Organic Farming: Alternative Route: Natural Methods Slow to Catch on in Oklahoma

Stubbornness drove Sam Jorgenson into organic farming.

"Me and my wife were laying in bed one morning, and I said, ‘If I’m going to go broke, I’m not going to go broke feeding those chemical companies,’ " said Jorgenson, who built a successful organic beef cow operation at Jorgenson Charolis Ranch in Welch.

"I could raise more pounds of beef per acre than my neighbors did with fertilizer," he said.

Organic farming is growing in Oklahoma, but at slow pace. The state had 31 certified operations in 2006, up from 26 in 2005, according to the preliminary numbers from Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.

But that pales in comparison to states like California, Washington, Wisconsin, Iowa, New York and Minnesota, all of which have 400 or more organic establishments. Even neighboring states like Missouri, Kansas, Texas and New Mexico had more than 100 certified operations, according to 2005 figures.

Local experts aren’t sure why Oklahoma lags behind. Some possible reasons include the dominance of traditional, commodity crops on farms; a lack of certified processors in the state; cultural factors;

and burdensome record-keeping requirements.

"It’s definitely growing, but it’s not meeting the demand — for sure," said Doug Walton, community foods coordinator at the Kerr Center for Sustainable Agriculture in Poteau. "Why farmers aren’t filling that demand, it’s hard to say. There’s not a lot going on in terms of informing farmers about the opportunities."

Some observers note that nationally, much of the Southeast is behind the curve on organic farming.

"On the coasts, they’re more understanding. In Oklahoma, they’re mostly interested in price," said Richard Hewitt, who with his wife, Sharon, raises organically grown, exotic mushrooms in the basement of their Tulsa home. "It’ll take a long time to catch on here."

sh6 Upward trend

Organic farming has been one of the fastest-growing sectors of U.S. agriculture for more than a decade.

In 1990, when Congress passed the Organic Foods Production Act, the U.S. had fewer than 1 million acres of certified organic farmland. That amount had doubled by 2002, when the Department of Agriculture implemented national organic standards.

In 2005, for the first time, all 50 states had some certified organic farmland. About 4 million acres of cropland, rangeland and pasture were committed to organic systems.

But even nationally, the adoption rate of certified organic farms is low, totaling only 0.5 percent of all U.S. cropland and pasture in 2005.

In Oklahoma, organic acreage grew across the board last year, said Bryan Buchwald, organic program coordinator for the state Agriculture Department.

Oklahoma has organic grains, fruits and nuts, herbs, nurseries and greenhouses, livestock, and pastures and cropland. Buchwald expects the state to have 35 certified organic operations this year.

"Some of them are producers of grain, some have livestock, or they have on-farm processors of their grain and they get into organic flour," said Buchwald, who is accredited by the USDA to inspect and certify organic farms in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas and Missouri.

Buchwald said the USDA doesn’t make claims that organic food is better, but producers tell him they want to start farming organically because they think it’s better for consumers and the environment. Some farmers believe prices are higher and input costs are lower.

But organic farming can be more costly, Buchwald said, if the organic seeds and approved fertilizers needed for some products are rare or hard to find.

"We see big success in vegetables and small grains. And with livestock, we have some that really do well," Buchwald said. "From what I’ve seen, it’s definitely growing."

Surprisingly, Oklahoma has no program to push for an increase in organic farming. But the Kerr Center hopes to change that after hiring George Kuepper as its sustainable agriculture specialist.

Kuepper, who lives in Fayetteville, Ark., spent several years overseeing efforts by the USDA’s National Organic Program to boil down the complicated regulations for organic certification into a more user-friendly format for farmers and ranchers.

Kuepper also worked with the Kerr Center during the 1980s. His job now is to develop the center’s technical publications, as well as boost organic programs and outreach efforts.

Having only been on the job a few weeks, Kuepper was hesitant to say why organic farming hasn’t caught on much in Oklahoma. The problem could be access to markets, a lack of processing facilities or aversion to government regulations, he said.

For example, Kuepper sees enormous opportunities in the state for organic livestock production.

"In order to sell it, it has to be processed at a facility that is certified organic," which doesn’t exist in Oklahoma, he said. "This is a major barrier to that kind of development."

sh6 ‘I love farming’

The road to building a certified organic farm or ranch isn’t easy.

The Hewitts started growing exotic mushrooms seven years ago in the basement of their home. Through their business, Mushroom Planet, they sell rare varieties like Shiitake and Lion’s Mane to farmers markets and restaurants in Oklahoma, content to make a modest profit.

Richard Hewitt said he returned to farming after a long absence.

"It’s hard to get it out of your blood once you do it," he said.

"Because I’ve had cancer, we believe the mushrooms we grow have medicinal value. We’re into organic because it’s better for you."

Getting certified by the government wasn’t difficult, he said, but lots of record-keeping is required for USDA approval, and it takes time away from farming activities. The process means documenting growing perimeters, yields and ingredients in formulas, keeping receipts and tracking where the end product goes.

"If I sell Shiitaki mushrooms to a farmers market or restaurant," Hewitt said, "I can tell you each ingredient that went into the farming of that mushroom and where it came from. It’s not that I wouldn’t keep track of it anyway, but it wouldn’t be as detailed."

The Hewitts said they had some tough times recently, and their record-keeping suffered, which cost them their organic certification. They may try for it again, but they don’t lose sleep over it.

"People don’t care if you’re certified," Richard said. "There’s no difference in price or satisfaction. In four years of being certified, we’ve only had one or two ask us about it. With restaurants, the price and quality is the only thing they care about."

Jorgenson and his late wife, Edith, started their farm decades ago on a $1,320 government loan. They bought four horses, eight milk cows and two sows. Some of the money didn’t even get used.

"I sent $120 back to the government because I didn’t want to pay the 4.5 percent interest," Jorgenson said.

During his early frustrations with farming, Jorgenson said, he felt he was subsidizing chemical companies, and he didn’t want to participate. He decided to grow pastures and beef cows differently on his 620-acre farm, using no chemicals or fertilizers.

"The first three years, I didn’t know if I did it right or not," Jorgenson said of his pastures. "I hardly grew nothing. But then it started coming back.

"It’s been very, very successful. . . . Do you know — even yet today, my neighbors around here aren’t able to see it."

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John Dobberstein 581-8413 john.dobberstein@tulsaworld.com

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Oklahoma organic farming

Certified operations

2007: 35* 2006: 31 2005: 26 2002: 13

Livestock (animals)

Beef cattle: 456 Poultry: 2,700** Pasture: 5,011 acres

Crop (acres)

Grains: 4,827 Hay: 3,889 Soybeans: 80 Pecans: 90 Vegetables: 215 Herbs: 3 Mushrooms: 1

–Projected by state of Oklahoma.

*–Includes layer hens (700), broilers (1,800) and turkeys (200).