Re: [compost_tea] Re: Testing for free

From: <soilfoodweb_at_aol.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2004 11:10:55 -0400
Hi Eric -

Just getting back to your e-mail. Sorry to have not caught it earlier. 

It pushes me over the edge when people tell me that SFI needs to lower prices or do testing for free.  No one can do the tests we do for less money, and stay in business.  SFI has existed since 1996, and NO ONE did direct determinations on a commercial basis before that. 

SFI prices are lower than other microbiology labs purporting to measure "microbial activity" (which is not possible using plate counts).  SFI has an extensive quality control/quality assurance program.  On every 100th sample, all the assays are double-checked, techs are tested, etc.  All of the SFI labs have the same QA program and we check every 100th sample from every lab.  Our data are the highest quality, with the shortest turn-around time.  SFI is the lab that established that direct determinations are the best way to assess soil health. 

The Compost Tea Grant this summer involves $1000 worth of testing, and SFI asks only that the participant provide $250 of that price tag.  Participants are getting $750 worth of testing for free.  Plus Kevin R. will be compiling and summarizing the data at the end of the summer. 

And yet someone one the list serve said "for shame" that SFI would charge any money.  Geez.  Can I say that with that one statement, that person rocketed to the bottom of my respect scale? 

So, Eric, if it was your words that finally broke my "camel's back", I apologize for the ire.  But in future, could all of us think for just a moment about the real focus of any attack being made, and put the focus exactly where you mean it to be?  And I'll try to have a more duck-like back and let criticism slide off it more. 

So, when you critisize government labs, whose support comes from the people of the United States, not from big business (well, that's what we'd all like to think anyway), please state it that way? 

Thanks!

Elaine Ingham
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
SFI Corvallis, OR
SFI Port Jefferson, NY
SFI Lismore, NSW, Australia
SFI Hilversum, The Netherlands
SFI Cambridge, New Zealand
SFI Culiacan, Mexico
SFI Jerome, Idaho
http://www.soilfoodweb.com


Yahoo! Groups Links

Received on Fri Apr 30 2004 - 11:47:12 EDT

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.3.0 : Tue Feb 07 2012 - 14:15:14 EST