REGIONAL – The 30th Annual Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York conference was held January 19 through January 22 at the Saratoga Hilton and City Center in Saratoga Springs, in tandem with the first of what will be now be an annual Northeast Organic Research Symposium. And guess what? The Gunks and their surrounding valleys were part of the discussion as a growing center for organic farming, past, present and future.

Liana Hoodes, Director of the National Organic Coalition and Pine Bush resident, attended the conference and was enthused by all she heard and learned there.

"It was great, and it gets better every year. This year there were 1,300 people attending, which was a record," Hoodes said. "We see young people in considerable numbers coming out to organic conferences, and that was true here, too. And I don't see nearly so many young people at the more conventional farming conferences."

She shared a stat from the USDA, which shows that the average age of all farmers is 57.1, while that of organic farmers is 53.2. "I noticed that there was a great deal of diversity this year," Hoodes continued. "The conference brought in some immigrant farmers, as well as lots of people who were talking about urban farming issues."

The essential core to organic farming is the soil, she added.

"Yes, the soil is what it's all about," said Hoodes. "For land to be certified organic, it has to be clean of chemicals for three years. You can grow organically during that time, but you won't have the organic certification... When you have quality soil, with a lot of organic matter in it, and the full range of microbial life, everything from the bacteria to the nematodes, it's much more resistant to pests. It's much stronger soil, all around. It does better in both drought conditions and in floods. It resists pests better because they have to compete with all the natural life that's already there. When you use chemicals, it tends to destroy the microbial life in the soil."

So how does one build superior organic soil?

"It's all getting very sophisticated these days," Hoodes answered. "Everything from animal manures to green manures, or cover crops. There are all sorts of blends used today to overcome deficiencies and build up humus in the soil."

Soil tends to come with land, and that was an issue that produced a lot of discussion at NOFA, she added.

"If you can't own the land, then how can you assure stability for your production? Going one year at a time, renting, doesn't work, because you could be thrown off the land at any point, so why go to the trouble of building up the organic content?" Hoodes asked, rhetorically. "There was a lot of talk about leasing and equity arrangements. Lots of things are popping up in that area, because here in the Northeast, we have a lot of land issues."

What about poor soil and worked-out land?

"Interesting point," she noted. "I had conversations with two very successful organic farmers, with long experience, who were both needing to move and start over. One was an animal farmer, the other produced veggies. Both said they didn't care what the soil was like on the new land they were going to, because they were confident that with their technique, they would take poor soil and build it up into rich productive soil. Two separate anecdotes from very different models of farming."

What did Hoodes see regarding our local angle, here in the Tri-County corner?

"We have a marketing challenge, and opportunity, here in our Shawangunk ridge area," she said. "We can go and market directly to the city, both to green markets and to restaurants. That's an open opportunity. The challenge is to find other ways to market produce outside of the cities."

"Some farmers, like some folks I know who've been farming in the Catskills for twenty years, deal with a set of restaurants in the city," Hoodes continued. "That obviously can work well."

So, how does one break into supermarkets and health store chains?

"There were workshops on this topic. A lot of it has to do with knowing what to grow. Varieties are different for supermarkets. How do you cut and bunch your parsley for a supermarket buyer?" she asked. "The good news is that increasingly these stores will deal with farmers directly. There are certain things that stores love to get from farmers. But, you have to learn how to do it right for them. You don't just show up with a box full of vegetables. It has to be packaged in the way they want it, to present it for sale without having to do a lot of work on it. They don't want to spend too much time trimming out bad stuff."

Hoodes noted that organic farming "is the only area of US Agriculture that is actually growing. It was hitting 20 percent a year until the downturn, and was still at 10 percent during the worst years. The demand is absolutely still there."

For more on Northeast Farmers, visit www.nofany.org.