After an early rise, organic farming is falling: “We can’t find anyone so willing to work”

Skaneateles, Ny (AP) – The farmer Jeremy Brown touches the nose of a young calf. “I love the pink noses,” he says.

This pink nose animal is just one of the 3,200 livestock on Twin Birch Dairy in Skaneateles, New York. In the eyes of Brown, the farm cows are not only workers: “They are the head, they are the queen of the barn.”

Brown, Twin Birch’s co -owner, shows the importance of sustainability in his operation. The average dairy cow emits up to 265 pounds (120 kilograms) of methaneA powerful climate heating gas each year. Brown says Twin Birch has worked intensely to cut off his planet warm -up emissions through various environmentally.

“Rumans are the solution, not the problem, to climate change,” he said.

Bringing a hooded sweatshirt and a hat promoting a cow medicine brand, Brown had a windy on Friday morning artificially insemining some of the massive farm t -shirts and the Holsteins. He stepped on a scraper of electric manure that was used to clean the animal’s barn.

The electric scraper means that dairy should not use a fuel machine for this particular job. Twin Birch also recycles manure to use them in crops, cools their milk with water that is released so that cows drink and grow most of their own feed.

However, the farm is not eager to pursue a United States Agriculture Department organic Certification, Brown said. In doing so, I would add costs and require the farm to give up the technology that causes the lacti business, and ultimately, the more affordable customer’s milk jug, he said.

A question is asked that many farmers have asked: organic farming is just a word?

Decreased enthusiasm by organic certification

An increasing number of North -American farmers think about it. The organic surface certified by America fell Almost 11% between 2019 and 2021. Numerous farmers implementing sustainable practices told The Associated Press that they have remained far from the certification because it is expensive, they do not enough to combat climate change and it seems to be losing cachet on the market. Converting an existing farm from conventional agriculture to organic can cost tens of thousands of dollars and add employment costs.

The rules governing the national organic program were published in 2000 and in the following years, organic farming increased to end more than 5 million hectares. But this has been declining in recent years.

Any downward trend is significant, as ecological farms represent less than 1% of the total area of ​​the country and organic sales are usually only a tiny share of the national total.

Shannon Ratcliff, Shannon Brook Shannon Brook Organic Certificate at Watkins Glen, New York, attributes the fall to Fraud 2018 Case in Iowa involving a farmer who sold the wrong grain as a certified organic. “Everything went crazy: the work requirements for the farmers increased and the inspection levels were higher,” he said.

It is also just a hard business, said Ratcliff.

Its co -owner, Walter Adam, also believes that the interest of younger generations in agriculture of any kind is also diminishing.

“It takes six months to learn -everything,” said Adam. “We can’t find anyone so willing to work on the farm.”

Adam goes to Manhattan every week to sell his meat and eggs in the markets, and he spends on Sunday morning assistant Ratcliff with business in the Brighton Farmers Market in New York.

Frank Mitloehner, Professor of Animal Sciences at the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of California Davis, said that the lack of flexibility and efficiency away farmers away from organic farmers in an age of growing prices for farmers. He said that organic standards need to be reviewed or the market risks completely missing.

“I am attentive that so many ecological farmers could produce this way for so long,” he said. “They seem to be losing the basis of consumption at this time worrying financial.”

But the label still matters to some buyers

However, there are consumers determined to buy organic. Aaron Swindle, a warehouse employee in a chain supermarket, spends every Sunday morning to buy organic groceries at the Brighton Farmers market.

“The quality of taste is different when it grows nearby,” Swindle said. Name the fingers of the New York lakes as a “trifecta”, a region that provides dairy, produces milk and meat for its residents.

John Bolton, owner of Bolton Farms at HiltonNew York said he has some reserves on organic certification, but pursued it by his hydroponic farm, which grows in nutrient -rich water instead of soil. It produces greens like Kale and Chard and is popular as a supplier for restaurants in the west of New York and attracts regular customers in Rochester’s public market on weekends.

Bolton does not use pesticides. On a cold day this spring, he was in his greenhouse unloading 1,500 ladybugs to do the task of eliminating the aphids from the operation. This is the type of practice used by organic farms to obtain certification, he said.

He said that his operations are not immune to the dangers of climate change. The abnormally hot days affect their greenhouse, he said: “It is devastating not only people, but the plants.”

But Bolton described organic certification as an economic and environmental beneficial for his farm. Obtaining the certification will be a expense, but he is confident that the price will be worth.

“Help sales. And you feel good: you are doing the right internship,” said Bolton.

___

The Climate and Environmental Coverage of Associated Press receives the financial support of several private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards To work with philanthropies, a list of supporters and coverage areas funded at Ap.org.

This story originally presented to Fortune.com

Source link