Organic question for Hobby etc.

[freewheat]

I have a piece of land that because of wet weather issues, was un able to be reached for nearly a decade. If I can gain access to it, would it be automatically certified if I went thru the process? I have not touched it for 8 or 9 years.

It grew up to grass. I was just wondering if it would be worth toying with as an idea. Work her up and throw some oats on there, or flax, or what crop?

It is nice, deep, rich soil beside a lake, secluded from any conventional land by trees and water.

Can I have a small portion of land certified, while I conventionally farm the rest? As I get more sheep, and need more hay, can I rotate out of hay and do a year or two of organic after the hay, but still be farming 90% conventionally?

Thanks!

[pourfarmer]

Yea that land would qualify as long as you were willing to sign a affidavit saying it received no inputs for the past 3 years.

They made some changes to the rules recently which states you need to certify the ground the year before you sell the crop production as organic. Ideally, I think they want you to certify it the year you 'plowdown' grass, hay, brush etc, keep it fallowed and then crop it the follow year.

You can run parallel production for a certain number of years but have to have a plan in place to transition the rest of the land into organic. Kind of stupid I know. I think a way around this may be to have your wife or other family member certifying the organic production, keep it separate from you. hmmm It throws up red flags when they see land being taken in and out of organic production so that may not work very well now that I think about it.

Hope that helps.

[ado089]

I just did 7 quarters of rented land. You'll need a pre-inspection 1 year before being certified.

[grefer]

It would be best to talk to a certifier but this is my take on it. The land would be eligible to be certified organic. They may want you to start the process the year before. I'm not sure. If you have land that is not certified organic and land that is certified you cannot have parallel production. Meaning if you were to grow oats on the certified land then you could not on the uncertified or vise versa. You do not to have to switch cold turkey but they do encourage you to have all your land in transition within 5 years. After all they want to see a commitment to being organic not just fair weather friends.

[ado089]

Sign the affidavit. Get it inspected and don't do parallel production of the same market classes. They asked me when I was switching the rest of the farm...I said never and they were fine with that. 1 hour of paper work, 2 hour inspection and 2 minor non compliance issues (missing a number on one bin and I had not notified the neighbors yet) My existing record keeping far exceeded the standards. It's not hard, just another IP program if you ask me.

[pourfarmer]

2 hour inspection? who are you certified with?

[ado089]

Pro cert. Granted it was just the pre-inspection but I was organized, the farm is organized. I told him about my education, consulting business and why I was taking the organic land on. Showed him my record keeping program that has geopspacial info from every field operation I've done in the last 5 years. By the time he left I pretty much had a job offer to become an inspector. Not onerous at all.

[pourfarmer]

Just out of curiosity, why did you decide to look at organic production?

[hobbyfrmr]

I'm late to the party!
Yes to all the above. I would go with Procert they are less expensive and a Sask /local company that understands sask farming issues.
Do not parallel production. That just complicates your life.
I would put in a whole farm plan first go around. It requires drawing maps of all your farmland., the acres , bluffs and water bodies etc. I after the first year you may find you like the ides of organic and fast track the rest of the farm, or not. Wean yourself in.

[bucket]

Hobby

Do you think one of these vertical tillage machines would work in organic production. Plow downs etc. Seed bed prep. Etc.

Just thinking.