kandu.food

farm-visits

How do we prove organic quality, and naturally grown ethics in production?

Contributors selected for the kandu.community will populate their profiles with good pictures, and they will answer basic questions about how they run their operations, but are they telling the truth?

The only way to really know the organic status of any farm is to actually go there and look at it. We can get a lot out of good images and pertinent answers, and it can look good to even a trained professional, but somehow it's not really enough to go by, and eventually a group of such professionals, and customers alike, will have to go out and be in the presence of the farm, because they would be able to tell immediately from the visual condition of the soil, the animals and the plants, whether there has been foul play.

All of this is essentially about bringing national production to a more organic standard, and to provide better assistance and service to farmers that commit to it.

This is certainly not an exercise in finding bad farmers, in fact, quite the opposite, that in partnership with the South African Organic Sector Organization, this is essentially an exercise in standardizing the concept of naturally grown, as a stepping stone to national certification by SAOSO, and indeed an exercise created to be supportive of all of our farmers willing to work with nature and not against it. If a farmer is found to be contradicting naturally grown principles, an investigation will be carried out which will hopefully lead to grace, encouragement, as well as methodology, or any other assistance to help the farmer to reach their goal.

Here's how we might start to do this... We will continue to provide this platform thru which to communicate all of this information. Customers may ask questions of farmers of their own accord at the kandu connect. Customers are encouraged to make formal congratulations on their favourite producers profile, while formal complaints are please to be directed to one of our official spaces, so that it can be dealt with honestly and transparently, with a decent thread of communication that might later prove that everyone involved made the effort to bring about positive change.

Farmers are encouraged to connect with other naturally grown farmers in their area and form groups capable of holding a local, popup, naturally grown food market, and sharing their customer base to build up customers' access to the full spectrum of ordinary and extraordinary produce from that area.

Then, if the PGS guidelines are too much reading material, then it might naturally occur, that at such a market gathering, is where an inspection team can be forged from experienced growers and interested customers. They can register their mutually consented intention to visit one of the farms, and then together go and do so. Kandu will provide specialized farm visit forms from SAOSO, that will contain all of the questions from a legitimate SAOSO certification inspection of a farm, and everyone present may fill in this form together during the farm visit, discussing all of its requirements, where it can improve and where it can be praised. From there, the generated report will be made publicly available to help toward a public guarantee of certification.

Sure this protocol has some weak points, where corruption could enter, and so public interest and involvement is also key here. Diversity of the inspection team can also be inspected, as these participants will have to announce their identities and their qualifications in being present. All interested parties are invited to join an inspection. Everyone's input is valuable.

Please keep the rest of us up to date about these happenings on the Kandu Connect, so that a trail of transparency can be created for any further customers' interest.