Beyond Organic
We think organic is a great starting place. We were certified organic for 6 years but found the certification didn’t do our methods justice. Expending time and money on a certification that isn’t focused on the standards of animal welfare and land regeneration that we are interested in felt counter productive.
Organic certification can be beneficial for bigger farms, the certification fees can be offset by the subsidy money they get from the government. If they sell products through the supermarket or do not have an open farm policy then it can be a useful way for customers to differentiate products. As we don’t rely on any government subsidies to run our business and people can visit us whenever they like we had started to resent paying so much for doing what we consider to be the bare minimum.
When starting our farming journey we had the misconception that organic certification meant high animal welfare, increased biodiversity and ultimately regeneration of the land. Don’t get me wrong here, there are some great organic farms that are doing these things but there’s also a lot that are collecting higher subsidies and doing little of what we value. While there are organic standards for welfare, like more days out at grass and bigger space allotments for indoor housing we soon found out that this didn’t translate to much in the way of welfare/ animal happiness and the inspectors who came to visit us each year paid little attention to these points, our barns or animals were never voluntarily inspected.
Our experience of being a certified organic farm allowed us to see how a lot of other farmers were able to cut corners. A neighbour once joked that there are two types of farmers honest farmers and organic farmers. Not to shame particular farmers or certification bodies because we appreciate the food system is complex and individuals make the best decisions they can for their particular circumstances but we have experienced enough of that honest/ organic joke that the certification no longer carries the same weight for us.
Something learned working on farms in the UK and Europe was that it all comes down to a farmers individual level of care for the animals they have and unless you see the way they interact with them an organic certification label isn’t going to prove a thing. We’ve worked on organically certified farms with fluffy happy animal marketing where the animals were treated as commodities and “conventional” farms where the farmer would run themselves ragged to ensure the animals under their care were living their best lives. We found this issue reflected in veg production where large certified organic farms had derogations (paperwork that means you can do something that goes against the organic guidelines), were planting acres of monocrops and disregarding soil health compared with uncertified growers selling under the chemical free banner who follow permaculture principles and wouldn’t touch a sprayer full of glyphosate if their life depended on it.
These experiences have led us to the conclusion that the organic label doesn’t do justice to what we are doing. Our beyond organic approach is to do everything required by the organic certification AND more.
We are committed to providing healthy nutrient dense produce in partnership with animals whose welfare needs are considered above the basics of feed and shelter. Our animals will get to raise their young until they naturally wean and the males will live as part of the herd far beyond the 8 weeks required by certification. We’ve never relied on chemicals over natural processes, antibiotics are never routinely administered and we keep our on farm processes transparent. Our customers are our inspectors so get in touch if you want to know more.