Keep Organic In The Soil

I'm an certified organic grain farmer from Illinois since 1998. Would it be possible to give organic hydroponic its own certification label? Let the consumer decide once they understand how it is produced.

Have you ever compared the taste of a tomato grown in soil versus hydroponic?

Hydroponics is not nature! I want my soil organisms.

As an organic farmer for the past 20 years, I am a very strong supporter of keeping soil in organics. Hydroponic agriculture is a vastly different entity and including it under organic certification would undermine decades of work by numerous organic growers dedicated to improving their soil.

Thank you for this great effort to protect the Organic label. It is sooo important to protect a clean environment and true commitment

You cannot replicate the benefits of the soil community to soil-less farming. We need to recognize growing food as part of an ecosystem.

Organic ag is based on one simple idea. Healthy soul makes healthy plants. Healthy plants don't need chemicals to thrive. Substituting fertilizers and insecticides or fungicides for that concept is not organic, even if those things are "natural". As a grower I want my organic cert to mean something, and so do my consumers.

Keep the soil in Organic! We have worked too hard and too long for the standards to be "watered down!"

Keep the soil organic

The time has come. Stand up and be counted.

Hydroponics is food that is lacking in nutrients. It contributes to the problem in the us of people being over feed and undernourished. Hydroponic food has a fraction of the nutrients that organic soil grown food does.

One day, god willing, our government will put people before money... End lobbying now!

I was a conventional dairy and crop producer decades ago and I am currently a service provider to pastoral and crop farms world-wide, to include organic. No current consideration bothers me more than this "hydroponic Inclusion into the organic standards" topic and I oppose it absolutely.

Keep soil in Organic

Grow organic vegetables in the soil.

Organic food is food grown in soil. Period. Hydroponics have a place in our food chain. But they should be labeled as such. People should know what they are buying so they can make an informed choice.

I'm starting a new farm this year and I'm speading time and money to bring the soil back to life. I believe that healthy soil is the only way to grow and certified organic produce.

Hydroponics is one way of growing plants. I don't believe it to be bad, I do think it is an interesting method. I don't think it is organic in the understood meaning of organic and I do not think it should be considered organic. It should be labeled as hydroponic, just as organic is labeled organic and convention (currently) isn't labeled. I am a second career emerging farmer and fearful of the future state of the US and World food supply.

Hydroponics should be labeled separately from soil grown plants, and should not qualify as organic. Organic is more than what chemical you do or don't use.

If nature does it, it's organic. Otherwise, stay on your side!