Paul Harlow and Associate Director Linley Dixon during the farm inspection at Harlow Farm in Vermont.
As September begins, the Real Organic Project’s Pilot Program is progressing. The Pilot Program is creating an add-on label to the USDA organic certification. Associate Director Linley Dixon has already inspected over 40 farms in Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York, and Maryland. As Linley has said, she has the best of jobs, visiting so many amazing organic farms. She has put in many hours traveling from farm to farm, talking and listening. She is assessing the success and challenges of the provisional standards. She will share her findings with the ROP Standards Board this Winter. Linley has filmed all the farms that were inspected, and now we are starting to edit the footage to make 3-minute films from each farm that we will post on our website. Know Your Farmer!
Executive board member Lisa Stokke, farmers Jack Kittredge & Julie Rawson, and Linley Dixon during an inspection for the Pilot Program at Many Hands Farm in Massachusetts.
The Real Organic Project obtained our 501 (C) 3 status from the IRS a few weeks ago, so we are now an official non-profit. Champagne for all, and thanks for your ongoing support. Please consider whether you can offer some financial support to this effort. Join the many farmers and eaters who are trying to make an organic label that we can all trust. Become a member by going here:
But if money is short, please become a member anyway.
Current NOSB member Emily Oakley and Mike Appel at Three Springs Farm in Oklahoma during an ROP inspection.
Joe and Lisa Engelbert at Englelbert Farm in New York.
The Real Organic Project had a strong presence at the NOFA Summer Conference in early August in Amherst, MA. In the afternoon I gave a workshop on the USDA failures that led to our creation. Putting together many stories and pictures of the last six years was a little emotionally challenging for all of us, but it seems important to understand what has brought us to this.
The workshop was followed by an evening panel that featured ROP board members Eliot Coleman, Lisa Stokke, Francis Thicke, and Liz Henderson. It was billed as a debate, and it demonstrated the diversity of opinions that are included in ROP. It was a very animated discussion that was filmed, and we will put out some clips as soon as we can get it edited. Few people left unchanged. The comment I heard more than once afterwards was that we have to DO something!
Here are a few highlights.
Eliot Coleman speaking at the NOFA Conference
From Eliot: "Back in 1979, I gave USDA scientists a tour of the best organic farms in Europe for research entitled “Report and Recommendations on Organic Farming.” We blew the socks off those researchers. They had never believed that organic farms could be that good. At the end of the Carter administration, one of the members of that study team was set up as the USDA’s organic representative and 3 months into the Regan administration he was fired, that office was shut down and all the copies of that study were destroyed. The idea of having the USDA run organic is ridiculous.
"The reason I’m concerned about what’s going on in USDA Organic is that our survival as a species depends on fertile soil. Only inches of biologically active soil cover the planet. Only one agricultural science can nurture and enhance those inches - organic farming.
"So you can see why I’m concerned about that name being used for practices that don’t have anything to do with it. Chemical farming with its dismal record of destroying soils, poisoning wells and creating ocean dead zones is not the future. Confined animal feeding operations that turn animals into machines and manure into a waste product is not the future.
"If CAFO’s and hydroponics continue to be called organic, the present generation is being defrauded by the USDA. However, I am far more concerned that countless future generations are being denied an accurate understanding of the one agricultural science that will feed them and their descendants, the one agricultural science that can be powered exclusively by the boundless energy and logic of the earth - organic farming.
"I’m an old 60’s hippie, my wife spent time in the women’s house of detention for protesting government mistakes back in the 60’s. We’re still active now so there’s a sign outside of our farm stand and it says guaranteed realorganic. I’m waiting for the black helicopters to arrive. If 500 other farmers joined me and put up a sign at their farmstead that said guaranteed realorganic, the USDA would not be able to continue destroying it as they are now."
Organic farmer Francis Thicke at the NOFA conference.
From Francis: “I just finished a five-year term on the NOSB. I’m also serving as the Chair of the Real Organic Project Standards Board. A year and a half ago, I would not have been involved in the creation of an add-on label. I always thought, as we all did, that the NOP organic standards were the gold standard. We had this idea of continuous improvement and we wanted to make them better all the time. We have had some improvement over time, but over the last few years I have felt there was so much slippage. I’m really concerned about it.
“You all heard about the animal welfare rules, and dairy CAFOs being certified, and hydroponics, of course. But within the NOSB we also saw a problem. We saw that the USDA was taking away the authority of the NOP. So the NOSB is now being pretty much controlled by the USDA, and the NOSB has lost a lot of their autonomy.
“We see industry lobbyists coming in and having a lot of clout. Money makes clout. It’s a $50 billion industry now.
“What the Real Organic Project does is try to bring back the slippage that we’ve seen at the USDA on CAFOs, on access for chickens and cows to grazing, and for hydroponics. We’re just trying to bring it back to where we know it should be.
“We don’t want to disparage other organic farmers by saying we’re real, because we know that probably all of you are real too. But we’re hoping that we can encourage you to participate in this process. I see this as a sort of pact between organic farmers and organic eaters. Eaters are confused. They go into a grocery store and pick up a tomato and they don’t know. Is this hydroponic? When they pick up milk, is this CAFO milk or not? If we can have a way of showing them what is real organic, then they can buy real organic. I think that is what our goal is here.”
Lisa Stokke with Eliot on the panel.
From Lisa: "In Iowa, we have a very unique perspective on the effects of industrialized agriculture on our rural communities, on our health, on our waterways, and on our soil. That’s what got me involved in organic. When I got a little bit older, I had four children, and I knew that, in good conscience, I couldn’t be feeding my children food that had pesticides on it. Where I lived in Iowa, I had to drive two hours one-way to get good organic food year round. So I’ve been really committed to that.
"I’m telling you that because now I’m sitting here, thirty years later, in a position that I’m concerned that some people might interpret as criticizing organic. Nothing could be further from the truth.
"My criticisms have been towards the corporations that I have watched take over this label, and that I have watched water down the label.
"It is with great hesitancy that I have ever criticized the National Organic Program because I never wanted to hurt the organic farmers. Now we sit here today where things are at, and I have to speak out.
"Now it’s up to us again. I’m really proud to be a part of a new movement, of the Real Organic Project. That's why I serve on the board. Once again we have the opportunity to lead this in the right direction. And once again, it is led by organic farmers."
Liz Henderson speaking on the NOFA panel.
From Liz: “In 1989 I was opposed to a USDA organic program. But I lost that fight, and I moved into trying to make the program that did pass into something that wouldn’t destroy smaller scale organic farms and certification programs.
“All three of you are critical of the NOP. You either advocate for an add-on label, or want to throw the NOP out altogether, and substitute your personal reputation. And while it is satisfying to sling epithets like faux organic, and declaim your own farm as exemplifying the guaranteed real label, I suggest that we need to think more strategically about the certified organic farms as a small, but important part of family-scale farming in this whole country. Farming that has been in crisis for most of my whole life.
“When I was born, there were over 5 million farms. Today there are two million. And farms continue to go out of business, their land gobbled up either by housing sprawl, or by more aggressive farms. Young people of color, or from slightly more privileged whites who did not inherent wealth, have way too many obstacles for establishing viable farms.
“Our movement to Buy Local has been tremendously successful. Eliot, I think you might have helped to double the number of farms that have been able to sell direct. But where Buy Local has been most successful like in parts of Vermont, it only accounts for 10% of the food that people eat. The other 90% of the food is still coming through third parties. The farms that sell that food, the commodity crops like beans, grains, milk, and the ingredients for processed food, and the consumers who buy it, depend on a label with integrity.
“For the immediate future, I think that creating add-on labels as our short-term survival plan makes sense. While we continue to struggle and, at least under this administration, continue to lose ground defending the NOP label, we must continue to use it. Our add-on label signaling to the relatively small part of the public that is paying attention, that these products are really organic, or even regenerative organic.”
I gave a workshop on the long effort to reform the National Organic Program, and the birth of the Real Organic Project.
From me at the workshop: "The Real Organic Project's goal is educational rather than marketing. Yes, we are creating a new label, so that organic farmers and eaters can find each other. At the moment there is no other way for the many people who don't live close enough to know their farmer. The National Organic Program has failed us on that. Labels are needed, but are never sufficient. Labels get stolen. We need to have citizens involved in how their food is grown. The consequences of agriculture are enormous. It will dictate our health, and our children's health, and our grandchildren's health.
"What started as an honest debate on hydroponics quickly devolved into a campaign of misinformation.
"We made the front page of the NY Times in 2016, showing how successful we have been in raising awareness of these issues. A leading lobbyist from Organic Trade Association was quoted in that article as saying that little distinguished a container system from a hydroponic system. He said, 'There really isn’t much difference.' A half year later, the same lobbyist testified to the NOSB, 'We need a clear distinction between hydroponic and container production.'
"What has happened is that the hydroponic producers have realized that people don’t want to buy hydroponic. That’s not what people are looking for when they go to buy organic. And the producers also realized that hydroponic was illegal. It was against the rules of OFPA. And they also realized that it was against the 2010 NOSB recommendation that clearly said hydro should not be allowed.
"So their solution was to say, 'Organic is what we say it is.' They decided they’re not hydroponic producers! They are 'container' producers. They invented this term called 'containerized' growing. And it’s actually just hydroponic production. They just came up with a new name for it. It was pretty brilliant. So instead of an honest discussion, we got into an enormously confused debate where some people on the NOSB were saying, 'I don’t know. I guess they’re not hydroponic.'
"Just as people need to be informed and to vote for a democracy to survive, so must eaters be informed and make positive choices for a sane agriculture to survive. David Bronner has said that each of us is a farmer, and our plate is our farm. The choices we make will decide how our food is grown. The goal of the Real Organic Project is to enable people to make better choices, to support the agriculture that they mean to support."
Jack and Anne Lazor of Butterworks Farm during their ROP inspection.
The landscape is shifting rapidly. Nature's Path has left the OTA, citing the OTA support of hydroponics and also their support of the GMO labeling Dark Act. Monsanto lost a major lawsuit on RoundUp, creating a crack in their armor. Bay State Organic and CCOF are now certifiers of major hydroponic operations. Secretary Perdue contemptuously dismisses dissent about organic as the work of socialists. It is no simple thing to keep our balance in this changing reality. We need to support each other.
Mike Brownback being inspected at his Spiral Path Farm in Pennsylvania.
Anais Beddard during inspection at Lady Moon Farm in Pennsylvania.
The Real Organic Project has upcoming workshops this winter at NOFA MA, NOFA NY, NOFA VT, PASA in Pennsylvania, Great Plains Growers Conference, Stone Barns Young Farmers Conference, Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group, and EcoFarm in California.
Advisory Board member Eliot Coleman is giving the keynote at the Acres USA conference. Advisory Board member Liz Henderson is giving the keynote at the Ohio Ecological Food And Farm Association Winter Conference. Advisory Board member Fred Kirschenmann is giving the keynote at the AAIE Conference in California. Advisory Board member Kris Nichols will talk a bit about Real Organic Project at the Soil & Nutrition, EcoFarm, and Acres conferences. Prolific Standards Board member Alan Lewis will be speaking at University of Colorado, CSU, Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance, Quivira Regenerate Conference, American Grassfed Annual Conference, Expo East, Green America Carbon Farming Summit, and teh Colorado Vegetable Growers Association.
Please come and learn more. Together we are a movement.
Jim Crawford at New Morning Farm in Pennsylvania during his ROP inspection.
Former NOSB member Jim Riddle and Joyce Ford at Blue Fruit Farm in Minnesotta during their ROP inspection.
NOSB member and farmer Steve Ela during his ROP inspection in Colorado.
Former NOSB member Nick Maravell and farmworker Sarah Cimbal being inspected by Linley Dixon at Nick's Organic Farm in Maryland.
If you're new to these letters: I'm Dave Chapman, organic farmer at Long Wind Farm in Vermont. I write occasional updates on important things I think you'd like to know about the organic farming movement. To learn more, please follow me on Facebook, and become a member of the Real Organic Project.
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