Certifiably organic - snapshots

Steve Sears has an eye for detail. As certification administrator for the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA), Sears' job is to oversee the process by which foods--crops, livestock and wild crafted edibles such as mushrooms, grown not in tended plots but in the wild-receive organic certification.

What may seem simple to consumers--an organic label--is the end result of a complex procedure. For foods to be certified, farmers must first detail what they grow; the seeds they use; their methods of fertilization, weed and insect control; their sources of irrigation water; and how their crops are stored and transported. "We look at the whole gamut of operations," says Sears.

The workload for organic certifiers made a dramatic shift upward once the National Organic Program (NOP), under the aegis of the US Department of Agriculture, went into effect a year ago. NOP set up specific protocols for how the OEFFA and similar agencies carry out the organic certification process. "There's a lot more paperwork," Sears says.

Tight Control

The rules Sears enforces are stringent. Farmers cannot have used any prohibited substances for the past 3 years. Those no-nos include synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, sewage sludge and any genetically modified seeds or other products. Pests are not likely to be an issue for organic farms, says Sears, because bugs go for weaker plants, which happens when crops are dosed with "massive amounts of nitrogen," that is, when they are conventionally farmed. "This is empirical observation, not research-based, but organically grown plants are naturally healthier," he says.

Weeds are easily controlled by crop rotation, which growers are mandated to practice. "You can't just be organic by neglect," says Sears. "Farmers are required to do something to improve the fertility of the soil, like crop rotation or growing cover crops such as rye, which can be plowed back in to add nutrients to the soil."

To maintain purity, no organic crops can ever be commingled with conventional crops, either in storage or transportation. And distinct rules apply for livestock, poultry and dairy farmers as well, says Sears. Farmers must give their animals 100 percent organic feed, avoid injecting them with antibiotics and hormones and provide them with access to the outdoors.

Family Affair

Sears' career went organic after he and his wife moved to a farm in West Salem, Ohio. Certification is now the family business. Before he held the OEFFA administrator title, his wife, Sylvia Upp--now certification coordinator of OEFFA--was in charge.

For now, Sears doesn't have an organic seal of approval for his own farm. "I couldn't do it; conflict of interest," he says. But there's no real need since all crops they grow feed their "fiber" animals--goats and llamas--whose fur is used to make wool. "There's no market for organic wool," as of now, says Sears. "Organic cotton, yes, but cotton is definitely not one of Ohio's big crops."

Yet.

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