Real People Eat Local

It depends. The easiest way to tell if local foods are also organic is to check to see if the producer has an “organic” certification from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. If so, you will see a label on the product, or a sign up at a market stand. Some local farms, however, use organic standards and do not have a certification. Without the certification, they are not allowed to use the term “organic.” A variety of other terms have cropped up to describe these folks, such as “eco-ganic,” “all-natural,” and “beyond organic.” Other farmers go above-and-beyond what the federal government requires in order to define goods as “organic,” so we might call them “ultra-organic.” Yet others may be small-scale and near-by, but don’t follow organic practices. A simple way to find out what standards a farmer uses is to ask. Most farmers at a farmers’ market will tell you, for example, when and how much they have sprayed. You can also ask what kind of fertilizer they use, or whether they use antibiotics or synthetic hormones. Of course, there’s a chance they may not answer honestly, and you can rely on certification if you feel more comfortable that way. But we have found that farmers usually enjoy talking frankly about their methods -- as long as questions are posed in a respectful, polite manner, and customers don’t bombard them at peak market times.