Skaneateles, New York (AP) – Jeremy Brown farmer clicks a young rib. He says, “I love the pink nose.”
This covered pink animal is just one of about 3200 livestock in Twin Birch Dairy in Skaneateles, New York. In the eyes of Brown, the cows on the farm are not just workers: “They are the president, they are the queen of the barn.”
Brown, the owner of the twins Persh, is frank about the importance of sustainability in his work. The average dairy cow emit up to 265 pounds (120 kg) from MethaneStrong climate gas, every year. Brown says that Persh twin has worked hard to reduce its emissions that aim to the planet through a number of environmental sound options.
“The routes are the solution, not the problem, for climate change,” he said.
Brown was wearing a hodge and a cavity and a hat promoting a brand of cow medicines, and on Friday morning he was artificially storm, some huge shirts on the farm and Holstein. I went up to an electric fertilizer scraper used to clean the animal fold.
The electrical scraper means that dairy should not use a fuel burning machine for this particular task. Persh twins also restore fertilizer instructions for use on crops, and its milk is cooled with water that is recycled to the cows for drinking and most of its own summary grows.
Despite all of this, the farm does not want to follow the US Department of Agriculture organic Certificate, Brown said. He said that doing this would add costs and require the farm to abandon the technology that makes dairy work, and eventually the client’s jug of milk, at reasonable prices.
He asks a question that many farmers asked: Is organic agriculture just a word?
Low enthusiasm of the organic certificate
An increasing number of American farmers believe this. The approved organic area in America fell Almost 11 % between 2019 and 2021. He told many farmers who carry out sustainable practices for Associated Press that they have moved away from the testimony because they are expensive, and do not do enough to combat climate change and seem to lose Cachet in the market. Converting a farm from traditional agriculture to organic agriculture can cost tens of thousands of dollars and add employment costs.
The rules governing the National Organic Program were published in 2000, and in the years that followed, organic agriculture flourished to reach more than 5 million acres. But this has decreased in recent years.
Any significant declining trend, as organic farms make up less than 1 % of the total total areas of the country, usually organic sales are just a small share of the total country.
Shannon Ratcliffe, the farmer and the owner of the organicly accredited Shannon Brock farms in Watkins Glen, New York, attributes the retreat to a 2018 fraud A case in Iowa includes a farmer that sells wrong grains as an approved source. “It was all crazy – the requirements of work for farmers have increased and the inspection levels were higher,” she said.
Ratcliffe said it is just a difficult job.
Its co -owner, Walter Adam, believes that the interest of young generations in agriculture of any kind is also decreased.
Adam said: “It takes six months to learn everything.” “We cannot find anyone ready to work on the farm.”
Adam leads to Manhattan every week to sell meat and eggs on the market, and spends Sunday morning that helps Ratcliffe with business in the Brighton Market for farmers in Brighton, New York.
Frank Metlinner, a professor of animal sciences at the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of California Davis, said that the lack of flexibility and efficiency pushes farmers away from membership in the era of high prices of farmers. He said that organic standards need a comprehensive reform or the risk of the market in membership.
“I am in awe because many organic farmers have been able to produce this way for a long time,” he said. “It seems that they are losing the base of consumers in these financially disturbing times.”
But the brand is still important for some buyers
However, there are consumers determined to buy membership. Aaron Swindel, a warehouse employee in a series of a series of a series, spends every Sunday morning to shop for organic groceries in the Brighton Market for farmers.
“The quality of taste varies when it grows nearby,” said Swindel. New York’s fingers are called “Trevikta”, a region that contributes to dairy, products and meat for its residents.
John Bolton, the owner of Bolton farm in HiltonNew York said that he has some reservations about issuing organic certificates, but he follows them on his water farm, which grows in nutrients rich instead of soil. It produces vegetables such as Kale and Chard and is popular as a restaurant supplier in West New York, and directed waves of ordinary customers in the Rochester Market on the weekend.
Bolton does not use pesticides. On a cold day of this spring, he was in his greenhouse emptying 1500 beetles to do the Aphids disposal in the process. This is the type of practice that organic farms use to earn a certificate.
He said that his operations are not immune to the risks of climate change. He said that the hot days abnormal affect their greenhouse, and he said: “It is destroyed not only people but plants.”
But Bolton described the organic certificate as economically and environmentally beneficial for his farm. Getting the certificate will hold an account, but he is confident that he will deserve the price.
“It helps in sales,” Bolton said.
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This story was originally shown on Fortune.com
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