Organic Farming in ND

DavidT1

Member
Hello,
I was wondering from those out there in the ND area that do organic farming your thoughts on it. How was the certification process? Would you do a different type farming now other than organic after trying it? How do you market it and do you harvest and haul yourself? What's you thought for a VERY small scale farmer going organic, is it worth the time and cost or be better off trying some other option? Mainly looking at Wheat, Soybeans and Flax. Any thoughts or opinions from anyone is welcome as I am simple researching if it is even worth looking into. Thanks
 
I'm not organic, so I can't help much.

It's all about marketing. You have to figure out your market. Where will you sell the grains?

A lot of these specialty markets work on contracts, and they write the contracts. While there is a premium price, remember they write the contracts so guess who the contract favors?

Often you have to store tge crop, and deliver it when they want it. So do you have storage available for your crops?

Their payments might come a bit more on their schedule, not like common grains, Gail to the lelevator and get a check in the mail in a couple days. So you have to deal with cash flow.

I have an organic and non gmo buyer 23 miles east of me. I've tried to make it make sense.

But, I have a regular elevator one mile west of me.

By the time I deal with adding more storage, and dealing with the travel expense of going 23 miles vs loading gravity wagons and hauling 1 mile.... And then trying to figure the cash flow, getting the check when the contract suits them....

I just can't make it work for me. Any premium I get is eaten up by storage, transport, and so forth.

Paul
 
I'm in Mn. and do some custom organic farming for a neighbor. He is a millionaire living in Alaska and bought the family farm. Wants it farmed organically. Doesn't need the money but just wants the good feeling. After 10 yrs. you will turn out the same as conventional farming. No better, no worse. So if you're doing it for the money, it will not work out.
 
How prone is your farm to erosion... both water and wind???

Organic will require a lot more tillage, and that will make the soil a lot more likely to erode. Much of the productivity gained in ND in the past 20 years has been due to no-till, reduced till, cover crops, new herbicides, etc. Don't expect to capture all that with organic... you are going to need the tillage for weed control, etc.

If you are very small (how small?) will you have neighbors to help you? How will you market your crop? How far is the nearest organic market? Do you have grain storage?

Organic will require storage on farm, and if you need someone to share resources with (Say combining) that can be a challenge. Remember, organic "requires" a combine to be cleaned prior to harvest- the neighbor just can't come over and do yours.

Organic can offer price premiums, but you have to work to get them. You will have to figure out if it is worth it or not.

My father in law is an organic farmer and has been since the 1980's. I can't say he is any richer for it. I don't believe his soil is any better for it, either. The opposite might be the case in both circumstances.

I'd encourage you to look at no-till. Your land will be better protected- and that is a strong legacy to leave.
 
There is a strong demand for organic crops right now. Typically the markets are not where the farm is located so most buyers want a semi load at a time. This may be difficult if you are too small to fill one or you do not have organic neighbors to split a load with. If you cannot stand to have a weed in your field dont even think about organic. Its like anything else with proper management you can be very successful.
 
What's small? Has this been sprayed in the last 3 yrs? If it has you have 3 yrs transitional and this is what eats your lunch. I am organic and a lot of conventional farmers laugh but with good weed management you make good money.. for example soys were contracted at 24.00/bushel and I averaged 42 bushel/acre this year.
 
Thanks to all that replied. From the sounds of it I don't think it will fit for me. I am currently only 40 acres. I do not have any storage bins and I don't have any other organic farms in the area close. I started two years ago and never sprayed or fertilized, last year I fallowed and with the rain the weeds got me and I had to spray. I thought it maybe worth checking into, but a lot of the information I see or hear it would be tough in my situation. Thanks again!!!
 
You appear to be on the low management path.. Organic production takes a lot of paperwork and more management than normal..... You need to create and follow a plan approved by the organic council, that you follow a path acceptable to their goals of crop rotation and stewardship.

It is often good to get your fertility and weed control top notch, good soil, etc. thrn plant alfalfa for your 3 year wait, and then go with organic crops. Often you need a 3 crop rotation, and careful management of manures, cover crops, and natural listed fertilizers to keep your yields up.

Weed control is not easy, you need to be killing them before you can see them, there is no good rescue method in organic, no way to be lazy. If you start with organic you need clean fields!

It can be rewarding, think we all were kinda negative here, don't mean to put the deal down. 40 acres would be enough, in fact that is manageable to walk the fields and hoe for a rescue of weed flush......

but you need to be into the paperwork and care it needs to succeed.

If it were easy everyone would do it.......

Paul
 
Paul,
Thanks for the reply!! I felt my response did sound lazy actually and I really don't mean to do that. I am VERY much so interested in learning the cover crops and what I would call more natural farming. It is rather confusing as you research in the fact that you get so many different thoughts and opinions and each side works. I LOVE to farm the old way and I don't mean old methods, I mean through hard work and more natural. As stated above being small and not having no-till equipment I am still heavily in my research stage. Again all reply's are helpful and greatly appreciate them.
Also, I appreciate your reply on the seeding of cover crop in with my wheat crop in the spring.

Thanks to all!
 
It is neat, farming is still so different 100 miles over.... We all grow crops and harvest them, but actually doing it can be so different!

My dirt is so wet and so cold most springs, it is a challenge to get the clay dry and warm enough to put seed in it.

I have very rich ground, high CEC ratings and high organic ratings.

So it is 'easy' to throw seed on the ground and it grows here.

But, the excess water, and the high ph ratings that go over 8.0 I'm spots are a challenge to work with. As well the peat ground - high organic matter is a dream come true for farming, but once you get over 7 or 9 for organic matter, the ground is very 'different' and you need to treat it differently. Some of my dirt gets around 30 organic matter, that is a challenge to work with.

Everything is corn and soybeans around me, full tillage. A tiny bit of alfalfa for the few dairies left, some oats to nurse the alfalfa fields, a very occasional spring wheat field, and some peas and sweet corn for the canneries. My farm is 30 miles or so from the -actual- valley that the Jolly Green Giant was born in! There is a giant beet processing plant north of me, beets come down to about 15 miles away from me.

Altho they don't grow peas or sweet corn in my small 5 mile neighborhood, our wet clay and peat soils do not favor those crops. Same with beets, too many rock here as well.

I really enjoy the different crops, and always try to grow 5-20 acres of oats, and some cover crops with it. Small farming like we do gets boring if it is all just corn and beans.....

Paul
 
Very true Paul. I am hoping to learn some of the cover crop, rotation and tillage a bit better as I do hope to rent more ground in the near future. I am also reading and learning as much as I can on the organic/sustainable methods.
 
Organic farming is a practice that you have to set your mind to and want to do or it will break you. Especially non row crops.
 
DavidT1, Both Organic and Conventional camps tend to use a lot of unfounded assumptions. You have to do your own research and come to your own conclusions for your situation. I can only give what I believe is my own well founded opinion from my own research and inclination.

We are a certified organic farm with 20 acres of small livestock and hay, and 30 leased (also certified) acres a couple miles away. Have been for certified for 6 years. I still work off the farm part time to help cover expenses. We started out under capitalized, and keep getting a bit more profitable every year, but still have a way to go. Then again, money isn't our primary motive.

The basic problem with "conventional" agriculture as it is currently practiced, is that it is based on a proven failed model. Weeds are rapidly becoming immune to Roundup, and within a few more years, will become increasingly immune to whatever else is engineered and "stacked" into seed genetics. The Cry1 BT traits inserted in crops have largely failed, and even the combined Cry1/Cry2 traits are failing at a faster rate than the original because the plant pests are adapting. It becomes a race to keep engineering greater toxicity into plants, and to keep farmers dependent on specific herbicides for weed control. Rodale Institute has repeatedly proven in side by side field trials that OP non-GM crops produce yields equal to GM crops in a good year, and better in a bad year. YMMV of course as seed genetics, management practices, soil types, fertility, soil microbial activity and weather all play into it. And it is possible to no-till plant into winter killed oats, wheat or rye.

On another level, food allergies have skyrocketed since the introduction of GM crops. Cancer is now the number 1 killer of children under 15. Not that correlation makes for causation, but the stats from no less than the CDC are astounding. Because of genetic adaptation in weeds and pests doing multiple generations per year, their survival is virtually guaranteed, whereas humans with a roughly 20 year generation span, our survival of what some well regarded scientists are saying is increasingly toxic food, may not. Look up Robyn O'Brien's TED talk for an 18 minute synopsis. The public is becoming more and more aware of these things and more skeptical of the industry backed science. The demand for everything organic has been growing 6-10% every year for the past decade. The market is there, and the NOP offers a program to support farmers interested in transitioning to organic. There are resources available to help you resolve those challenges if truly interested. Call the certification agency in your area (or the NOP offices in DC) and tell them what you want to do and ask for technical assistance.

Personally, I don't want to leave this earth with the specter of those I've potentially poisoned haunting me. That said, I still respect all those who do the hard work to produce to the best of their ability the food that keeps the planet fed, and are doing what they have to to make sure they can continue to do so. I believe the vast majority of us are doing the best we can with the tools we have to work with. I also believe that "organic" will win out in the end. It may mean that a lot more people will need to be farming smaller acreage with a lot more management, but weeds will never become immune to a hoe, and pests are less of a problem amid smaller more diverse acreage with healthier and broader predatory insect populations.
 
I'm a farmer in central ND and have been certified organic since 2009. I will agree with some about the paperwork. Although I think a written version of a crop rotation, field and livestock history journals which are required for organic should be done in the conventional world also. Not sure what type of soil you have. You noted wheat, soybean and flax. Not sure if you have markets in your area for those three crops. if you do then storage requirements would be low. I have 50 acres of pasture which is hayed, and 30 acres of crop. I've grown Rye, buckwheat, field pea, Sorgum Sudan, teff, Sainfoin, Yellow sweet clover, Sunnhemp, Forage rape and quinoa. Being organic and having only 3 crops in your rotation may work in the conventional method but will not work in organic. Crop disease and pests will become a problem within 5 to 7 years. The trick to small scale organic farming in central ND is finding crops you can directly market to the customer. Use livestock, covercrops, and reduced tillage farming practices to control weeds and increase soil fertility. biggest issue with small scale organics in ND is lack of market unless you have 15 semi loads of a single crop and can ship it in the middle of a snow storm in January.

check out you tube for the 2016 video series from Albert Lea seed and NPSAS winter conferences. they have a great deal of info about conservation practices in the northern plain states. Also don't be afraid to try new things. have a 4 or 5 acre corner where you can try different crop species, or practices that way if you mess up and have to fire burn or spray down you don't kick the whole farm out of organic status or loose a entire year of yield.
 
40 acres and a mule is the only solution if I'm reading this right. Once you mentioned Rodale Institute all legitimacy went out the window.
 

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