USDA Organic Ceritified: What it means to us and to you

It’s been nearly a year since Four Country Gals received our USDA Organic Certification. We’re just now completing our re-certification and are about to write the annual $200 check that goes with it.

Looking north to our "future garden" August 2005

I never really explained to you, the customer, exactly what it means to be USDA Organic Certified to us or more importantly, to you. So, here goes… a bit of reflection, and a bit of explaining.

Why we chose to become USDA Organic Certified

Four Country Gals has become eligible for a grant from the National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS). One of the requirements of that grant is that we become USDA Organic Certified within 3 years of receiving that grant. We looked at the requirement and found compliance would be very easy for us. It was simply a matter of completing the reams of paperwork, establishing a written plan of action, writing the check ($200 a year), and being inspected (our annual cost is less than $400). We’re small enough to escape sharing any profits with the USDA (less than $5000 a year).

What is the process?

The reams of paperwork was a little daunting, as was writing the Organic System Plan. It took us about 3 weeks to get everything done. Fortunately, Bev has plenty of experience writing grants and filling out federal applications. I’ve written several business plans, and the OSP is very similar to a business plan.

The OSP describes who we are (four women living on a small farm), what are we doing (raising organic vegetables for local markets), where are we doing it (in the SW Utah desert near Beryl, UT), when do we do it (all about our timeline for soil management, planting, any kind of pest control, and irrigation practices), why we do it (raising things naturally without pesticides, etc), and how we do it (our techniques and our equipment).

What’s in it for us?

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At the well head looking south.

Because we’re USDA Organic Certified, we can say beyond a shadow of doubt, our produce is raised and certified to be ORGANIC. It’s a natural way of life for us, as we’d prefer to spend our precious resources on things that help our little patch of land.

We’re working very hard to bring back a patch of land that was used, abused, and left for ruin over the past 60 or so years. This area (known as Mile Square) was a produce farm raising potatoes and other vegetables back in the 50′s and 60′s. The big farmers built a series of concrete aqueducts from east to west about 800′ or so apart. They’d pump the water from their wells, and fill the aqueducts, allowing them to spill onto the planted ground.

We still have plenty of evidence of the aqueducts, but no real idea of exactly how they irrigated. I would surmise they used some type of a siphoning system with a furrow “flow system”. They used conventional fertilizers and soil additives. Over time, production fell, the land become more eroded, and it was far more economical to relocate further south and raise cattle or alfalfa.

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One of our gardens in August 2011.

We believe organic methods lead to much more sustainability, and hopefully regeneration of a land once abused and left to the ravages of desert weather.

If we chose, we could obtain premium prices for our produce. However, we choose to price our products much closer to what you’d find at your local mega-store. We believe in sharing the benefits of organically grown produce.

What’s in it for you?

You know beyond the shadow of doubt we are providing organically raised produce. We are inspected annually by a Utah State agriculture inspector, who is contracted by the USDA. He inspects our land, our storage area, our equipment, and our “inputs” list, while comparing it all to our OSP. He makes sure we’re doing what we say were doing, and nothing more.