Pajama Farmer & his wife =): The price of organic

In doing my research of all things organic for our farm, I have come to realize that there are some things that the everyday person or "non-greene" person probably does not think about much.

The biggest complaint heard about organic food is how expensive it is.

And if it doesn’t have all those bad chemicals then why does it cost so much more? Producing anything organic is more labor intensive, involves morality testing, is time consuming, very expensive and it is a very risky business venture as well.

On our hobby farm we have the luxury of not having to make a profit. I looked into the process involved to become a certified organic farm and quickly realized we were not there yet and may not ever be. There are a lot of certification fees (which are very expensive) and application fees and record keeping going back 3 years and just when you think you are done you still have to pay fees to stay organic. So I decided that my customers who buy from me, whatever product they choose, whether it is eggs, garden produce or cut flowers, will know me on a personal level and know the great lengths we have gone to "be organic".

So I’m not really in need of the official U.S.D.A Organic seal. There is risk involved in growing organic because if my crops are infested with some bug or mold I must find natural ways to deal with the problem.

I have recently been reading about viticulture (grape growing) in France. Some vineyards are attempting to go organic and that is really changing the way it has been done for hundreds of years. But the change away from synthetic pesticides and fertilizer has lead to a loss of millions of dollars in grapes. Even so many are committed to the new way of growing knowing there is a learning curve. Many simply cannot become “certified” because they want to use synthetic help to save as much of their crop as possible when conditions are bad and using any synthetic treatments means you can’t be “certified organic”.

Here on my farm I have not had many difficulties this year with pests but have found problems in another area that I didn’t at first think would be so hard to over come.

The thing I have found to be the most difficult is finding & buying organic chicken feed.
Depending on where you live in the U.S.A. the availability of feed varies greatly.
Here in rural Wisconsin, it’s kind of like trying to find a four leaf clover. I have searched and looked at several options and sources. Then I had found a great place that had just the right product I wanted and at a reasonable price, only problem… it's in Fishersville, Virginia. That’s 904.10 miles away! No problem they ship it right to you.

Let’s do some math shall we? I need 200lbs of chicken feed that should last me approximately 6 weeks. I have to feed 37 chickens everyday. At $25 per 50lb bag X 4 bags = $100. Ok, that isn’t too bad, but the shipping cost of a 200lb load is $76 ouch. $176 every 6 weeks!!! (Now consider that non-organic feed would cost me $48 for 4 bags and it is just down the road a bit.)

There has got to be some place local to get organic chicken feed right? NOPE!
So back online I go in my quest for the perfect chicken feed. After many hours of searching I finally have some success and I’ve gained knowledge on how the supply chain works in my state.
I found 5 places to buy organic chicken feed from here in WI. 1 only sells by the ton so they were out. I just can’t buy a ton of feed for my 12 birds. 3 of them are on the other side of the state about 6 hrs drive time. Not exactly a trip I want to make very often, but maybe on my way home from a trip to Minnesota (which I make a couple times a year).

That leaves one supplier left. After studying the ingredients of said supplier I find that a lot of the protein in there feed comes from soybeans. And I’ve notice that the case for all organic chicken feed in the state of Wisconsin. So what is wrong with soybeans? Well I called my source in Fishersville, VA (remember the one I liked but didn’t want to pay the shipping). They are promoting “soy-free” feed and I wanted to know why? Turns out soy is no longer cool, here is why http://www.westonaprice.org/soy/index.html
(In case you don’t want to look up the link… soybeans have a form of estrogen that has been linked to early onset of puberty in teen girls, retardation of sexual organs and maturity in boys, cancer in women and other problems…). Ok, some bad stuff in there, but it does seem to be accumulative and in the mean time I’m just happy to find organic feed, even if it does have soybeans, at least they are organic.

Today I drove to 2 hrs to Frank Organic Feed & Supply in Jefferson, WI. I had placed my order by phone and made arrangements to meet the owner, Joe Carens. When I arrived Joe was there with my order and we had conversation about chickens, gardening and the organic business. Joe was nice enough to let me take a couple of photos before I left, and then me and my chicken feed went home.

Joe also has a soy-free alternative for chicken feed, only problem… again it is by the tonnage. So, either I need more chickens to feed, cough up the money for shipping or Joe has offered to call us the next time someone orders soy-free feed, and if we are in the market, he will order an extra 200lbs of feed for us. Now thats service.
Heck maybe we can even find a few other farms around here willing to go in together and buy a large quantity of soy-free feed. You never know, maybe in 3 years we will be the supplier of organic grains to make feed for this neck of the woods.