DESK PROCEDURE · FOUR WEEKS OF PREP
How to prepare for an organic farm inspection. Binder, logs, walkthrough, trace. Fix it from only $3 a month.
There is a date on the calendar and somebody is coming to read your paperwork. This is the desk work that sits between now and then, in the order that goes fastest: assemble the binder, fill the tabs, rebuild the logs, then rehearse the trace out loud until it takes five minutes.
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Read the free Organic Certification for Microgreen Farms flipbook ebook →- One two-inch three-ring binder. One binder, not three folders in three rooms.
- A set of ten numbered dividers with write-on tabs.
- A box of sheet protectors for anything you cannot reprint.
- A three-hole punch and a stapler.
- A scanner, or a phone scanning app that outputs a PDF rather than a photograph.
- A printer with a full cartridge. You will print more than you expect.
- A fine permanent marker and a roll of blank labels, or a label printer.
- Sticky flags in two colors: one for pages that come up twice, one for pages still missing.
- A box file for originals, so the binder holds copies and nothing irreplaceable travels.
Step 1. Assemble the binder and number the tabs
Do this first, before you chase a single document, because an empty numbered tab is a visible hole and a pile of loose paper is not. Write the numbers on the dividers, drop them in the rings, and leave the binder open on the desk for the next four weeks.
Ten tabs cover a small growing operation. Every sheet you find over the coming weeks has exactly one home, and you file it the day it arrives rather than stacking it for a session later.
| Tab | What goes behind it | How it is sorted |
|---|---|---|
| 1. System plan | The plan you filed, plus the certifier acknowledgement letter | Most recent version on top |
| 2. Seed | One certificate per seed lot, invoices behind each one | Date bought, newest at the front |
| 3. Substrate | One certificate per delivery, delivery note stapled behind | Delivery date, newest at the front |
| 4. Water | Your source statement and the most recent test or utility report | Statement first, evidence behind it |
| 5. Sanitation | Log sheets, plus a printed label for every product on the shelf | Month by month |
| 6. Planting | One page per week of sowings | Oldest at the back, running to today |
| 7. Harvest | Weights by date and lot code | Same week order as tab 6 |
| 8. Sales | Invoices, market tallies, delivery dockets | Same weeks again, so tabs 7 and 8 face each other |
| 9. Labels | One printed sample of every clamshell sticker and bag label in use | By product, then by date printed |
| 10. Complaints | The complaint log, blank or otherwise | By date received |
Do it now: write today's date inside the front cover. That date is the start of your continuous record, and every question about how long this has been running resolves against it.
Step 2. Collect a certificate for every seed lot
Every bag carries a lot number, usually printed on the seam, the tag, or a sticker inside the closure. Photograph that tag before the bag empties, because after the bag is folded into the recycling the number is gone and the paper trail ends there.
Email the supplier one message per lot with the lot number and the invoice date in the subject line. Most send the certificate back as a PDF within a few days. Check the valid-through date on each one when it arrives: certificates expire annually, and a certificate that lapsed before the sowing date it is supposed to cover is no use to anyone.
Punch it, write the lot number in marker across the top right corner, and file it behind tab 2 in date order. The marker matters. It means you can find the sheet by flicking the corner rather than reading nine paragraphs of body text with somebody watching.
File it as: certificate on top, supplier invoice punched behind it, bag tag photograph printed and stapled to the invoice. Three sheets, one lot, one place.
Step 3. Do the same for every substrate lot
Substrate arrives on a pallet with a batch code on the wrapping tag and a delivery note in the driver's hand. Both matter. Take a photograph of the pallet tag before the wrap comes off, and keep the delivery note instead of binning it with the plastic.
The common failure at this tab is a brand swap. A farm runs one mix until a shortage, orders a different mix for six weeks, then goes back, and keeps paper for the mix currently in use only. Both brands need a certificate on file, with a dated note recording the week you switched and the week you switched back.
Keep substrate certificates for twelve months after the last tray filled from that batch was sold. The paper outlives the material by a long way, and the tab is where it waits.
Check the dates: the certificate has to be valid on the delivery date, not on the day you are filing it. Two minutes with a highlighter now saves an awkward pause later.
Step 4. Write the water source statement
One page, plain language, signed and dated by you. It answers three questions: where the water comes from, what it passes through before it reaches a tray, and who tests it and how often.
- Municipal supply: name the utility and attach their annual water quality report. It is published, free, and downloadable in a minute.
- Well: attach the most recent laboratory result, and put the next test date in your calendar before you file the page.
- Filter or reverse osmosis: name the unit, the cartridge model and the replacement interval, then file the cartridge receipts behind the statement as evidence the interval is genuine.
Reprint and re-sign the page the moment one of those answers stops being true, and keep the superseded version behind the current one. A statement with three dated versions shows a system running. A single undated page shows a document written this morning.
Step 5. Build the sanitation log and give it proper columns
Rule a sheet with seven columns and print thirty copies. Date. Area or item cleaned. Product used. Concentration or dilution. Contact time. Rinsed, yes or no. Initials.
One row per event, written the day it happens, in ink. Tape a clipboard holding the current sheet on the wall by the sink, because a log kept in the office is a log filled in from memory on Sunday night.
While you are at it, empty the cupboard. Every cleaning product stored in the growing room is assumed to be in use, so anything that is not on the approved list moves to a labelled cupboard in a different building. Then print the label of every product that stays, and file those prints behind the log sheets so the concentration column can be checked against the directions without anybody leaving the desk.
Watch the handwriting: a month of rows filled in one sitting reads as reconstruction even when it is accurate. Start today, write daily, and let the sheet fill as you go.
Step 6. Reconstruct or start the planting log
Eight fields per sowing: sowing date, variety, seed lot, substrate lot, tray count, rack and tier, uncover date, expected harvest date. That is one line, and it takes under a minute at the bench.
If your existing records stop and restart, resist the urge to fill the middle. Write a dated note explaining the gap, file it at the front of tab 6, and run clean from today forward. An honest note about six missing weeks closes in one sentence. Six weeks of invented entries do not close at all.
If you log sowings in GLAP as you make them, this tab prints itself: one page a week, punched and dropped into the rings the same afternoon.
Step 7. Reconcile harvest against sales, line by line
Take one month. Total the harvest weight by variety from tab 7. Total the weight sold by variety from tab 8. Put the two totals side by side and look at the difference.
They will not match, and they are not supposed to. Subtract samples handed out at market, product composted, whatever went home for dinner, and short weight in the clamshells. Then write each of those in a third column against the week it happened: four ounces sampled on the ninth, one tray composted after a mold call, two clamshells dropped on the van floor.
A reconciliation with explained differences is stronger than one that balances to the gram, because the second one reads as a calculation rather than a record. Do this for three consecutive months before the visit and the routine sticks.
The test being applied: internal consistency. If tab 8 shows more weight leaving than tab 7 shows being cut, the next question is where the extra came from, and the answer needs to already be on the page.
Step 8. Label and lot-code the finished product
Pick one lot code format and hold to it exactly. Variety code, sowing date, tray number: RAD-0614-03 is radish, sown on 14 June, tray three. Three parts, one hyphen between each, no spaces.
That string goes in four places: the clamshell sticker, the planting entry, the harvest entry, and the invoice line. Four places, one string, no translation step in the middle. A code that appears as RAD-0614-03 on the sticker and as "radish, June batch" in the log is not a trace, it is a puzzle.
Print one sample of every sticker and bag label you use and file them behind tab 9, with the date you started printing that version written on the back. Labels get redrawn more often than anybody remembers, and the old artwork is what goes missing.
Step 9. Walk the space the way the visit will walk it
Go outside and come back in through the door your visitor will use. Then walk the room slowly, in the order the work happens, and look up, down and behind rather than straight ahead.
- Under the bench and on the shelf above the rack. What is stored there, and can you name it?
- Inside the sink cupboard. Anything in there is assumed to be in use.
- Every spray bottle. Does the wording on the bottle match the wording in the sanitation log?
- The seed store. Dry, sealed, off the floor, and away from anything that leaks.
- The pack table. Is the compost bin beside it, and where exactly do hands get washed?
- The fridge. Are packed clamshells labelled, dated, and separated from anything unpacked?
Carry a notepad and write one line for anything you would have to explain. Then work the list. Fixing eight small things in an afternoon is cheaper than rehearsing eight explanations, and it is the only part of this procedure that improves the food rather than the file.
Step 10. Rehearse the trace out loud
This is the rehearsal that sets the tone for the whole visit. Open the fridge, pull one packed clamshell at random, and read its lot code off the sticker.
Now work backwards out loud, touching the paper as you say it. Harvest entry for that code. Planting entry for that code. Substrate lot named in that entry, then the certificate behind tab 3. Seed lot named in that entry, then the certificate behind tab 2. The sanitation row for the tray wash before that sowing. The invoice in tab 8 that clamshell went out on.
Time yourself with your phone. Under five minutes is comfortable and reads as a working system. Over fifteen means the binder is not indexed yet, and the fix is more sticky flags rather than more paper. Run it three times, three different codes, on three different days.
Last thing before the visit: hand the binder to somebody who does not work on the farm and ask them to find the seed certificate for one lot code you name. If a stranger can do it in two minutes, you are ready.
The document checklist
Print this, tick it in pen, and pin it inside the front cover of the binder. Everything on it is a sheet of paper you can either produce or cannot.
- The system plan as submitted, plus the acknowledgement letter.
- A valid certificate for every seed lot used since the application date.
- The invoice behind each seed certificate, and a printed bag tag photograph behind that.
- A certificate and delivery note for every substrate batch, both brands if you switched.
- The signed water source statement, dated, with the utility report or laboratory result attached.
- Cartridge receipts, if the statement claims a filter interval.
- Sanitation sheets running continuously, with the seven columns filled.
- A printed label for every cleaning product currently in the room.
- The planting log, week by week, with no invented entries.
- The harvest log, weights against lot codes.
- Invoices and market tallies covering the same weeks as the harvest log.
- Three months of reconciliations with the differences explained in a third column.
- One printed sample of every label and sticker in use.
- The complaint log, even if every page of it is blank.
- A pest sighting note, dated, even if the sighting was nothing.
Week by week countdown
Four weeks is enough for a small operation if the weeks are used in this order. Compress it into two if you have to, but keep the sequence, because the trace rehearsal is worthless before the tabs are full.
| When | What you do | Done when |
|---|---|---|
| Four weeks out | Build the binder, number the tabs, send every certificate request email in one sitting | Ten dividers labelled, every supplier emailed |
| Three weeks out | File certificates as they arrive. Write and sign the water statement. Print the sanitation sheets and hang the clipboard | Tabs 1 to 5 have paper in them |
| Two weeks out | Rebuild the planting and harvest tabs. Set the lot code format and reprint stickers | Tabs 6, 7 and 9 current to this week |
| One week out | Reconcile three months of harvest against sales. Walk the space and work the fix list | Third column written, notepad list empty |
| Two days out | Rehearse the trace three times with three lot codes. Flag the pages you were slow to find | Under five minutes, three times running |
| The day before | Clear the pack table, empty the sink cupboard, put the binder on the table with the checklist inside the cover | Nothing left to shift in the morning |
On the day
Put the binder on a clear table with two chairs and a pen. Offer the tabs in number order rather than answering questions in the order they arrive, because the numbers are the argument and jumping around undoes it.
When you do not know something, say so and write it on the notepad in front of you. A written follow-up closes cleanly. A guess that turns out wrong reopens the tab it came from and the two either side of it.
Keep the walkthrough for after the paper. By then whoever is reading has already seen how the operation is run, and the room is confirming the binder rather than the other way around.
Still deciding whether to certify at all? Read the cost against the premium, the payback period and the accounts that require certification → That page is the money case for and against. This one is the work you do once the date is booked.
Questions that come up while building the binder
What goes in the inspection binder, tab by tab?
Ten numbered tabs. Tab 1 the system plan you filed and the certifier acknowledgement. Tab 2 seed certificates, one per lot, newest at the front. Tab 3 substrate certificates with the delivery notes stapled behind them. Tab 4 the water source statement plus the latest test result. Tab 5 sanitation sheets and printed product labels. Tab 6 the planting log. Tab 7 harvest weights by lot code. Tab 8 invoices and market tallies for the same weeks as tab 7. Tab 9 one printed sample of every label in use. Tab 10 the complaint log, blank or not.
How far back do the records in the binder have to go?
File everything you have from the day the application went in, and keep the paper on file for a five-year retention window. A short binder that runs continuously from the application date reads stronger than a thick one with two clean months and a hole in the middle. If your practice predates the application, file that too, at the back of each tab, sorted by date the same way.
What columns does the sanitation log need?
Seven: date, area or item cleaned, product used, concentration or dilution, contact time, rinsed yes or no, and initials. One row per event, filled the day it happens, in ink. Print the product label and file it behind the sheets so the concentration column can be checked against the directions without anybody leaving the desk.
My planting log has a gap in it. What do I do?
Do not back-fill it. Thirty rows in identical handwriting and one ink color is the easiest thing in the world to spot, and it turns a paperwork gap into a credibility problem. Write a dated note on a single sheet, say what the gap is and why it exists, file it at the front of tab 6, and start a clean continuous entry from today. Continuous beats complete-looking.
How do I lot-code a packed clamshell?
Three parts on one sticker: a variety code, the sowing date, and the tray number. RAD-0614-03 is radish, sown on 14 June, tray three. Print it on the clamshell label, write the same string in the planting entry, the harvest entry and the invoice line, and keep one printed sample of every sticker behind tab 9. One code, four places, no translation needed.
How do I rehearse the trace before the visit?
Pick one packed clamshell out of the fridge at random and read its lot code. Then work backwards out loud: harvest entry, planting entry, substrate lot, that substrate certificate, seed lot, that seed certificate, the sanitation row for the tray wash before that sowing, and the invoice it went out on. Time it. Under five minutes is comfortable. Over fifteen means the binder is not indexed yet. Run it three times with three different codes.
What should I look for when I walk the room?
Walk in through the door your visitor will use and look up, down and behind. Under the bench, on the shelf above the rack, inside the sink cupboard, the wording on every spray bottle, the place hand washing happens, the seed store, dry and off the floor, and the compost bin sitting next to the pack table. Write down anything you would have to explain, then fix it rather than rehearse the explanation.
What if I cannot find the certificate for one seed lot?
Email the supplier with the lot number and the invoice date and ask for a copy, which usually comes back the same week. If nothing comes back, file the invoice, the bag tag photograph and a dated note of the request behind tab 2 in place of the certificate. A documented request in the right tab is a finding you can close. A blank space is one you cannot.
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