By Paul Muller

Transparent and open communication between you, our farm patrons and us as your farmers is an important value that we here at Full Belly hold. We see this openness as the basis for trust and confidence in the ethics that we apply to our farming techniques and the food that we present to you each week. We do this in a complex world of fickle weather, challenging markets, changing tools and technologies and imperfect, evolving knowledge about how to farm in a ‘sustainable’ manner. Our commitment to honesty is directly linked to our dignity and responsibility to you to grow the best tasting, safest, and healthiest food that we are capable of producing. Our farm is host to many visitors each year including CSA, open house days and Hoes Down. We are certified by California Certified Organic Farmers (CCOF) who annually inspect our operation. That comprehensive inspection is a cumbersome yet necessary process that opens our records on farm inputs and production practices.

There is no exact formula for producing food on the same piece of land for the next thousand years and we wouldn’t presume to say that we have the system to achieve such a laudable goal. We see long-term, fundamental practices that underlie the basic biological well being of a farm. Those practices are related to health of a farm’s soil; the energy use on a farm and the maximum harvest of solar gain on a piece of land; the diversity of life that lives upon, above, around and ‘tuned’ into the farm; and finally the human community tied to that place. These ‘cultural’ practices, over the long term, respect nature’s biological wisdom and ultimately mimic the inherent stability of wild and intact ecological systems. We are continually humbled by nature’s complexity and dynamism, and do our best to be good stewards of the earth.

To those ends, we seek to implement mindful agricultural practices. We seek to fertilize our fields with a combination of cover crops (crops that we grow for soil enhancement — to be turned into the soil as food for soil microbes and soil remineralization), compost (primarily from composted Sacramento Green Waste), calcium and micronutrients (from mined lime and gypsum, and micronutrients from seaweed and fish emulsions), foliar fertilizers (micronutrients applied on the leaf surfaces of plants) and animal (sheep) rotations through the fields. All of our inputs are OMRI (Organic Material Review Institute) certified for organic production. OMRI is federally authorized to evaluate organic inputs. Before we utilize any new product on the farm, we check on its OMRI certification for organic production, check with other farmers and if in doubt, check with CCOF. Our intention is to use only those materials that are not synthetically compounded materials, only those that are derived from naturally occurring substances and only those that have been reviewed and that are accepted as safe for organic production.

There is an evolving, ongoing investigation of two California companies selling OMRI approved liquid fertilizers that may have been willfully spiked with synthetic fertilizers — ammonium sulphate and/or urea. This was done in order to cheaply increase the amount of nitrogen contained in the product. Nitrogen is essential to plant growth and farmers use nitrogen to boost crop color and yield. One company has already closed its operation. Over the last 5 years we have used a product from the other company under investigation. The product in question is ‘agrolizer.’ We were attracted to the material because it was fish based (lots of micronutrients), it smelled like a ripe kettle of fish and it was screened fine enough to go through our drip irrigation systems in crops with long growing seasons — like our tomatoes. We could feed small amounts of this material to the plants in the drip system and we liked the results. We didn’t use a lot of this product over this period, relying on it to fine tune plant health. We honestly thought that the material met the letter and the spirit of organic regulations. At this point, there is just an investigation into this material. We have stopped using it.

We apologize to you if the fertilizer wasn’t truly organic. Our commitment to you is to guarantee that the foods we grow are done so without any synthetically compounded materials. We feel that we have tried to use the protocol of OMRI and we had a good deal of confidence in the review process. Over the 28 years that we have been organic farmers, there have been many substances and products — including dangerous naturally occurring substances that have been banned or restricted from use in organic production and we both watched and participated in the evolution of the certification process. We have watched as the growth in the organic marketplace has created a surge in new products, many of which are non-toxic, effective and safe. We have stayed away from products that we didn’t feel good about or that were seemingly too good to be true.

Is this an indictment of all organic products? Is there now basis for a lack of trust in our products? We think not — nor do we think that in the quantities used over the past 5 years, there was any danger to us, you, or the farm system. We are chagrined that the growth in the organic industry has created for some an opportunism that is wanting in honesty and ethical character. We look at our community of farmers and see growers who are honest, committed and mindful of the obligation to care for the resources of production over the long term. We hope that you understand our frustration and anger at this allegation and will do all within our power to be sure that it will not happen again at Full Belly Farm.

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