While I appreciate that organic was—and is—a leaps-and-bounds improvement on conventional agriculture, it missed a critical piece of the better-for-our-planet conundrum: long-term, data-centric outcomes. Simply put, organic certification wasn't designed to measure soil health and therefore doesn't fully account for the broader farming ecosystem nor its impact on our planet.
The heart of the challenge with organic-only farming is that it's more focused on all the things we don't do. It's becoming increasingly clear that simply removing what's negative from the equation won't necessarily make it positive. After all, a hole won't magically fill itself in once you've stopped digging.
Take, for example, organic standards for poultry farmers. These standards require that animal feed ingredients are grown without genetically modified organisms (GMOs), synthetic herbicides, pesticides, or fertilizers; that chemicals weren't used on the farm; that the birds have access to the outdoors; and that they have space to act like, well, birds.
As the years have piled on, my brother, my husband, and I—who now run our family turkey ranches—knew we were missing a link between our farms, the earth, and products.
Collection
[
|
...
]