Skaneateles, NY (AP) – Farmer Jeremy Brown hits the nose of a young calf. “I love those with a pink nose,” he says.
This animal with a pink nose is only one of the 3,200 cattle to Twin Birch Dairy in Skaneateles, New York. In Brown's eyes, the farm cows are not only workers: “They are the boss, they are the queen of the barn.”
Brown, a co -owner of Twin Birch, is frank on the importance of sustainability in his operation. The average dairy cow emits up to 265 pounds (120 kilograms) of methaneA powerful gas warming the climate every year. Brown says that Twin Birch has worked hard to cut his global warming emissions through a number of environmentally friendly choices.
“Ruminants are the solution, not the problem, climate change,” he said.
Wearing an altered hooded sweatshirt and a hat promoting a cow's mark of medicine, Brown was spending a windy sale on Friday morning by artificially inseminating some of the farm jerseys and holsteins. He crossed an electric manure scratch used to clean the animal barn.
The electric scraper means that the dairy does not have to use a fuel combustion machine for this particular work. Twin Birch also recycles manure for use on crops, cools her milk with water that is recirculated so that cows to drink and push most of his own diet.
Despite all this, the farm has no desire to continue an American department of agriculture organic Certification, said Brown. This would add costs and forced the farm to give up technology that makes dairy products, and ultimately the client of the customer, more affordable, he said.
He raises a question that many farmers have asked: is organic farming just a word?
Declining enthusiasm for biological certification
An increasing number of American farmers think so. The American organic area has fallen Almost 11% between 2019 and 2021. Many farmers who implement sustainable practices have told the Associated Press that they had remained away from certification because it is expensive, is not enough to combat climate change and seems to be losing cachet on the market. The conversion of an existing farm of conventional farming to organic farming can cost tens of thousands of dollars and add labor costs.
The rules governing the national organic program were published in 2000 and, in the years that followed, organic farming has finally exploded to reach more than 5 million acres. But it has decreased in recent years.
Any downward trend is significant, because biological farms represent less than 1% of the country's total area, and biological sales are generally only a small part of the national total.
Shannon Ratcliff, farmer and co -owner of Shannon Brook Farms certified organically at Watkins Glen, New York, attributes the decline to a Fraud 2018 Iowa box involving a farmer selling badly labeled grains as organic certified. “The whole thing has gone mad-the work requirements for farmers have increased and inspection levels were higher,” she said.
It is also a difficult business, said Ratcliff.
His co -owner, Walter Adam, also thinks that the interest of young generations for agriculture of all kinds is also down.
“It takes six months to learn everything,” said Adam. “We can't find anyone as ready to work on the farm.”
Adam goes to Manhattan every week to sell their meat and his eggs on the markets, and spends Sunday morning to help Ratcliff do business at Brighton Farmers Market in Brighton, New York.
Frank Mitloehner, professor of animal sciences at the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of California, said that the lack of flexibility and efficiency distance organic farmers in the era of the rise in farmers' prices. He said that biological standards must be revised or that the market may disappear completely.
“I am impressed by the fact that so many organic farmers have been able to produce in this way so long,” he said. “It seems that they lose a consumer base in these financially disturbing times.”
But the label always counts for certain buyers
However, there are consumers determined to buy organic. Aaron Swindle, a warehouse employee in a chain supermarket, spends every Sunday morning doing organic shopping at Brighton Farmers Market.
“The quality of taste is different when it grows nearby,” said Swindle. He calls a “trifecta” finger lakes, a region that contributes to dairy products, products and meat for its residents.
John Bolton, owner of Bolton Farms in Hilton, New York, said that he had reserves on organic certification, but he pursues it for his hydroponics, which pushes products in water rich in nutrients instead of the ground. It produces green vegetables such as curly cabbage and card and is popular as a supplier of restaurants in the western New York, and attracts waves of regular customers on the Rochester public market on weekends.
Bolton does not use pesticides. On a cold day this spring, he was in his greenhouse by unloading 1,500 ladybugs to do the work of eliminating the aphids of the operation. This is the kind of organic farms practice to obtain certification, he said.
He said that his operations are not immune to the dangers posed by climate change. Abnormally hot days affect their greenhouse, he said: “It is devastating not only for people but plants.”
But Bolton described biological certification as being beneficial economically and environmental for its farm. Obtaining certification will result in expense, but it is convinced that it will be worth the price.
“It helps sales. And you feel good about it – you do good practices,” said Bolton.
___
The climate and environmental coverage of the Associated Press receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP norms To work with philanthropies, a list of supporters and coverage areas financed at Ap.org.
This story was initially presented on Fortune.com
