America's Best Organics is marketing this chocolate bar, and they even spelled my name correctly. It's supposedly the first USDA Certified Organic and Fair Trade candy bar. That makes perfect sense if they're going to use my name! The only thing that's missing is my pic next to the candy bar. They could pay me in dark chocolate to do this for them.
Our farm, Diamondback Acres, grows USDA Certified Organic fruit. We have an official certificate that confirms that fact. Every year in late June, we meet with Jeff Collins who works for the Washington State Department of Agriculture for an annual inspection. This begins with the completion of our application for re-certification that's due in February. In our application, we stated we would have a new site, the blueberries, that would be organic this year.
Most of the inspection involves paper work, so the meeting takes place at our house. We had an earlier inspection this year because of the new site. Jeff wanted to be sure to get the paper work completed before we begin harvesting at the beginning of August. The packing shed and / or retailers we deliver our blueberries to will want to see our official Washington State Department of Agriculture Organic certificate and our Safe Quality Foods Certificate.
When Jeff does this inspection, he asks to see all of our spray and fertilizer records for each of our blocks to make sure that all the materials we've applied were certified organic. If he doesn't know by memory, he uses his laptop to go to the National Organic Program website for verification. This is somewhat nerve racking as there is always the possibility that we've applied something that was certified organic last year but came off the list this year. If that were to happen, we'd be kicked out of organic certification for that block. And don't forget, it takes 3 years of organic practices to become certified organic.
Jeff also verifies our production and the income we've had from that production. We pay the state a percentage based on our gross sales, so the more we make the more we pay. He's making sure we're paying what we're suppose to pay. These dollars are how the Washington State Dept. of Ag. funds the state's organic food program.
Growers that try to market their fruit as "organic" without certification are scamming the public. Don't be rooked!
Look for the green, white and brown USDA seal or ask to see the grower's certificate.
We have national organic standards that are defined by the National Organic Program. That is what the USDA Organic seal represents. Each state uses those national standards to issue organic certificates through their department of agriculture.
This is the Washington State seal. Our Diamondback Acres organic certificate has two seals: USDA Organic, Washington State.This year the US and EU signed an agreement on organic trade. The organic certification and enforcement standards of the US and EU are "essentially equivalent", so this will allow us to market our organic apples and cherries in the EU.
Finally, Jeff reviews our site plans to see how we control certain problems such buffer zones, weeds, and pests, then he'll do a random spot check on site to visually confirm our information.
After all that paper work, it was so nice to get outside prepping the garden. Bill is telling me a gardening joke:
The wife asked her husband to buy ORGANIC vegetables from the market. He went and looked around and couldn't find any. So he grabbed an old, tired looking employee and said, "These vegetables are for my wife. Have they been sprayed with any poisonous chemicals?" "The produce guy looked at him and said, "No. You'll have to do that yourself."
Oh, hardee har har Bill!
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