To be considered Organic does not mean "all natural" and the more we learn about what it means to be organic, the more we did not want to pay thousands of dollars to get a stamp that does not really tell people anything. Organic typically means using the least amount of chemicals to still keep a crop still viable, it does not mean that chemicals are not used. We do not use herbicides or pesticides, which should be close to qualifying on its own.
However, the Panama government now has a program where the agency MIDA (Ministerio de Desarrollo Agropecuario) offers the certification for hundreds of dollars not thousands of dollars. So, why not just go through the hoops, right?
We called and made an appointment for the MIDA representative in charge of this area to come meet us. They scheduled a meeting on the next Monday. Our farm is closed on Mondays and it is our only day off, but we agreed to postpone our errands for another week and meet with the rep. We even scheduled one of our staff members to come in that day so that we would have a native Spanish speaker here if we needed help.
MIDA never showed up or called.
For the next 2 weeks, we sent messages to try and get another meeting scheduled, with no success.
The 3rd Monday after the "no show" appointment, while the farm was closed for the day, Rick and I went to David. David is about 40 minutes away by car and it is the closest city with real shopping opportunities. Where we live there are pharmacies and groceries, but limited supplies for everything else. So, we are in David getting stocked up on supplies and food when MIDA calls and says they can come meet with us right now. Obviously that was not going to work. Even if we were finished with our errands and shopping it would take us another 40 minutes to drive back.
MIDA agrees to meet with us the next morning on Tuesday, but they warned us that it would have to be early and scheduled an 8:30am appointment.
On Tuesdays, we are usually selling coffee in town at the Tuesday Market from 9am until 12:00pm. So, we scramble with re-scheduling everyone. Rick and Enrique, our main tour guide and farm manager, will stay at the farm to meet with MIDA, Martin, our newest tour guide still in training, will do the tour that is scheduled and I will go to the market for the first hour or so until the meeting with MIDA is over and someone comes to replace me.
At 11am, MIDA still has not come to our farm for the meeting....but did make an appearance right before their lunch time.
Here are the notes from that meeting:
Chromatography analysis
Addition of micro and macro organisms
Analysis of pesticide residues in soil $270.00 general directorate of plant health - Dixon Laboratory or Unachi for water quality
Minimum 3 audits with a cost of $40.00 each, plus 20.00 for the certification that
Records of inputs and production are needed
Records of all Sow, harvest, buy and sell
There must be agreement between the quantities collected and stored
Process will take a minimum of 3 years and they can do audits at our expense whenever they feel it is necessary
So far, it just looks like we pay for a lot of different tests and have some paperwork to do, but then the ending of the 10-15 minute meeting are the questions we have for them.
Do you have a list of what are acceptable values for the soil samples and the water samples?
Answer: No, it is whatever we decide is good.
Do you have any information or guidelines to help us meet whatever requirements you have?
Answer: No, it is up to the person in this position. And, I just got promoted so it will be a new person in my spot next month.
After MIDA left and I returned from the Tuesday Market we went over the pros and cons of starting this process.
Pros: Getting the certification at the end
Cons: We spent 6 years working with MIDA to get our AgroTourism Certificate and found out that they actually did not know how to certify a new farm, so just kept inspecting us for the 6 years and telling us we qualified and it would be soon. It took our farm attorney to contact them to find out that they actually have not certified any farms in many years because there was no written process on how to do it.
We could be spending thousands of dollars on inspections for years if they really do not have a process in place yet. Which is probably what is happening. With no guidelines or set rules in place and the usual turnover in that agency we have no control over if we qualify or not. If our water quality is bad according to them, we will be disqualified and will not be able to reapply, however they will not provide us with any information on what we need to look for.
So, we decided to wait until the MIDA program is more established and check back with them in a few years after they work out how they want the program to work if they even do want it to work.
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