Certified Organic - Safe Seed

One of our recent farm tasks has been to complete the paperwork for our organic certification.  It is something we have to do every Spring and it is a non-trivial task.  Don't get me wrong, I think it is a worthwhile task - it just takes some time and effort.  So....

How many of you think organic means "no spray" or "no chemicals"? 

This assumption is inaccurate in two ways.  First - there are sprays that are available for use in organic systems, but they are not synthetics.  Second - there is much more to maintaining organic certification (and hence an organic operation) than simply not spraying chemicals.  In short, organic certification forces the farmer to think about everything in their growing system and to develop that system so that it minimizes negative impact on the environment.  Included in this system are practices to provide for tracking and increased safety of the food produced.

Rather than bore everyone with a complete list of things we report on and track to maintain our certification, I thought it might be interesting to throw one thing out there and maybe revisit it again in the future - especially if people show interest in hearing more.

"Safe Seed" - Organic certification does not require that all seed be organic.  It does require that any seed treatment be on the NOIP (national standards) list or the seed cannot be used.  It also requires that we purchase organic seed of varieties we plant if it is available - within reason.  For example, we grow Jade green beans.  We ordered organic seed, but the company ran out prior to our placed order.  We made a good faith effort to purchase organic seed, but none of our seed suppliers had it for this variety.  So, the non-organic seed was purchased.  It is possible that *some* supplier *somewhere* still had organic seed for Jade green beans - but we are not forced to prove that a source does not exist.  Instead, we need to show a good faith effort.  It is actually more important that we patronize good seed companies that provide a 'safe seed' pledge that indicates responsible production of seed that is not contaminated by GMO, etc etc.  It is our responsibility, as the seed purchaser to research our suppliers and determine their reliability.  If they have organic seed for what we grow, then we buy it.  As a result, our patronage serves as a vote for these seed companies to increase their organic seed production for future years.