What does organic mean to organic farmers?
Jeff Bialis, J&A Farm, Goshen, NY
When we started this farm we couldn’t afford the chemicals and fertilizers to begin with. I started plowing and all these giant worms started coming up, which is a great thing. The life in the field is just amazing, and it’s such a drastic change from a conventional farm.
I think organic is a great thing. But the publicity surrounding the word, the branding, is unfortunate. I don’t think the two match up. What people think of the word organic, and what organic is, is not necessarily the same thing. People have this halo around the word, they think that everything is perfect.
Organic is the way people did things 100 years ago, 150 years ago, 500 years ago. It is the way it was done then, and it’s how we should do it now.