Richard Ward applies labels bearing his name and farm number to boxes of organic produce as it is loaded onto a refrigerated truck for shipment to a distribution center.

By RAY WYCHE
Staff Writer

Richard Ward dared to step out of the box.

His 160 acres of fields look like any other Columbus County farmland – recently set tobacco plants standing upright on grass-free rows, strawberry plants still bearing despite the increasingly hot weather, and shiny garden greens awaiting picking.

But there’s a big difference in Ward’s farming: his land and plants are not touched by synthetic organic fertilizer, herbicides or insecticides.

As a certified organic farmer, Ward cannot use any man-made chemical products in his operation. He is required to rotate his crops every three years and he can’t be certified as organic if any of his crop land has had any chemical applications in the past three years. Ward says that at the present he is paying rent on land he hopes to farm organically, although he cannot do so for three years.

Organic is not the easiest way to produce a crop, Ward says. There’s a lot of paper work involved.

“You’ve got to document everything you do. They want to know when you hoed your tobacco — everything,” he says.

He has spoken to his neighbors about going organic, but says they find the procedures too demanding.

“People don’t want to go to the trouble to get in it,” he says.

But the trouble is worth the price at the marketplace.

For several years, Ward has grown organic tobacco on contract with Santa Fe Tobacco Company in Oxford. Last year, he tended 20 acres; this year, at the company’s request, he has 37 acres set out. His return in dollars is more than twice what he would have gotten in warehouse sales for the same grade.

Santa Fe likes the way Ward operates. In the past, the company sent inspectors to take samples of the land, tobacco leaves, and even swabbings from the walls of the bulk barn where his organic leaf is cured. They found no traces of chemicals.

Now, he says, “They take a sample out of each bale” of tobacco he delivers to Oxford. “If you do good, they appreciate it. They’re good people to work with.”

The appreciation comes in the form of higher prices. The same is true with the organic vegetables he sells through a cooperative.

Ward does most of his organic vegetable growing in the spring and fall. Mid-summer is reserved for harvesting his tobacco.

“I don’t want anything coming off when I’m harvesting tobacco,” he says.

Later he will gather his organic Irish potatoes and after tobacco harvest the sweet potatoes. Like all of his produce, the potatoes will be delivered to the organic cooperative distribution center in Pittsboro.

Since he is not allowed to use commercial chemical fertilizer, Ward feeds his crops with Feathermeal, a natural by-product of chicken-slaughtering operations with a 13 percent nitrogen content. Asked about weed control, he points to a rack filled with hoes.

“It’s about like it used to be when I was growing up on the farm,” he says, in the days before chemical herbicides when weed elimination consisted of the farmer’s family with hoes and long, hot days.

During his vegetable harvests, Ward hauls produce to Pittsboro about twice per week. From the distribution center, the vegetables are delivered to upscale supermarkets specializing in organics.

There are two walk-in coolers on Ward’s farm in the Antioch Church community south of Whiteville. As soon as the vegetables are harvested and graded, they go into the cooler. Everything must be kept chilled from picking time to loading time on the refrigerated truck.

“You must have refrigeration. They want it cool – with ice on it,” he says.

Ward is on the forefront of a growing movement toward organic vegetables, a trend pushed along by an increasing awareness by health conscious people of what is in the food we buy. With advances in agricultural chemicals, despite U.S. government agencies checking on the safety of these chemicals, some food products today may contain residues of chemical soups that are consumed along with the food.

People are becoming more aware that they may be eating hormone-laced meats containing growth additives, and vegetables sprayed with chemical mixtures to speed ripening, retard premature spoilage, and to produce an attractive appearance in supermarket cases.

Organic farming doubled in 1990s and the upward trend continues today.

Ward is believed to be the only commercial farmer in Columbus County certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as organic. The certification process is stringent and expensive, with the applicant farmer paying for testing of land, handling facilities, tools, equipment and even his seed sources. His plows and other in-ground tools must not be used on land not certified as organic without being thoroughly cleaned. Seed must come from organically grown plants, if available. If no such seed are obtainable, the farmer must sign a sworn statement (later verified by inspectors) of the no-seed situation.

Produce from organic growers is tested periodically and violations can result in hefty fines and/or revocation of the organic certification.

Organic farming is close to the old way of doing things by tedious hand labor, but to Ward and a growing number of consumers, these laborious methods are worth the results they produce.