WHY?

Organic farming is alive with rorts and deception, some organic farmers spray at night, some use chicken manure sourced from cage egg farms, some buy cage eggs and label them as organic or free range and so on. Generally, rorting happens when people don’t embrace the values and/or principles underpinning the rules; This has occurred in the organic industry because many organic farmers are only organic because there’s a buck in it.

Increasing the penalties for rorting doesn’t work because if the risk of being caught is minimal then greedy people will rort irrespective of the penalty.

Most people think organic farming is morally right. It isn’t. For every additional farm that doesn’t spray herbicides or pesticides (for example) reduces food yield.  This is occurring in a world that is already short of food.  We agree with Prof. Norman Borlaug who is quoted below.

“While the affluent nations can certainly afford to adopt ultra low-risk positions, and pay more for food produced by the so-called “organic” methods, the one billion chronically undernourished people of the low income, food-deficit nations cannot.” Norman Borlaug Nobel Peace Prize Winner

So what do we do?

1. Find a system that farmers believe in and value,

2. Create a system that flexes with new technology and ideas, and

3. Increase the risk of detection for rorting.

Ethical Farming Model.

Ethical farms do not have inflexible ‘etched in stone’ rules. Unlike organic farming, ethical farms weigh up the pros and cons of new technology and seek to constantly improve farming practices. We strive to achieve the greatest yield (crop size) that is sustainable for our lands long term prospects. We value transperancy – so we welcome questions about how we operate.

Whilst we do not have specific farm sizes in mind, this model is best suited to small hobby farms and large family operated farms. Large corporate run farms are unlikely to be granted access to our farming model because of the transient nature of farm workers on these properties and a perceived lack of commitment from off-site operators.

Some of the dimensions we consider:

The Sunlight Test
The sunlight test assumes our customers are watching how we grow our food. So, if we wouldn’t do it in front of you – We don’t do it.

Juggling the upside with the potential down side - Farming is a constant battle of changing parameters, severe weather, locust plagues, flood, drought etc. So tackling these challenges requires continual risk assessments.

First, we ask ourselves; What are the options available to help fix this problem? Then we ask, Which option will create the most good (upside) with the least bad (downside)?

Examples – When possible we use biodegradable sprays instead of using a tractor in eliminating weeds from our planting beds (tractors emit lasting amounts of co2 while our sprays are biodegradable).

We often use local chicken manure or seaweed products for fertiliser instead of pelletised, environmentally unfriendly fertiliser that’s shipped in from China or Egyptian Phosphorous Rock (which is used in bio-dynamic farming) which, you guessed it, comes all the way from Egypt.

Philosophy

1. Human life is important to us. “We are 6.6 billion people now. We can only feed 4 billion. I don’t see 2 billion volunteers to disappear.”  This comment from Bourlag was in response to the fraction of the world population that could be fed if current farmland was convered to organic-only crops.

Whilst ethical farms happily cohabitate with organic farms, we believe that very few people have thought of the repercussions and negative impacts that organic farming is having on under developed nations.

2. Continual Improvement. Ethical farms seek to continually improve; we look to advance farming technology through information sharing and forums.  In simple terms that means we weigh up the pros and cons of a renewable energy use for example , but if it isn’t going to work we’ll use petrol until technology catches up. And when our animals get sick we’ll give them the care they require, when they require it. We don’t let our animals suffer. We use preventative natural remedies but, if that doesn’t work we’ll use the latest medicine prescribed by a vet. The organic industry bans many veterinary medicines, which we believe, is cruel and unethical.  Note: There is a legal withholding period after medicines are administered to an animal. This ensures the animal is clear upon consumption.

3. We Promise to Speak the Truth. Ethical farms promise to speak the truth about how your food is grown from one season to another. That means, on occasion, we will tell you we’ve used a biodegradable spray. As previously mentioned we will not sit back and watch insects destroy entire crops when the world is short of food.

4. How far away was it grown? Food miles. Just because a product is organic doesn’t mean it hasn’t travelled 6,000 km from China in refrigeration before it gets to you.  Indeed, if our product matches your local product; buy local. We can live with that.

5. We are a mainstream, non radical concept. Being ethical farmers doesn’t mean we’re tree-huggers or vegetarians (though they are welcome as ethical farmers and we like people with strong views)  but we aren’t people that are extremists. The extremist group PETA is not an ethical organisation for a range of reasons, none more so than, the fact that they disrespect females by stripping, they sell nude photos and one of their high profile members, Pamela Anderson, who had appeared on TV ads for KFC, later joined PETA and then slammed KFC treatment of animals as unethical. Ethical farmers weigh up the options, new technology and make decisions based on common sense (and occasionally eat KFC). Incidentally, many intensive chicken farms say that chickens savagely peck each other if they are free to roam without constant supervision. There is, most certainly, stock losses at free to roam and organic chicken farms. There has to be, simply because they deny animals certain treatments that would be administered by a vet. Perhaps the middle ground would be better conditions, bigger pens and proper vet care. That is what we’re about – getting farming right.

Governance

Organic farming is governed by the organic accreditors whos’ very existence relies on fees from accreditted organic farms. So it is not in the interests of organic accreditors to deny a farms’ organic application nor is in their interests spending money on governance if the only feasible result is to discredit their own accreditation and /or to ban a farm that pays them money.

On the other hand, ethical farmers are chosen for their good character, their commitment to the cause and their belief in the values and principles that underpin our model. Farmers can only join our model by being vouched for (recommended) by a current ethical farm member. The members’ commitment to our principles and the ‘all-for-one and one-for-all’ communal ownership of our concept increases the risk of detection for the same rogue operators who have infultrated organic farming. Ethical farmers encourage transperancy and whistleblowing to keep the integrity of our concept intact.

Want to Join?

We own the ethical farm idea, but we are willing to share it.  In the meantime if you want to join or you have a suggestion as to how we can improve our methodologies, feel free to email us.

Simon Illingworth
‘Ethical Farm’ Founder 2004

Ethical Farming enquiries:  simon@ethicalstrength.com

Happy Cow