anything i think we lose an understanding of, especially if they're not farmers at all,

I think we lose the understanding of what's actually going on in agriculture. I think it becomes very easy to simply apply any random set of rules with no understanding of what that means on the ground for any given farmer, which to me means that the principles can't be adhered to because you innately can't understand that if all you're doing is applying a black and white set of rules because the principles of organic agriculture are more complex and nuanced than that. But can I stop you about that? Yeah.

What you just said about complexity and nuance? Sure. Let me, I've had a question ready for you. I'm really curious to know how you respond. An unfortunate reality, I think, is that the consumer of organic products, the typical, or let's just say many, many consumers of organic products have a very simplified and un-nuanced view, nuanced view of what organics means, right? It's very, to use words that you apply to the modern approach,

very reductionist, right? It's organic means it didn't't it wasn't sprayed with poisons. Right. And so do the pioneers of the movement bear any responsibility for for allowing the public to run with that very reductionist view? And is there any relationship between that reductionist view and the fact that we now have this fairly reductionist prescriptive approach to overseeing certification? Oh, those are great questions, Jordan. First of all, yes, of course we do. We do bear that responsibility because some of this, I think, we did foresee, but weren't, foresee but um weren't I guess I don't know whether we weren't on top of it or we were we were guarding the wrong end of the hen house um we didn't we didn't you know see how these things were going to play out and so we weren't we weren't as on top of it as we should have been. I mean, I know that, you know, we were, we'd always been very concerned about having excessive amounts of industrial control over the organic standards. So

for example, you know, let's make sure that we don't let the poultry board write the standards because we saw what happened in the US when that happened. So we were busy looking at that kind of thing and didn't, I think, then also recognize that the process that we were undertaking was itself a problem. That this idea of standardization, as opposed to the standards, had an inherent, had a fairly massive inherent flaw. And maybe that's just a failure of imagination. Maybe it's just, you know, that it's the kind of thing you do only see in hindsight. Our analysis wasn't quite good enough, you know, or we were doing the best we could with what we had

and everybody's still trying to farm. So, you know, yes, I think there's some responsibility. I also think that it's the nature of life. Shit happens and you've got to try to deal with it as it comes up and you realize, oh, deal with it as it, as it comes up and you realize, Oh geez. Yeah. That, um,

as far as the, the public pressure, um, to some extent, I think we've been fairly aware of not letting public mythology drive the actual standards. public mythology drive the actual standards but I think that the overall philosophy of empiricism and reductionism which is what our society is based on has gone without examination but I think also that consumers are encouraged to think that way in a system that prefers everything to be black and white.

So, you know, I mean, I think they're they're thinking that way because the entire world is being is pushing people to think that way. attainable changes that you could see introduced to try and reclaim some of the more cherished aspects of of um you know the more the more the descriptive system that you described at the outset of our conversation can you think of any can you think of ways like within the modern standards that you know it changes to be introduced to try and get back to those core values? Part of it is the work that we're doing at the federal level, which is looking at exactly who is sitting on the Standards Interpretation Committee and the various technical committees. on the Standards Interpretation Committee and the various technical committees. So these are all the people that actually look at the standards and say,

hmm, that makes sense, that doesn't make sense. Let's look at this crop protection product and see if it actually fits the standard or not. Or the pop holes on your chicken shed need to be, you need to have one for every 20 birds, not one for every 30 birds in order to try to encourage them to go outside. You know, those people need to be people who are deeply committed to the principles of organic agriculture and who actually really understand complex ecological systems. And so we're trying to figure out ways of working within a system that doesn't actually want that

to be the case, doesn't care about that kind of part of the qualification. It only cares about the scientific qualifications. So we're trying to figure out how to put that in place. I think at the regional level, as part of strengthening our food system, we need to recognize that reducing distance in a food system strengthens it. field and fork or the philosophical distance between farmer and eater between verification officer and farmer between review committee and farmer when we are all members of the same community living in the same on the same land breathing the same air drinking the same water trying desperately to take care of that ecosystem and make sure it works. I think when we recenter our actual principles, I think we can't help but get stronger. And so I think that is actually a practical approach to simply say, yeah, no, let's put that first.

Let's make sure that we support the peer- the peer reviewed system, figure out where the weaknesses are within that system, and figure out ways to strengthen them that don't apply a distancing practice in there. And I think it's totally doable. Do you know what I think is an irony about the modern systems obsession with fraud and like integrity is that the way that the system runs and most systems like this run, you can't account for dishonesty. Like, you know, the modern system is obsessed with fraud and trying to root it out.

But in my experience as an organic operator, if you are a dishonest person who wants to gain a premium on your product by calling it organic, but you really want to use conventional approaches, it's just not that hard to hide what you're doing, right? Like really, like if you want to dump synthetic fertilizers into your soil, you're going to find a way to do it fairly easily, in spite of the modern system's dedication to fraud, because it's, it's mostly just focused on the records you are keeping, not on what you're hiding. Yep, I think that's actually totally true because again, and exactly because of that,

when we're focused on paperwork, nobody's going out and looking at the field and going, huh, the only thing growing in this cornfield is corn. There's something wrong. That's not an organic field. You know, so in fact that, and that's one of those strengthening pieces where we're getting back to actually hands-on soil will reduce the possibility of fraud. Rebecca, thanks so much for taking the time to, to, to talk to me about this for the podcast. It's,

it's really interesting and I'll, I'll make sure that, that people can connect to your letter if they want to read it by checking out the show notes for this episode. Great. Thank you so much. Hey, so this seems like probably a good time to talk about my absence from the podcast. I haven't been producing podcasts for The Ruminant for a couple years now, which should be of no surprise to those of you who have been listening since the origins of the show. I tend to have unintended long breaks from the show as life gets in the way, And certainly it's been a busy few years. I've had my hands full with the farming and the kids that have come along.

I've got two of them now, August and Levon. And so things have been busy. And also everyone, I've been podcasting elsewhere. My province's organic sector organization has been employing me a little bit over the last couple years to produce podcasts for them and paying me cash money for that. I think in total I've produced around 50 episodes and a good deal of them, not all of them, but a good deal of them are available at the Organic BC podcast if you want to go and check that out. Definitely it's a podcast focused on the organic sector in BC but not just that And I think there's plenty in there of interest for people from further afield.

Anyway, it has always been my intention to get back to the ruminant. The ruminant has always remained close to my heart. And so I'm back right now and I have some reason to think that you're going to be hearing from me on a regular basis. First of all, August and Levon are both in daycare now as of a week ago, and I've recruited a little bit of help, at least for the time being. A dear friend of mine who is a certified smart person has agreed to join me for a little bit of collaboration on the show, and you will learn about her and meet her in an upcoming episode. But anyway, for now she's working behind the scenes to help me produce the show. And one of the things we've decided to do is to introduce multiple segments in each episode. One of the new segments we're trying out is called the Farmer Questionnaire,

and it is pretty flagrantly a ripoff of the Proust Questionnaire, if you've ever heard of that, only modified. We've come up with a whole bunch of questions of interest and relevance to farmers, and we want to pose some of those questions to farmers and get them to answer them. And the whole point is to do one of the things that the ruminant has always tried to do, which is to connect us and to share perspectives of people from all over the agricultural landscape. So today you're going to hear from Jessica Bell at Split Creek Farm in South Carolina. So here is the first edition of the Farmer Questionnaire. I hope you like it, and I will let Jessica take it from here.

My name is Jessica Bell, and I am the co-owner of Split Creek Farm, which is a grade A goat dairy in Anderson, South Carolina. We are a production farmstead facility. We raise all breeds of the American Dairy Goat Association, so Nubians, Toggenbergs, Alpines, Saunons, Oberhastlies, La Manchas, Nigerian Dwarfs, and Guernseys. And from their milk, we make products. We're probably best known for our feta.

We also do chev and fromage. And these products are marketed locally, regionally, and nationally in a wholesale and retail market. Describe a common misconception about food production or what you do as a farmer. I think the biggest misconception that I've seen in the 29 years of farming that I've done is most people don't realize how hard of a job farming is. We see a lot of people that say, oh, you get to play with animals all day long, and it's so much more than that. That's the perk bonus at the end of a long, hard day.

And it's not just being a farmer. We have to wear so many different hats from running a business and marketing and accounting and being a repair person and, you know, fixing plumbing issues and electrical issues and making sure our equipment's running, making sure animals stay healthy. And it's a lot of hats to wear. It's not just being a farmer. What's the best decision you ever made on your farm? I think the best decision that I've made is to really get the concept that less is more. You know, we want to have more animals and more products and more sales. But we really had to focus on what we can do with less animals. So if we're wanting to add an account that needs to produce,

we need 10 more animals to milk that amount of milk to fill that account, we really back-stepped and looked at can we make the animal better and produce more so that our feed bill doesn't have to go up and our workflow doesn't have to go up? So really looking at the genetics of the animal and the production of the animal to get more from less. What's your worst habit on the farm? I would say my worst habit on the farm is not delegating duties. It's trying to take on more than I probably should or can and that I have to relinquish a little bit of control and, you know, trust in my staff, my workers, my co-owner, to, you know, spread the duties

and that we're all working towards the same goal. And it doesn't have to all be on me. What has been the biggest challenge for your work over the past five years? I would say the biggest challenge, which I'm sure this is facing almost everybody, has been COVID. We were on a trend of growth and increasing marketing

and increasing our showing of our animals and our sales of our products. And COVID sort of put the world on pause. So having to compensate from that and, you know, losing employees and having to cut down the herd and losing accounts with restaurants closing down and still try to be able to pay the bills was probably the biggest challenge that I've seen. What do you foresee is the biggest challenge that I've seen. What do you foresee as the biggest challenge over the next five years? So in relation to the last question, it's the rebuilding.

We sold about a third of our milking herd, and then restaurants opened right back up and said, OK, we need, you know, 100 pounds of your feta. And we didn't have those animals and milk to make that product. And it's not just a turn on a switch and you have it. That's, you know, two years of breeding and raising an animal to get to get that product back in the hands of our consumers. of our consumers. So just rebuilding and being able to afford the increased pricing in feed and fertilizers for the crops where we get our hay, prices are going up and supply chain issues with even the containers that we store our products in to get it into the hands of our customers. So that's our challenge looking forward.

What do you consider a great success in your farming career? Our most recent success was a competition that we just were in. It was the 2022 World Cheese Competition, and we entered our setup, marinade and olive oil, and we took first place in the country and third place in the world. I was pretty proud. today I learned I don't need anything to live on except for a little old you I've met a whole army of weasels a legion of leeches trying to give me the screw okay so here we are at the end of a new episode of The Ruminant. I hope you enjoyed it, everyone. And I want you to know that The Ruminant is brought to you by Brave About Veggies. If you want to learn more about The Ruminant or my farm or my online shop where you can find some of the finest heirloom milling corn, dry bean, and chili seeds around, head to braveaboutveggies.com.

I want to thank my special new collaborator for the work she put into this episode, who shall remain anonymous for one more episode. And to tell all of you that we've got a really great episode plan in the works, and there's lots of fun stuff to come so i hope you will listen again and i hope the start of your farming or growing or whatever kind of thing you do season is going well talk to you soon everybody Because why would we live in a place that don't want us A place that is trying to bleed us dry We could be happy with life in the country With salt on our skin and the dirt on our hands

I've been doing a lot of thinking Some real soul searching And here's my final resolve I don't need a big old house or something.