After 2 farm audits conducted over the last 9 months, we now can call ourselves CERTIFIED ORGANIC. Any one can use the word 'organic' but a farm which has been certified organic has met strict standards and these have been judged by an outside auditor.
Our farm practices have always been organic, but we have never bothered to become certified while our mangosteens were young and not producing. We are now hoping for harvests of several tonnes, and it was time to go and get our farm practices made official.
There wasn't much we actually had to change. The main thing we have had to do is stop using cardboard for mulch around the fruit trees. In the past we always collected the cardboard boxes from the resorts and used them for weed control - very effective too. But the coloured ink on the boxes can be a contaminant - with high mercury in the inks, so we have had to change over to a special black weed mat called 'weed gunnel'. This seems to be working well and lasts longer than cardboard.
This means we are now in a position to be able to sell our mangosteens as certified organic throughout Australia and overseas. Big step forward.
