Organic certifiers snubbing small farms

Certified Organic labels are sometimes just a way to make shoppers feel good about a purchase.

But truly purchasing food with the goal of decreasing your carbon footprint is much more complicated than simply scanning the grocery aisle for USDA symbols.

How many such labels do you see at a local farmers market, for example? While farmers markets often have criteria to make sure farmers aren’t reselling produce, they rarely use USDA certification.

Small operations often avoid certification because of the time and money it takes. And according to the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, the costs are only going to rise.

But that doesn’t mean a certified organic banana from Costa Rica is better for the environment than an uncertified apple off a local farm.

It takes tremendous resources to ship food across the country and across the world. And despite the large carbon footprint this causes, giant importers of coffee beans and exotic fruits can acquire certifications because they use the right growing techniques.

Instead of rewarding farmers for locally grown produce, grocers often look for the certifiably organic brands even though much of it is shipped from California and abroad.

The more times local farms get snubbed, the more small farms close up shop. That in turn makes our food economy more reliant on mega farms where organic certification can be viewed as nothing more than a marketing tool.

Of course, growing your own garden may be the only way to truly know how organic your food really is. It’s easy to avoid pesticides, over-watering and genetically engineered crops in a backyard garden. Plus, it doesn’t take planes, trains or semi-trucks to transport produce into the kitchen.

This may be the key to a recent resurgence in gardening. Seed sellers are already running short in 2009, and at a time when most periodicals are struggling, Organic Gardening magazine reported a 27.1 percent increase in advertising revenue.