A Maine organic farmer on what certification gets right, what it misses, and why it still matters
If you’ve ever stood in the grocery store staring at two cartons of eggs, one regular and one organic, and wondered whether the extra few dollars actually means anything, you’re not alone. It’s one of the most common questions people ask about our certification. The honest answer is messier than most food content wants to admit. Sometimes it matters, and sometimes it really doesn’t.
Most of the information out there pushes you toward one of two camps. Either organic is a scam and you’re being played, or conventional is poison and you’re failing your family. Neither is true, and neither is particularly useful.
Where it actually makes a difference
The foods where organic tends to matter most are the ones you eat whole, skin and all. Berries, leafy greens, apples, and similar foods. Things where pesticide residue has nowhere to go except into what you’re eating. That’s the logic behind lists like the “Dirty Dozen,” and it holds up pretty well. If you’re going to spend the extra money anywhere, start there.
Where it might not
Here’s the part that doesn’t get talked about enough.
With thick-skinned produce like bananas, avocados, and others like them, the direct exposure difference is actually pretty small. Personally, we choose organic anyway. According to studies, eating organic foods may reduce overall cancer risk, primarily due to lower exposure to pesticide residues. The studies also say things are complicated. People eating organic foods tend to be more health conscious overall. So…
Again, this doesn’t mean the choice doesn’t matter, which is what some conventional farming advocates would like you to believe.
It just shifts what matters.
With crops like these, sometimes the bigger issue isn’t what’s on the surface. It’s the entire system behind them. Large-scale monocropping has reduced genetic diversity to the point where entire crops are increasingly vulnerable. Whether it’s organic or conventional, the system itself is doing harm. At that point, the question becomes degree, how much additional impact comes from pesticides and other inputs.
We’ve already seen this with bananas. When diversity disappears, risk concentrates. You can purchase organic bananas, but they’re still monocropped. This exposes everyone to the very real possibility that these foods become harder to grow, harder to source, or disappear altogether. Sometimes it can feel like a no win situation. Read more about it here: https://ntbg.org/news/safeguarding-the-worlds-most-popular-fruit/
So even when the personal health difference seems small, the environmental and agricultural implications can be much larger.
The same sort of disconnect is happening with heavily processed foods.
Once something has been processed, packaged, shipped long distances, the organic label starts to carry less weight than people assume. Many food products have been stored for weeks and this includes foodstuffs bearing the USDA organic label. At that point, you’re buying into a system of production, preservation, and distribution rather than one that prioritizes health.
Processed food, organic or not, is still processed food.
Food trucked thousands of miles is still heavily reliant on fossil fuels, even when local choices make more sense.
So the organic label might tell you something about the inputs. But it tells you very little about factors like freshness, handling, or the overall quality of what you’re eating.
None of this makes “organic” a scam. What it means is that the label is only telling you part of the story. In some cases, it’s not even the most important part.
Eggs are one place where the organic label does start to matter, but not in the way most people think. Studies show that organic eggs can differ in measurable ways from conventional eggs. This includes variations in amino acids and other nutritional compounds tied to what the hens are fed. But the real driver isn’t the label itself, it’s the system behind it. Organic standards require certified organic feed and restrict synthetic inputs. This is a meaningful shift away from the industrial baseline. Still, organic doesn’t guarantee pasture, sunlight, or a natural diet. In other words, organic eggs are often a better starting point than conventional but they’re not the full picture.
There’s also another consideration.
The word Organic is regulated, too.
The word “organic” is regulated by the USDA. Farms that fall under a certain income level can use the word “organic” in their advertising without any formal certification. They can use it without following the organic best practices guidance. But once you cross that financial threshold, you’re required to be certified, documented, and inspected to use the label commercially.
This creates a strange gray area. Two farms can be doing nearly identical things, but only one can formally stand behind the label. From a farmer’s perspective, that line can feel inconsistent. From a consumer’s perspective, it can be confusing.
I understand why the rule exists. There has to be a line somewhere. Truthfully, this is understandable.
But…from a farmer’s perspective, it can feel inconsistent. Either the standard matters or it doesn’t. When the rules don’t apply evenly, it adds another layer of confusion about what the word “organic” actually means.
What I’ve actually seen matters more
After years of farming, the things that consistently make a difference are simpler than people expect.
Freshness, for one. Food that was harvested recently often has an edge over something that’s been in storage or transit for days. Nutrients begin to degrade after harvest, and you can see and taste the difference. But freshness isn’t the only variable. How something was grown still matters. A recently harvested vegetable can be more nutrient-dense than one shipped across the country, but that doesn’t erase questions about what it was treated with or how it was produced. These are separate factors, and the label only captures part of that picture.
With animals, “organic” doesn’t tell you nearly as much as people assume. There’s a real difference between animals raised on pasture and animals that technically meet organic certification but never see outside. The label doesn’t capture any of that. Some really good farms aren’t certified organic at all, not because they don’t follow the practices, but because the paperwork and cost don’t make sense at their scale.
Inspection!
What certification does offer is inspection. It creates a standardized system where someone verifies that certain practices are being followed. That matters, especially in a food system where most people are far removed from how their food is produced. But certification is still a baseline. It tells you that a farm meets a defined set of rules. It doesn’t fully capture how that farm operates day to day.
So in many cases, the farmer matters just as much (if not more) than the label.
That’s the advantage of buying directly from a farm. You can ask real questions. What are you feeding your cattle? How are the animals actually raised? What does your land look like? Do you use pesticides? You’re not relying on a single word printed on a package. You’re getting a straight answer from the person doing the work. That’s true whether you’re buying food or seedlings.
Why it all feels so overwhelming
A lot of people feel like they’re supposed to get all of this right. Buy organic, buy local, read every label, support small farms, avoid this ingredient, prioritize that one. It’s a lot. So when it gets to be too much, most people either burn out or default back to whatever’s easiest.
That’s a completely reasonable response to an unreasonable amount of marketing pressure.
A more useful approach is to know your farmer. Then, pick one or two things you actually care about and start there. Maybe it’s buying eggs from a local family. Maybe it’s switching a few high-pesticide fruits to some local ones. Maybe it’s just knowing a little more about where your food comes from. You don’t have to do it all at once. It’s the small, consistent choices that add up a lot more than temporary overhauls.
What we focus on here
On our farm, we spend a lot less time thinking about certification than we do about how our animals are raised and how we’re managing soil health, biodiversity, and sustainability. Those things matter whether there’s a label on the package or not.
Organic, for us, is worth it. It’s not the whole story, and on our farm, it was never meant to be.
We love being a MOFGA certified farm, but not for the reasons people think.
We don’t love it because it’s easy, and we don’t love it because it tells the whole story of how we farm. We love it because it forces us to slow down, to plan, and to work within a system that, most of the time, pushes us toward better long-term decisions for our land.
To be fair, MOFGA has done amazing work in Maine and nationally. Their advocacy really matters. Their work on PFAS is genuinely industry-leading. They’ve built trust with consumers in a way that very few organizations have. We remind ourselves of this when we pay our certification fees every years. Truth be told, it’s expensive and we get little back in terms of tangible return.
Additionally, the day-to-day experience of working within that system can be very challenging. If you talk to enough small farmers, you start to hear the same story.
Part of it is structural. MOFGA and MOFGA Certification Services operate as separate agencies, which makes sense internally, but from the outside it can feel like navigating two systems that don’t always line up. Add in turnover and the reality that many small farms don’t have the time or administrative capacity to chase answers, and it starts to wear on you over time.
On the upside, our newest certification specialist has been great to work with and quick to respond. (We love that!). At this point, we can’t really imagine not being certified organic. For us, certification is one way of showing that we take the health of our entire farm seriously. In the grocery aisle, we pick the organic products every time. But, we look for the local organic ones first. 🙂
(Want to follow along with how we actually raise food here? You can find us at RimeFarm.blog.)
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