New idea

[rockpile]

To me this whole use of the term "organic" made no sense. Organic refers to anything capable of cellular reproduction. The opposite is inorganic. Rocks are inorganic! Seems like a very warm and fuzzy and successful marketing ploy by some vested interests. Or am I missing something here?

[farmaholic]

Today, I hate it all...

[Braveheart]

I just haven't been able to figure why organic and conventional farming systems can't co exist without bashing the other.

Why can't the suppliers of organic especially, be happy with the market niche they have? The higher values they enjoy comes partly from demand that exceeds supply. If more of us transitioned to organic supply increases and prices drop.

Likewise, if organic acres converted to conventional and yields quadrupled supplies of commodity grains sees yet another increase.

[Braveheart]

If China allows more than one child per family, in 30 years no new ideas will be needed. Just balls to the wall production.

[hobbyfrmr]

Genuinely, organic farming is not for everybody.
Most farmers would never make it without a sprayer and I can respect that.
If more people transition into organic farming, more grain volume supplies the market. Prices drop, everybody loses. Something else that is making me nervous is the financial condition of Canada/US. If these economies crash, and mathematically they have to, less people will be able to afford to spend on more expensive organic food items. I lived it first hand in 2007/2008. No bid on organic barley for 14 months. It gets pretty weird trying to pay for decent machinery when you don't know which month the grain is leaving the yard. The best thing that happened here, canola went to $14.00/bushel. One 3000 acre organic farmer rented out to a very big farm for huge money. The second 5000 acre organic farm bought a sprayer went back to conventional and planted canola.
This proves to me that conventional farming is working, there is all kinds of cash flow out there.
My neighbors are very big, very good high volume producers and they are living well. They run up to date machinery and technology, they use best management practices, grow terrific crops pay crazy to buy land, and pay high cash rents. They employ lots of locals who like to live in small towns, they provide housing for some, buy vehicles or recreation toys for others.
When the two organic farms changed back to conventional farming, they left an organic grain void of about 150,000 bushels of milling oats and 80,000 bushels of feed barley for the organic losers to fill. I really do appreciate that.
You have to ask yourself, do you really want to piss around doing paperwork, summer fallow, not fertilizing, not spraying, fall tillage? Can you really survive a half a crop cash flow year after year? Everybody says, if more farmers went organic people would starve.
Do you really want to grow a half a crop with weeds visible from the road on your land the rest of your farming career? Really?.....

[pourfarmer]

👍 👍 👍 👍 👍 👍 👍

[grassfarmer]

I think the problem with your idea cotton is the market. We do a similar thing with our grass-fed beef /pork - not certified organic because we do a few things that organic doesn't allow and we also do a few things that go beyond what organic requires and are important to our customers.
Point is we are dealing direct with the customer where you can explain why you do things the way you do.

I'm assuming you are wanting to go on producing commodity grain but get some kind of premium for changing some of your methods in the organic direction? In the mainstream marketplace there are two categories organic and not organic. It would be hard to create a market that's in between unless you are dealing direct with customers who you can have a dialogue with and work on a mutually beneficial product.
I think you could create a local market using grain produced a certain way if you turn it into flour or bread but don't expect Cargill or ADM ever to pay you a premium for it. They want product to be bland, non-specific and the same the world over.

[hobbyfrmr]

Grassfarmer, you nailed it. Brand your farm and sell your production that way. You can talk to customers, educate them, and tell them what you don' t do , and what you do in your production methods.
Now your talking value adding, cleaning, small packaging, marketing meetings, distribution, order fulfillment, business plans, websites, e-commerce. Do you want to spend your vacation time building business at trade shows, or dump it through the grates, get paid and (generally speaking) be satisfied
I know that being an organic farmer is helping, but I am still a "bulker". My grain goes to market in Btrains and rail cars. I am missing out on lots of value added profit, but, at this time, I want to be a farmer, not a commercial marketing specialist .
It could be simple if you want to make the efforts. I think Klause did a small package project with wheat, sold it on EBay.

[hobbyfrmr]

Klause Reply posted Nov 26, 2014 11:03
freewheat, here's a fun experiment.

Clean up a couple bu of wheat. Fill it into 1 and 5lb bags. Take a good picture of the sample before bagging it, then go onto Ebay and list "Sustainably produced Flour wheat for sale".

Charge 6.75 a lb for it.


I did that for giggles a few years ago. Sold 50 bu of really clean nice red wheat in a week for an insane profit

[grefer]

Cotton. I would suspect that if there were to be another separation in food production under semi organic or whatever it would be named you would find that it would need standards that would keep the producers that are producing for that market honest. Much like the organic sector has had to do. I know I know. The producers who detest organics will say that it won't stop cheating. I would be a fool to think it isn't happening on some farms. But like most things in life there are always cheaters. Enforcement of any kind can only do so much. I can understand why conventional producers get uptight with some aspects of the organic industry but as with many things there are those on both ends of the spectrum and everything in between. At the end of the day if the only thing the organic industry does is to get people/producers to ask themselves if what conventional ag is doing is the only way,it is worth having around.
Hobby.You need to put happy faces in or something in some of your posts. I have trouble telling sometimes when your bring sarcastic or not. I agree that the conventional farmers in my area grow outstanding crops under difficult situations at times with too wet or too dry. Most of my friends are conventional farmers and I hear what they are saying. It is echoed on here and many of the issues of years ago are much the same now. The biggest difference I see is the incredible cost of inputs and farm machinery. I applaud you all for having the balls to pull it off year after year. I'm afraid I would be ill and be of little use to anyone. Good luck to you all. You to Freewheat.