After three years of bureaucracy and inspections from Sativa, Keela is now listed as a certified Organic Farm in Portugal and is on the EU register of certified organic farms as Laurence Manchee (the founder and trading name of Keela).
Certified as an Organic Farm in Portugal means that Laurence can now sell products grown or raised at Keela as organic (BIO). Unless a farm is certified organic, it can not sell its products as organic as it does not have the appropriate training or inspections. It also means Keela has access to government support for organic farms.
For Keela to become an Organic Farm in Portugal, Laurence had to:
Register as a farmer at the tax office (done in 2017)
Register his land as a farm with IFAP (through a farming engineer) (done in 2017)
Sign a contract with Sativa, a company that does the inspections for DGADR (done in 2021)
Complete an organic farming course that is certified by DGADR
Joined Bioeco, an association with an engineer that can help review the paperwork before submitting it to Sativa (done in 2021)
Completed three years of inspections from Sativa, which includes
An onsite inspection
Showing invoices for seeds, plants and animal feed
Providing Planting date spreadsheets
Seed saving lists
Transactions of produce
And more
Organic farming practices in Portugal
From completing the education, we have learnt that many standard practices on homesteads wouldn’t pass the organic farming inspection. Such as:
Tethering of animals
Buying non-organic animal feed
Buying non-organic animals
Using non-organic manure for vegetables an trees (i.e. from animals that don’t get organic feed)
Not covering compost piles
Buying non-organic veg and grain seeds for planting
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