Bear Butte Gardens is USDA Organic Certified!
What is USDA Organic Certification?
The United States Congress passed the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) in 1990 to establish uniform national standards for the production and handling of foods labeled as "organic." The Act authorized a new USDA National Organic Program (NOP) to set national standards for the production, handling, and processing of organically grown agricultural products. All producers who use the "USDA Organic" label must undergo USDA inspection and certification.
Learn more about the USDA National Organic Program
In a nutshell, USDA Organic Certified producers must follow these high-level requirements:
- Must submit and follow an Organic System Plan that outlines production methods and inputs, soil and pest management practices, and record-keeping and traceability procedures. This plan is reviewed and updated annually.
- Must be inspected annually.
- May not use synthetic fertilizers or pesticides (unless specifically approved), genetically modified organisms (GMOs), sewage sludge, ionizing radiation, or antibiotics or growth hormones.
- Must follow the National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances maintained by the USDA.
- Must promote soil fertility through cover cropping, crop rotation, composting, and conservation tillage.
- Must protect natural resources such as water quality, native habitats, and biodiversity.
- Livestock must be raised in living conditions that accommodate their natural behaviors, and must be fed 100% organic feed.
In addition to the above high-level requirements, there are many, many more rules regulating production methods and materials that must be followed. To give a few examples: no treated lumber can be used near any vegetables or animals, compost piles must be turned on a specific schedule and must reach specific temperatures, farm equipment must be cleaned to specific standards, crops must follow specific rotation requirements and schedules, pests (e.g., insects, diseases, varmints, etc.) must be controlled via specific materials and methods, and nearly everything must be documented and audited.
Most people who have not completed the certification process have very little idea about the detailed requirements or about the high quality of the product that is a result.
Learn more about the US Department of Agriculture
Our Certification Process
Bear Butte Gardens is very proud to be USDA Organic Certified since 2012! Each year in March we complete and submit our organic certification paperwork to our organic certifier, Organic Crop Improvement Association (OCIA). Each summer an inspector visits our farm for several hours, asking many questions, looking at everything, and taking a lot of notes. Late summer/early fall we receive our official USDA National Organic Program certificate in the mail.
Some people ask why be certified? Why pay the annual fee? Why go through the hassle of the paperwork, documentation, and audit trail? Why go through the inspection process? Why not simply grow vegetables without chemicals and say the vegetables are “naturally grown” or “organically grown”, or “beyond organic” (but not technically organic certified)? Well, the answer has three parts:
- We don’t want to confuse or deceive our customers with word trickery. We are the real deal.
- How could we say we are “beyond organic” if we are not at least organic certified? We are both.
- The actual certification process has so many rules and regulations that, if you have not actually gone through the process and are not held to the standards by annual inspections, it would be very easy to miss something -- either by not knowing the actual detailed rules, or by bending the rules a little. We talk-the-talk and walk-the-walk.
