By Sue Ellen Johnson
The USDA standards for “USDA certified organic” were being revised last week. Every six months the “National Organic Standards Board” (NOSB) reviews and revises the minimum requirements for organic certification as outlined in the “USDA-NOP” – the “National Organic Program”.
Every state’s organic membership organization, including VABF, should be part of the discussion. We should be supported by all advocates for decentralized, local food systems. We have the right to know about our food and the farming that produces our food. We need to control and influence the integrity of our movement.
Big agribusiness controls our country’s current consolidated, synthetic, industrial food supply. Agribusiness representatives for factory farming and the consolidated, subsidized, synthetic food system appear to have positioned themselves to dominate and co-opt these NOSB discussions (as they have co-opted the concept of “sustainable”).
The consequence is consumer confusion, loss of trust, loss of markets, industrial farms replacing family farms, less control of our food supply, a deteriorating environment and the quality of foods labeled “organic”.
We must protect “organic” as a term and a principle –even as we strive to farm “beyond organic” as currently defined.
Be informed!
VABF was not at the NOSB meeting. Follow the links below to get the perspectives of two organizations that were at the NOSB table.
Cornucopia Institute: http://www.cornucopia.org/
National Organic Coalition: http://www.nationalorganiccoalition.org/
- Contact your local Farm Bureau, Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, and USDA leaders. Offer consumer as well as farmer and gardener perspectives; support consumers’ right to know about their food.
- Encourage more stringent USDA organic standards, not ongoing erosion of organic in principle and in practice. Your statements should be informed as well as opinionated. Cite your sources of info and clarify that you are concerned and engaged!
- Encourage better representation of organizations that represent the vast majority of organic farmers.
Thank you,
Sue Ellen Johnson
Executive Director
Virginia Association for Biological Farming
