Episode #198
Eliot Coleman At Churchtown 2024: We Must Do It Again

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Linley Dixon’s talk has been edited for clarity and readability.

Eliot Colemman delivers her talk “We Must Do It Again” to the crowd gathered at Churchtown Dairy on September 28, 2024, for Real Organic: A World Movement:

Dave Chapman: (00:00):
Next up is Eliot Coleman. And just to tell a little personal story about Eliot when I was very young, I just had the good luck of getting to know Elliot, who happened to be living about half an hour from me. And he became truly a mentor for me, I was just a young guy, didn’t know much about farming, and Elliot already knew a great deal and we shared a certain love of books. So, he shared his amazing library with me, as well as his experience and knowledge.

(00:37):
In the years that the organic movement has been growing in America, Eliot has been truly one of the leaders of that. And it’s interesting because Eliot has never been certified organic and not even with the real organic project, which he says he would if he could, but he won’t get USDA certified. And I respect that very much and the reasons that he has for that. But I know that he has inspired thousands and thousands of young people to go into organic farming and I hear about it all the time. So please welcome Eliot Coleman.

Eliot Coleman: (01:35):
That’s great. Thank you. I’ve been privileged over the time I’ve known Dave to watch him morph from this crazy hippie who was farming with a team of oxen that he had trained into this unbelievable professional who has put together this organization. And I think that is definitely praiseworthy. Dave asked me to open today probably because I was the most radical speaker. And I want to say that my involvement with and support of the real organic project has encouraged me to ask the logical question, what is real organic?

(02:33):
Like most of us, I’m convinced that CAFOs and hydroponics obviously do not qualify as real organic. But what about the subtler invaders? The more nuanced changes from the early days of organic farming? So, I made up a list of quite 5 questions that I needed to ask myself. First question, how was organic farming traditionally practiced by its pioneers?

(03:05):
When organic growing began, the pioneering farms created and maintained their fertile soil by actions taken within their farms using processes which highlighted the importance of soil organic matter. They made soil nourishing compost from locally available pure organic wastes. They sewed green manure and cover crops, and shallowly tilled them into the soil. They grew leguminous plants to add nitrogen. They devised exceptionally effective crop rotation systems for disease and weed control. They imported their own incorporated–excuse me–their own livestock manure if they kept livestock, that was a very safe self-contained production system.

(04:04):
Nowadays, it is a very different world. Many of those traditional soil improving processes have been replaced by products, in other words, by purchased fertilizers from off the farm. As I have always understood it, the original goal of organic was not to directly supply available plant food by purchasing fertilizers. That was the sole focus of chemical agriculture because it had no other option.

(04:43):
The original organic goal was to create and maintain a biologically active fertile soil filled with homegrown organic matter, plus a vigorous population of soil microorganisms, micro-orthopods, and earthworms able to recycle that organic matter into nutrients for another generation of plants. So, I’m going to suggest this morning that commercial organic vegetable growers and I am one—can enjoy exceptionally fertile growing conditions—a guaranteed clean, and that by that I mean unpolluted soil and far lower costs by growing that indispensable organic matter themselves.

(05:39):
And by that, I mean extensive use of green manure and cover crops grown on site as the inputs for soil fertility. Instead of relying on purchased commercial organic soil fertility stimulant products from outside their property. Most of us in the US were first exposed to organic by Rodale’s Organic Gardening Magazine with all its advertisements for organic fertilizers that put the focus on purchased inputs, which explains the attention in the US paid to OMRI—O-M-R-I-, “The Organic Materials Review Institute.”

(06:33):
However, if I am not importing materials from outside my farm, I obviously have no need for long lists of which specific inputs are allowable. Organic farming would be greatly benefited by supplementing OMRI—within an organization I will call OTRI—O-T-R-I-, “The Organic Techniques Review Institute.” That organization would publish data reemphasizing the importance of green manure, crop rotations, cover crops, growing legumes, and incorporating organic matter with shallow non inversion tillage.

(07:38):
I got lost here. Yeah. Oh—I was supposed to tell you what the first question. Yeah—I said the first question. Okay. The second question is, what problems are created by purchased fertility? My greatest concern in today’s world is about the quality of the composts available for purchase. Compost has always had a reputation for goodness among organic growers.

(08:12):
What about the unavoidable residual environmental contamination of the materials from which the numerous municipal waste and confined livestock composts marketed today are made contaminants such as antibiotics, hormones, pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, et cetera. The manufacturers of commercial composts are paid to dispose of waste products not to create clean compost. The look of the finished product doesn’t give any idea what was disposed of to make it.

(08:55):
One of the principal motivations for 4 season farms preference for organic soil care has been providing our customers with food free from the incidental chemical pollution and the industrial toxins that pervade our world. Since the only sure way to assure a clean, as well as a fertile soil is to grow our own organic matter right on the farm. That is what we do. The aim of our self-fed farm project is to consciously separate our farm’s practices from the industrially influenced inadequate organic shortcuts that have become so common.

(09:43):
Third question, what laid led to this changed thinking? The organic movement was created over 100 years ago by ethical farmers who instinctively understood the crucial relation between soil quality and food quality. Unfortunately, the influence of those ethical farmers was quickly marginalized after the organic label became big business and the marketers and the merchandisers pushed in and took over. That was the beginning of the end.

(10:23):
The merchandisers did not have the same ethics. Here is one glaring example. The huge wholesaler, United Natural Foods Incorporated, employed a lobbyist who wrote a blog that was always focused on controlling any ethical concerns brought up by farmers or by the public. In a segment published in August, 2016, the blog strongly objected to a lawsuit by the Center for Food Safety. The Lewis lawsuit was aimed at preventing contaminated organic matter and CAFO manure from being allowed in compost spread on organic farms.

(11:11):
The blog demeaned the Center for Food Safety’s lawsuit as being based on quote, perfectionist objections by uninformed people who expect obsolete purity in their food. Second quote, synthetic materials should be allowed because the very world we live in is contaminated. How perfect can compost be in a polluted world? Now, let me be blunt here—no real organic farmer I have ever known would’ve written those lines. The blog continually tried to intimidate any farmers, attempting to defend old time organic standards by accusing all criticizers of participating in a circular firing squad, their pop phrase.

(12:08):
In other words, since the merchandisers now controlled organic and since maximizing the amount of product for sale had become far more important than how it was produced, if you said anything at all, you were harming organic sales. Fourth question, what defines the soul of organic? All the classic old European organic farming books after explaining their objections to chemical fertilizers were mainly focused on improving the efficiency of the traditional farm generated soil fertility enhancement processes.

(12:52):
They wanted farmers to be independent. I want my farm to be so empowered and so self-reliant that it can continue feeding my neighbors in perpetuity—no matter what economic forces may affect the stability of the world around it. If my farm can successfully grow bounteous clean food harvests year after year without purchasing soil fertility inputs from outside, which is what we do, then I alone not the ag industry, am master of its destiny. My farm’s production cannot be interrupted, constrained, or limited by outside market manipulations, supply shortages, price increases or delivery difficulties. I treasure that secure independence.

(13:56):
Fifth and final question, conforming that creates exceptionally clean and nutritious food and doesn’t harm the environment also be adequately productive and economically successful. Of course, it can be year-round green manure are every bit as good a source of vital soil organic matter as composted manure. Green manure also cost less, use less energy than transporting compost and manure over long distances and are guaranteed pure because they are produced right on the farm. Green manure can be sown with very simple equipment.

(14:49):
They can be grown at times of the year when the soil is not growing crops. They protect the soil against leaching of nutrients. They provide important roots in the ground soil cover. They include a wide variety of plant families so they can fit into almost any crop rotation scheme. They are scale neutral, effective for large farms as well as small farms. And best of all, they can continue growing and protecting the soil while I sleep, and the organic matter and the nutrients that they make available are right there in the soil where I want them.

(15:38):
So, the answer is yes. We can return organic farming to its ethical roots. We can have productive and economically successful market gardens, and we can, again, guarantee clean produce to our customers. We just need to refocus on the well-tested, old-time, soil fertility maintenance processes that supported organic farming from the start. Thank you all very much.