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Organic as a Movement
77 Plays3 days ago
What does the USDA organic seal really mean? The USDA organic seal represents decades of organizing within the agricultural community to establish a codified system of principles and practices for crop and food production that works in partnership with nature, rather than against it. In this episode, Kate speaks with two long-time organic advocates and farmers about the effort to establish and uphold a national standard for organic foods and the value of the USDA organic seal for the consumer and producer.
The Taproot Podcast is an initiative of the Midwest Transition to Organic Partnership Program, a project funded by the USDA National Organic Program to support transitioning and organic producers with mentorship and technical assistance and to grow the greater organic community. Learn more at organictransition.org.
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Guest Bios
Mac Stone was Executive Director of Marketing for the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. He administered the Kentucky Proud Program and helped establish the USDA National Organic Program organic certification accreditation. He was the Certifier Representative on the National Organic Standards Board and is now Chair Emeritus. Mac recently retired from Kentucky State University, where he administered a grant program for small-scale farmers after 20 years of managing their research farm. He now focuses on farming and marketing organic foods with his family on Elmwood Stock Farm.
Harriet Behar has been working extensively in the organic industry for over 30 years. She is an organic farmer, has served on the National Organic Standards Board, worked as an organic inspector, NRCS Technical Service Provider, and as an organic consultant and educator for organic crops, handling, and livestock scopes. Harriet and her husband own and operate Sweet Springs Farm in Wisconsin where they grow certified organic vegetables, and culinary and medicinal herbs, raise chickens for eggs and meat, and manage honeybee hives. The farm provides Harriet the opportunity to work in all aspects of farm management, from early planning stages through end market sales.
Helpful Links
- Organic Basics
- National Organic Program
- National Organic Standards Board
- NOP Organic Standards
- Organic Food Production Act 1990
- Kentucky Proud
Credits
This work was funded and supported by the USDA National Organic Program, Transition to Organic Partnership Program (TOPP)
Produced by Kate Cowie-Haskell
Podcast art by Geri Shonka
Music
- Ghost Solos by Lucas Gonze, from the Free Music Archive
- Chasin It by Jason Shaw, from the Free Music Archive
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to the Taproot Project Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome everyone. My name is Kate and you are listening to the Taproot Project. We share stories of changemakers in Midwestern agriculture. And in this episode, we are going to unpack the meaning of organic.
00:00:13
Speaker
What does a USDA certified organic label actually mean for us as consumers and as farmers and how did it come to be? Thanks for being here.
Understanding Organic Practices and USDA Standards
00:00:33
Speaker
Organic practices emphasize using natural inputs and processes that support ecosystem health. And this has been the norm for agriculture throughout human history. But in this episode, when we talk about organic, we are specifically referring to food that meets the USDA organic standards.
00:00:51
Speaker
And when we talk about organic as a movement, we mean the effort to unify food producers, regulators, and consumers in an understanding of what sustainable agricultural practices are.
00:01:04
Speaker
The push for a national organic standard is one of the largest farmer-led efforts to effect change at the federal level, and the movement is ongoing.
Max Stone's Organic Farming Journey
00:01:13
Speaker
I spoke to two people who have been in the weeds, literally, of organic production for decades.
00:01:18
Speaker
First, I'll introduce Max Stone. He's a farmer based in Kentucky, recently retired from Kentucky State University. He now mentors organic farmers while holding down the livestock operations on his family's 400-acre The farm's about 400 acres.
00:01:35
Speaker
John does about 35 or 40 acres of vegetables. He's got 60 or 70 Angus, Wagyu, cross cows, few pigs. I do sheep, turkeys, both broad-breasted and heritage, eggs and broilers.
00:01:54
Speaker
When did organic enter the picture for your farm? When my oldest daughter was three, I told her not to be eating any green beans out of the garden because I put poison on to kill the bugs.
00:02:05
Speaker
She looked at me and said, really, Dad, you put poison on our food? And just looked at me with these big brown eyes, and I didn't have a good answer for her. And then it was that year or the next year, my boss, we were raising tomatoes, and he asked why I wasn't taking any of these extras home.
00:02:25
Speaker
And I said, well, I have some that in my garden that haven't been sprayed. And he looked at me with even bigger brown eyes and said, really? So that was my start into organics.
00:02:36
Speaker
I
Harriet Behar's Contributions to Organic Farming
00:02:37
Speaker
also spoke with Harriet Behar, a farmer and organic inspector based in Wisconsin. Early in her career, she helped start Organic Valley, which is now the largest farmer-owned organic collective in North America.
00:02:50
Speaker
I remember one farm I went to as an inspector and I looked at the woman and I said, when I die, I want to come back as one of your cows.
00:03:02
Speaker
She got a little freaked out. but I spoke to Mac and Harriet separately, but you'll hear their voices alongside each other in this episode.
00:03:13
Speaker
Interest in certified organic farming grew among both consumers and farmers in the second half of the 1900s. But up until 1990, organic certification happened within state or regional systems.
00:03:26
Speaker
A national organic standard did not exist until the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990.
Evolution of National Organic Standards
00:03:33
Speaker
I asked Mack and Harriet to describe how we came to have a national organic standard.
00:03:39
Speaker
So in the late, well, in the mid-1980s or so, there were um private organic certification agencies, and they all had slightly different certification requirements. Different set of standards and different fee schedules and different inspection schedules. And so, ah but they, what we were doing Kentucky probably wasn't up to snuff with what the industry standard was in California.
00:04:14
Speaker
So it it impeded interstate commerce of organics. And so there was a lot of head-butting. And it it undermined people's trust in the label of, well, no, my friend over here is using this. And in 1989, I remember this quite clearly, there was someone who made an organic ice cream. And then, course, there was no federal law.
00:04:42
Speaker
And the state of Wisconsin was considering a state law, but then they knew the feds were working on on it. So they kind of said, well, it would supersede our law anyway.
00:04:53
Speaker
So they kind of backed down, but we were like pushing them to have a law because this person was selling organic ice cream. And the only thing in the in the ice cream that was certified organic was the milk.
00:05:08
Speaker
not the fruit, not the sugar, not the cream. They were buying in conventional cream. So by adopting, which took the the legislature, said we're going to do this in 1990. Then in the year 2000, in that period, they developed the framework of the standards and approved it Then it took another two years to get all the the players lined up in the certification agencies and refine the regulations to where then there was the same set of standards for me in Kentucky as somebody in California Washington State or anywhere.
00:05:52
Speaker
Because there was like the LR scare on the apples, not the scare, the LR thing. When DDT, they figured out DDT was harming wild birds. The thin eggshell thing that kind of solidified this need for this movement because there's enough people that were asking for it.
00:06:15
Speaker
The two chemicals Mack just mentioned, ALR and DDT, helped transform public awareness of chemical use in agriculture. DDT was a pesticide used in World War twoi and then incorporated into agriculture and public health interventions at home.
00:06:30
Speaker
Rachel Carson's Silent Spring famously outlined the ecological impacts of DDT, especially on bird populations. And ALR is a growth regulator sprayed on apples and known to be carcinogenic to humans.
00:06:44
Speaker
After 1989
Public Perception of Organic Farming
00:06:45
Speaker
exposé on 60 Minutes that detailed the effects of the chemical on children, there was a national apple boycott, leading apple sales to fall by over 60% that spring.
00:06:56
Speaker
Today, the public generally understands that anything labeled organic is not treated with harmful chemicals, maybe because of the collective alarm over DDT and ALR. But the organic label actually guarantees a lot more than no chemicals.
00:07:12
Speaker
Can
Organic Certification Process Explained
00:07:13
Speaker
you say a little bit more for a person who um maybe knows that they're supposed to, you know, that organic's good for them and that they should, you know, shop organic, but they don't really maybe know what that label means? Can you can you outline what an organic, certified organic label actually means for um a consumer?
00:07:35
Speaker
So when you see that logo on a package at the grocery store or on a piece of fruit, um it has been vetted to the nth degree. Each year, we submit a packet of information to our certifier, who for us is the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, who is accredited to administer the National Organic Program.
00:07:59
Speaker
So they have to do their due diligence to do a good job of certifying their farmer. We submit this packet of documents to tell them how we're going to grow all these things without pesticides, without herbicides, where we're going to source our seeds and everything about it, the feed, all the inputs that meet the organic standards.
00:08:22
Speaker
They send out an inspector once a year, and the inspector comes and they they rake through all the the receipts and documents and sales and tracking of this, that, and the other.
00:08:34
Speaker
For example, when I sell the organic eggs, I have a certificate that the pullet, the young chicken that I bought, came from a certified organic farm. He'd already been inspected and everything.
00:08:48
Speaker
The feed that I buy comes from a certified organic feed mill. They've already been inspected and vetted as organic. um But that's not good enough. They want to track the number of chickens matches the amount of feed because they can only eat so much feed in the day.
00:09:06
Speaker
And the number of eggs has to match. And if that doesn't line up, then they say, you're out because you can't prove that this is your egg. they They can do that with anything and everything we sell.
00:09:19
Speaker
Wow. How's that for you as a as a farmer? Does that feel cumbersome? Does it feel worthwhile, all of the above? um <unk> No, most of it is good business. I need to know how much my chickens are eating. I need to know their rate of lay. I need to dock you i need to know that anyway.
00:09:40
Speaker
Packaging it for them is kind of a pain a little bit, but having been certified for 22 three years, Now we know it's coming. we kind of we When we keep the records, then it's ready to go for the inspection.
00:09:55
Speaker
We like a tough inspection. Somebody that really dives in and makes sure and really, you know, there's some there's some, you know, fuzzy math over here on these tomatoes, whatever, um that we can prove what's right because if it wasn't tough, it wouldn't mean anything.
00:10:13
Speaker
The organic label also mandates that farming practices protect soil, water, and animal welfare. And again, when we think about animal agriculture, the first step in organic is promotion of health, is anything to lessen stress.
00:10:32
Speaker
and you know give them uh you know don't have them in a dark damp place you know it needs to be sunny and good good air circulation and that their bedding is clean and that they're getting high quality feed and that they're getting exercise it also means that the farmer involved is is really um
00:11:04
Speaker
caring about their ecosystem. That they realize that we're all downstream of each other. They want to have clean rivers. They want to have clean air.
Principles of Organic Farming
00:11:16
Speaker
They want to leave their soil and their the legacy of their livestock to their children or to the next person who buys them in the healthiest state possible.
00:11:30
Speaker
Creating a shared understanding of what organic actually means is an ongoing effort.
NOSB's Role in Organic Standards
00:11:35
Speaker
The Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 also established something called the National Organic Standards Board, or NOSB.
00:11:43
Speaker
The board consists of 15 cross-sector volunteers who advise the USDA on organic matters. Both Harriet and Mack have served on this board. Mack shared how the board decides what belongs in organic agriculture.
00:11:59
Speaker
Right before I got on this call with you, I pulled up the latest NOSB working agenda. um And it was, I mean, it's extensive. It's like a, let's see, 26-page document. And the items are just say things like um ozone, sodium hydroxide, beet juice extract color. So in your meetings, are you just going through this list and discussing ah the pros and cons of allowing that in organic certification.
00:12:34
Speaker
So every item sunsets every five years. So every five years, everything has to be either put back on the list, kept on the list, or taken off the list.
00:12:44
Speaker
Because with new information, new technologies, it may not be necessary. um So that keeps it updated. But then there's also companies or businesses that petition the board to add their product onto this list.
00:13:00
Speaker
of allowed or usable substances. So it's a combination. I'll give you an example. um we were We were petitioned when I was on the board, we were petitioned to allow photo degradable plastic. You know, plastic's a big deal. We're trying to get organic plastic out of organics all we can. So they came to the board with this biodegradable plastic.
00:13:23
Speaker
Well, we talked, so we had committee meetings weekly, maybe every other week, don't exaggerate, but it seemed like every other day. discussed all the pros and cons, what are the polymers, what are the binding agents, blah, blah, blah. And we decided that basically it was probably okay, but we didn't allow it because they were using GMO corn to make it and we didn't wanna promote GMO corn.
00:13:49
Speaker
So we stayed with plastic plastic. I asked Mac to say more about the decision to keep GMOs out of organic certification. here's Here's one story, kind of a tangent to organic, but very much organic.
00:14:04
Speaker
The um GMO corn pollen situation. The problem is the GMO corn, they can't keep their genes sipped up when they If you have GMO corn on your farm,
00:14:19
Speaker
and the pollen blows over onto my organic corn, then i can't sell my corn as organic because it's tainted with with genetic modified genes.
00:14:31
Speaker
Then if I save that seed, even unwillingly, knowing that it was contaminated, if I save it to plant it next year, they can sue me for stealing the genetics because I didn't pay for their intellectual property of those genetics.
00:14:46
Speaker
but I can't sue them for ruining my organic corn. And that's Keith's law. Really? That's already been tested. you've There's no case that a farmer can bring against a... No.
00:14:58
Speaker
Wow. Wow. It's like if you have a purple house I got a white house, you spray your purple house, it gets on my white house. I can't sue you for damaging my white house, but you can sue me for stealing your paint.
00:15:12
Speaker
That's a good metaphor. But the real, so GMOs are so not allowed in organic, it's not even in the regulation. it's It doesn't say, well, you can't, I can't, you know, doesn't say that.
00:15:26
Speaker
In the definition section, before you get to the regulation, says GMOs are so not allowed, we're going to talk about it ever again in this book. um So the the the audacity of the GMO industry that they think they can run roughshod over mother nature, you know, because you you hear about, so they they have this GMO corn to keep the earworm from eating the corn kernels.
00:15:57
Speaker
Well, if part of the field doesn't get covered right or the mix isn't right or whatever, over time, some of these corn earworms don't die from it.
00:16:08
Speaker
They have some resistance to it. So then they live and procreate. And then the next year and many generations later, they have adapted to this toxin to where it doesn't kill them anymore.
00:16:22
Speaker
So they resisted it, then they adapted it. And so now the GMO guy, people have to keep tweaking their formulas to keep killing these insects as they y evolve.
00:16:33
Speaker
So you go from resistance to adaption. If you spread that out, it's called evolution, right?
Debate: Natural Evolution vs. GMO Technologies
00:16:41
Speaker
And so we're on the side of 4.5 billion years of evolution, not 30 or 40 years of lab bench technology.
00:16:50
Speaker
I just imagine that the NOSB gets a like pretty intense lobbying pressure. You think? How do you navigate that as a board? So here's an example.
00:17:03
Speaker
um When they first adopted the organic rule, sulfite, added sulfite was allowed in wine because that was a norm in winemaking.
00:17:16
Speaker
Well, and with that sunset every five years, we had to re reassess that need. And some organic winemakers came, petitioned the board and said, and consumer advocates were saying sulfates and sulfites, you know, can cause some health people and a lot of people have trouble with those.
00:17:34
Speaker
we think organic wine should not have added sulfites. It was allowed because all grape and wine have natural sulfites. So, oh, what's a little bit more? Okay, we'll get started, yeah, it's fine.
00:17:47
Speaker
But so we discussed that for several years, a couple of years at least, should we have sulfites added or not. the wine makers The organic winemakers said it's you add sulfites if you have a very clean, sanitary process of winemaking, you do not need to add sulfites. It's kind of like a a Band-Aid um that may or may not be necessary.
00:18:13
Speaker
So we took it out. And the meeting where we were going to vote on it, we had international wine importers and people flew from France and all over the world to tell us, no, you got to leave this stuff in there or else, you know, it's going to ruin our businesses.
00:18:31
Speaker
And millions of dollars of organic wine fell off the shelf because we took it out. They were not happy. And now there's more organic wine because they can't rely on that crutch.
00:18:46
Speaker
of added sulfites. So they they make the wine in a way that they don't need to add sulfites in organic wines coming back. Same with hops. Hops inorganic beer, you didn't have to have organic hops because there wasn't any.
00:19:02
Speaker
Well, when I was on the board, the hop farmers said, there'll never be organic hops if you don't require it. We required organic hops. Big, big beer was not happy with us.
00:19:15
Speaker
And now organic beer is starting to come back into the fold. Well, now in your in your farming life, you also dedicate a large portion of your time towards mentorship for other farmers who might be interested in in adopting organic practices.
Mentorship in Organic Farming
00:19:30
Speaker
When a farmer reaches out and needs support with mentorship, what do you find are the biggest questions or hurdles that they're grappling with? There's there's two basic questions.
00:19:40
Speaker
hurdles. um One is they're scared of making a mistake. What if I do all this and then I use the wrong thing or whatever? Because like on in the regulations called the standards, the standards will say like on page 30 something, you can use salt.
00:20:00
Speaker
On page 40 something, it says you can't use salt. but what's What's up with that? You know, Well, it's it's vital nutrient in osmosis of nutrients in animals, but you can't use it as a herbicide.
00:20:15
Speaker
So the regulations, you have to sort of interpret and massage it in your mind to clear how this works for me. That fear of of confusion or making a mistake.
00:20:28
Speaker
um Then there's the other side of product input substitution. That's what was trying to think of. so yes, there are some people say, oh, well they're allowed to spray pesticides inorganic.
00:20:43
Speaker
Yes, that's true. because the boar, the NOSB, approved this natural occurring fungus that kills certain species, very targeted species of insects, like the little cabbage green cabbage loopers.
00:20:57
Speaker
It doesn't hurt anything else in the on the farm. So truth, technically, we're allowed to spray the pesticide, but not those thousands of other pesticides. um So there's there's confusion and so and fear of of getting it right once you adopt.
00:21:16
Speaker
The fun part of being a mentor is watching people come relax. they Once they start assimilating all this information and they start to get it,
00:21:28
Speaker
they're just so empowered like, I got this, I can farm without having to spray these pesticides and oh, what about this and how about that? And then one of the mentees that I had this year, he was just going to certify some land and hay ground just because he wanted to. He was fine, he has sheep.
00:21:48
Speaker
But by the end of our mentorship process, he's going to certify organic his sheep and you can just see his wheels turn. And now he's considering certifying his grapes that are in the middle of the sheep pasture because he's learning more and and the intrigue and the excitement of of figuring it out is is what motivates a lot of people to to go all the way towards organic.
00:22:13
Speaker
And then you got to help them to understand that the paperwork's not that big a deal. if you kind of keep up with it as you go. Today, consumer interest in organic is growing. According to the Organic Trade Association, millennials and Gen Z are leading the charge in organic purchasing.
00:22:30
Speaker
Younger buyers are also showing increasing interest in the ecosystem benefits of organic, not just the personal health benefits. Currently, the demand for organic products in the U.S. outstrips domestic organic production.
00:22:42
Speaker
I
Supporting New Organic Farmers
00:22:43
Speaker
asked Harriet what she thinks needs to happen so that more acres are transitioned into organic. What, what? new organic farmers need is not so many dollars per acre or how many dollars per cow or animal to transition.
00:22:59
Speaker
They needed mentorship and technical assistance because, and the existing organic farmers didn't want a flood of low quality organic product coming in.
00:23:13
Speaker
They wanted the new people to to know everything that they know. So they're doing as good a job because we want that organic product to be a very high quality.
00:23:25
Speaker
and And so basically mentorship and technical assistance And the other thing is um more support by in in the public domain.
00:23:39
Speaker
So let's let's get organic milk in schools. Let's get organic food in hospitals. Now we have had some programs start in drop back off and on and off, but a concerted effort. And we've seen this in Europe, that having that public procurement, what it does is it it normalizes organic as it's not this kind of strange thing or only for the elite, but it also provides a steady market to the producer. So again, in marketing, you want to have numerous
00:24:20
Speaker
outlets right so if one kind of goes down or you lose customer whatever you're not just only stuck with so it's nice having this this market here the institutions and then i go to farmers market and then i have the csa and then i have some wholesalers that i sell to and then that was a nice mix for the growers so that's that's what i would say public procurement and the the the continuation of this technical assistance and mentorship because organic as it says in the definition is site specific so if there is it's not like conventional agri just come in and spray it doesn't matter if it's sandy soil or clay soil or it's on a hillside or it's flat or whatever organic
00:25:11
Speaker
Each area, you're paying attention to that ecosystem. And so when you have a mentor that has already worked through some of the kinks of that ecosystem, you're so far ahead when you are about to then embark on your own organic journey. So that's why the mentorship, and there's nothing like two farmers working together and trying to solve problems together.
Conclusion and Feedback Invitation
00:25:48
Speaker
Thank you to Harriet and Mac for their time. This is the last episode in this installment of the Taproot Project. We'd love to know what stories of creative and alternative projects in Midwestern agriculture you'd like to hear about next.
00:26:01
Speaker
So leave us a comment. The Taproot Project is produced by me, Kate Cowie Haskell. This podcast is an initiative of the Midwest Transition to Organic Partnership Program.
00:26:11
Speaker
a project funded by the USDA National Organic Program to support transitioning and organic producers with mentorship and technical assistance and to grow the greater organic community.
00:26:22
Speaker
Learn more at OrganicTransition.org.