Is The Berry Patch Organic?
We receive this question a lot every year, and the short answer is No, but the long answer is a bit more in depth.
We have been farming since 1975, and have seen a lot of change in the market over the last 40 years. In the recent few years, being “organic” has become a niche in the market that a lot of people have been requesting. However, we have done our own research, and have evaluated our own beliefs in what organic farming does as far as health benefits. In short, we haven’t found a health benefit or a health danger from being non-organic.
We regularly use herbicides to control weeds in our fields, it is important to note that NONE of this herbicide is applied TO THE BLUEBERRIES. We are very careful about our application as if it were be applied to our plants, they would be killed just like the weeds. However, herbicides are our only regularly used chemical.
We use insecticides when we are having an issue with a pest or disease that we cannot deal with in another way. We have had many different leaf and limb diseases that we have been able to successfully eradicate with great insecticide and fungicide products designed for blueberries. We believe 100% that these products ARE safe for you and your families. We eat these blueberries too, unwashed, right off the bush. Our kids have done so since they could walk. We would not use these products if we believed they were harmful to your family or to our own! In general, we use about a tenth of the spray schedule as your standard commercial grower that sells to large stores such as Wal-Mart, Price Chopper, or other grocery chains.
The basic truth is this: we have evaluated what it would take for us to grow organic blueberries, and on our scale it just simply isn’t possible. You would be paying $10-$20 per POUND of blueberries every time you came to pick, and we would be out of business.
We worship Jesus, not Mother Nature, and we believe whole-heartedly that science is God-given, and has done nothing but amazing things for agriculture that has allowed food production to grow exponentially to feed a growing world population. We use only well researched, safe products that we trust not only around our own children and family, but around yours as well.
For this reason, we are able to grow fantastic, large, disease and insect free, flavorful blueberries, that we consider 100% safe right off the bush, at a price you can afford.