by Gary Glover

But this spring, in addition to our trees and equipment, we maple syrup producers need to assess the impact of a new federal organic standard on our livelihood. Some producers, like myself, welcome the idea and are grateful for the work done by COUP/COAB in finally bringing it about, despite untold headaches and disappointments. Other producers are hostile to the notion, claiming that "all maple syrup is organic".

Although the standards themselves are in a state of flux, with no specific provisions to react to yet, I would like to discuss what I see as the differences between organic and non-organic maple syrup production.

To a large extent, the modern innovations in syrup making such as pipelines, oil-fired evaporators, and reverse osmosis machines will not affect the purity of the product if proper cleaning procedures are followed. Indeed, it can certainly be argued that sap in a sealed system consisting of pipeline, R.O. and covered evaporator is far less exposed to contamination than a system that uses buckets and/or bush tanks, tractor or horse gathering, and ancient uncovered wood-fired evaporators. It is difficult also to dispute the fact that pipelines are less destructive of the forest than a few tons of tractor and chains churning through the mud. It is also easy enough to see why some of my neighbors would react to yet another imposition by the government.

So why have a standard? From my neighbors’ viewpoint, the issue of food purity is being addressed by the progressive sugar makers within the Ontario Maple Syrup Producers’ Association who are working on a Seal of Quality program similar to that in Vermont, and from my perspective, as a bucket and tractor producer, there’s all too much chance that some bureaucrat will find my product not pure enough.

The reason for legislated standards – any standards – is protection of the consumer. Any standard will stand or fall by the degree to which it is seen as scientifically competent and the trust which the standards writing agency engenders.

My hope in a federal standard is that it would seriously address these issues:

• Examination of the environmental effects of cleaning products, including their disposal, especially of chlorine and the hydroxides, and recommendation of alternative products (In many cases, large quantities of chlorine are used to clean lines. What effect does this have when disposed of in septic systems? We have opted to use no chlorine.)

• Establishment of standards for vacuum setting for pipeline bushes (It is possible to draw more sap from the tree by exerting more vacuum in the lines. We currently run a straight gravity system with no vacuum pump on our 750 pipeline taps.)

• Establishment of standards or referencing of a code with regard to sustainable silvaculture in the bush, including thinning, bush roads, number of taps per tree and rest periods (I currently thin through the bush for our firewood, taking dead and windfall trees first, then intensively thinning one to two of the eighty acres, always with the aim of improving the bush. I thin ‘weed’ trees – primarily ironwood and aspen – when they directly compete with maple or other desirable species – oak, pine and, to a lesser extent, cedar, beech, spruce and balsam. I try not to leave exposed flanks for blowdowns or reduce the shade in a thinned-over area unless there is a tree ready to fill the canopy.)

• Examination of the lead content of syrup finished in lead-soldered ‘English tin’ front pans (It would be good to know lead contents from back pans too, but my sense is that because of the higher temperatures in front pans, the leaching would be worse there. The ideal is stainless throughout and lead-free solder, but there is likely little danger from galvanized gathering and holding [cold] equipment. It would be nice to scientifically test the conventional wisdom that ‘the equipment sugars over and seals itself’.)

• Thickness of syrup (Like any syrup, organic syrup must be thick enough.)

• Prohibition of synthetic fertilizer, pesticides, fungicides, bacteriacides and defoaming agents

Those are the factors I think are most important from the point of view of guaranteeing an organic product to the consumer and ensuring sustainability.