There’s a simple but demanding trick to being a successful organic farmer:
“Be there every day,” said Winnipeg area organic strawberry producer Bob Pizey. He speaks to many tour groups who visit his farm to figure out how he makes money.
“If my plants are under stress for an hour and a half, I know about it and I’m reacting to it. I’m not driving the truck somewhere to make payments for chemicals,” said Pizey in an interview.
Organic beef and crops producer David Schettler said the key to his organic success since 1985 has been his hands-on approach.
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“You rely on being there and doing that,” said Schettler.
“You check your animals on a more regular basis to make sure you can head off problems before they become problems.”
Both Schettler and Pizey tell producers and others who want to become organic farmers that going this route means committing to high-intensity management. They caution hopeful producers to realize that going organic demands more than good intentions. It also requires the willingness to micromanage problems that conventional farmers can simply spray or inject away.
“There are certain things you can count on and certain things you can’t control, and you try to minimize the things you can’t control,” said Schettler.
On his farm that means keeping an eye on the health of his cattle herd and quickly isolating any animal that might be getting sick. On Pizey’s, it means using a wide array of knowledge.
To control weeds among their strawberry plants, Pizey and his partner Betty Kehler use a flock of geese, which voraciously gobble all the weeds they can find but leave the fruit plants alone.
When they have plant production problems they experiment and search widely for answers.
“The information is all available from diverse sources,” said Pizey.
“It’s a matter of putting it all together in a way that makes sense.”
Schettler and Pizey both adopted organic production practices for health reasons. Pizey is convinced chemical herbicides are dangerous and wanted to produce wholesome food without using them.
When he was a young man and just starting out in farming, Schettler found that agricultural sprays made him sick and threatened his future as a farmer.
He wasn’t willing to give up on farming, so he changed the way he farmed.
“Necessity was the mother of invention,” said Schettler. “You do what you can.”
Schettler doesn’t mind the extra work that organic production entails because it allows him to keep farming.
Pizey said the hard work in the fields is a reward in itself for him.
“I like to run around outside and do stuff. That’s what I’m doing,” said Pizey.
“I love it. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t like being in the fields all the time.”
Schettler said org-anic producers need to be more involved with their crops and livestock, but rather than being radical, it’s a return to previous generations of farmers.
“People forget how we used to take our lumps and bumps because we have simpler solutions now Ð in the form of a can,” said Schettler.
