From: Barry Birkey <barry@birkey.com>
Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2001 17:35:05 -0500
To: <BiologicalBeekeeping@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: Re: The Bottom Line.

Pave wrote:

> The bottom line for organic is treatment free - this is entry level at which
> someone may
> call themselves organic. The rest of it is fine-tuning - still relevant, but
> less important. If
> someone can nail every requirement through hard work, good location, good
> management (and good luck), their produce is arguable 'more organic' than the
> norm, so why should this not be recognised?

Hello Pav -

Thanks for spelling it out like you did. I now better understand where you
are coming from. Your idea has a lot of merit. I would echo your words in
the first post as part of the reason this grading scale my not get off the
ground; because its considered "too hard"

I have nothing against a multi-tiered organic standard, as long as it can be
done efficiently and fairly, without it becoming a boulder of rules. But if
I thought by pushing for this it would risk harming the whole thing, then
I'd be happy keeping it to just one level. I don't know how these things
work when it gets to the Gov. committees who will be making the final rule.
Do we just have one shot at it or is there room for a round two and three?

-Regards,
Barry