After nearly 20 years of growing our trees organically, we have decided to become officially certifed as an organic farm, with the BFA. The reason for the formality is that we are now have the potential to produce a large crop of mangosteens. We posted the application yesterday - it took us about 3 months to assemble all the information that they required, and then a JP had to witness the 20 page application.
What happens next? We wait for the inspector to arrive and check us out, in the next 4-6 weeks.
Will being certified make a difference to selling our crop? Probably not as the mangosteen customer is not likely to care too much if they are grown with chemicals and sprays or not.
Hopefully there will be a niche organic market which will clamour for our fruit and will appreciate the efforts we have taken. But don't hold your breath.
http://www.bfa.com.au/
