Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Feed the Soil, Not the Plant with the Real Organic Project
181 Plays4 years ago
In this episode of the Direct Farm Podcast we're excited to welcome, Abby Lundrigan, Certification and Farmer Liason at Real Organic Project. The Real Organic Project is a farmer-led movement created to distinguish soil-grown and pasture-raised products under USDA organic. In response to the lack of enforcement of some vital USDA Organic standards to protect soil health and animal welfare, organic farmers rallied together to fight to protect the integrity of the organic label.
Show Notes:
https://www.realorganicproject.org/
https://www.barn2door.com/resources
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction & Focus on Farm Success
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to the Direct Farm podcast, the weekly listen for farm selling direct. We'll talk about the four levers for farm success, which are quality, brand, price, and convenience. We'll hear from outside industry experts and producers like you to delight your customers, save time and to increase your direct farm sales and business. We're glad you're here.
00:00:26
Speaker
Welcome to the Direct Farm podcast. I'm Rory, your host for today's
Introduction to Real Organic Project
00:00:30
Speaker
podcast. We've got a great conversation for you today with the Real Organic Project. Real Organic Project is a nonprofit organization dedicated to growing people's understanding of the foundational organic values and practices, including crops grown in soil and livestock raised on pasture.
00:00:46
Speaker
They also offer an add-on label to the USDA organic certification to provide more transparency on organic farming practices. I'm delighted to welcome Abby Lundergan, the certification and farmer liaison at Real Organic Project. Welcome, Abby. Thanks for joining. It's great to have you here. Thank you, Rory. I'm very excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Real Organic Project's Mission and Challenges
00:01:05
Speaker
Yeah. So for farmers who may have never heard of the Real Organic Project, could you just give us a little bit of an overview and maybe kind of how the organization got started and a little bit about what you've accomplished to this point today?
00:01:18
Speaker
Yes. So as you mentioned, we are focused on promoting or highlighting certified organic farms that are raising livestock on pasture and that are soil focused. So are growing their crops in soil. And those probably sound like kind of strange things to go specify or call out, but the.
00:01:38
Speaker
project, the organization was kind of born out of some recent developing issues in organic integrity and organic enforcement. So namely, there have been in the last several years, more and more hydroponic operations certified as organic and not labeled as hydroponic. So we're attempting to distinguish
00:01:59
Speaker
farms that are growing crops and soil, since that is one of the foundational tenants of the organic standards in the organic program. And there are some issues with livestock not actually being on pasture and having kind of questionable access to pasture and not actually grazing. So essentially what we're trying to do is certify farms and educate the public on the fact that most organic farms match the picture that they have in their head when they think of an organic farm.
00:02:28
Speaker
I would say the vast majority of them, they have their cows on pasture. They have beautiful blueberry bushes or vegetables or row crops growing in healthy living soil. But recently there have been a very few but very large sort of bad actors that have entered the marketplace and started to kind of erode
00:02:48
Speaker
the consumer confidence in the organic label and find some loopholes or workarounds to not really be meeting those standards or meeting, especially the image of what people think of when they think of organic agriculture. What are some of those specific problems that certified organic farmers kind of face that the Real Organic Project is trying to kind of help correct and support
Concerns About Organic Certification Integrity
00:03:10
Speaker
The first thing that comes to mind probably because I was just at the organic green conference is I think that's one of the major issues is a problem with imported green that is not organic somehow mysteriously becoming labeled as organic once it reaches courts in the United States and enters the country.
00:03:29
Speaker
And that causes a problem for the organic grain farmers here that are actually raising their crops organically. They have trouble competing in that marketplace. They can't match the prices that imported grain is going for and it is oftentimes not actually. So that is one
00:03:46
Speaker
specific thing that comes to mind. And that also creates kind of a cascading effect where a large portion of that grain is potentially or probably going to feed certified organic livestock because certified organic livestock have to be fed certified organic grain. And then you get into this issue of, you know, there's potentially certified organic livestock not being fed the organic grain they're supposed to be getting. And that grain is also not coming from actual organic farms here.
00:04:13
Speaker
So that's one specific issue that comes to mind. Another one, which I kind of touched on is just this issue of the allowance of hydroponics as being certified organic. I would say less about the specific system of raising something hydroponically and more about these methods of raising crops that do not involve those crops growing in living soil.
00:04:37
Speaker
One thing that comes to mind is a lot of organic berry production is actually done in large containers. So there will be acres of berries that have like a landscape or weed fabric on the actual ground covering the soil. And then all of the strawberries or blueberries or whatever are grown in these really large pots. And they might have some kind of inert soil like media and then like
00:05:04
Speaker
some combination of peat moss are almost like potting soil, but they're getting a majority of their nutrition from liquid fertilizer.
Real Organic Project Standards vs. USDA
00:05:13
Speaker
And in addition to that aspect, there's really not any stewardship of the underlying actual native soil on that land when production is happening that way.
00:05:24
Speaker
And we are not necessarily against those methods of production. There's just an issue in our minds with those methods being certified as organic and on top of that, not being differentiated or labeled as, you know, container grown or hydroponic. I think that when somebody goes to the store and buys organic blueberries, they have, again, this idea in their head or this image in their head, you know, rows of blueberry bushes growing in the ground.
00:05:50
Speaker
And, you know, strips of grass in between or the bushes getting mulched or like habitat for wildlife being part of the equation. And people have that image in their head, but it is often and increasingly not the case with the organic berries that are available to them in the marketplace. And that is just an issue of.
00:06:10
Speaker
transparency. And the reason that we see this container production or soilless production as an issue is because there's a standard in the National Organic Program that says that an organic farm should be managing their system or growing their crops in a way that actively maintains or improves the health and biology and chemistry and organic matter, etc., of the soil that they're growing in.
00:06:38
Speaker
And that is kind of a foundational tenet of the National Organic Program. And a lot of the rules around organic production kind of are based on that assumption that you're growing in soil. So rules around being able to apply micronutrients or perform soil tests or apply amendments are predicated on this assumption that you're growing in soil.
00:06:58
Speaker
Because that is a foundational concept of organic agriculture, it's just kind of one of the major issues that we're working on.
Add-on Certification for Integrity
00:07:06
Speaker
When that transparency isn't there, it makes it really difficult for the farmers that are growing their blueberry bushes in soil and have wildlife habitats and are stewarding and actively improving or maintaining the
00:07:20
Speaker
soil that they're growing in, it creates a marketplace that they just can't compete in. And then that kind of watered down product becomes the lowest common denominator, or it becomes what is the majority of what's available in the marketplace. Why did Real Organic Project choose an add-on certification to the current USDA certification of organic?
00:07:41
Speaker
That is a really great question and one that I get a lot from farmers that are interested in what we're doing or just probably one of the most common questions in general. And it's funny because people are either very glad or very disappointed that we are an add-on certification. And I think the people that are glad feel the way that they do is because the standards as they're written in the national organic program are really solid.
00:08:07
Speaker
And it has been a very successful industry and the people that worked to make it happen and to create the standards and the set of rules in this system, the farmers that were involved in that from the beginning put a lot of work into it and have seen it be very successful. And the fact that it has been as successful as it has, and the fact that it's an industry that generates billions and billions of dollars is the reason that these very large
00:08:33
Speaker
corporate entities have decided we would like to make some of that money. We would not necessarily like to follow the rules, but we would like to get a piece of that pie and have kind of found these loopholes and are creating these problems for the smaller, legitimate, passionate, committed, real organic farmers. So because that foundational system is really solid and has been working, we kind of want to fight to
00:08:59
Speaker
fix it or to keep it and to not surrender it to those bad interests. So I probably told you guys this when we first talked, but an analogy that I have heard Dave, our executive director use is my friends and I built this swing set. It's a great swing set, works great.
00:09:15
Speaker
And some bullies noticed how great it was and decided that they wanted to take it over. And I could definitely go and build another swing set. I know how to do it. We built one that was working really well, but I already made this one and I don't want to give it up. Yeah. I love that analogy too. I think it really does sum up what you guys are doing very well.
00:09:37
Speaker
It's such a beautifully simplistic line of revisiting. And I think it really resonates with people that have been certified organic for a very long time and really confident and passionate about their own practices and how they align with organic standards or how the standards align with what they're doing. So that is essentially the reason that real organic project was designed to be an add-on certification and not an alternative.
Mistrust & Differentiation in Organic Labeling
00:10:03
Speaker
And I think another reason is that.
00:10:06
Speaker
There is already, because of the issue that we've talked about, a degree of mistrust or kind of an erosion of confidence on the consumer side in the organic label. And the last thing that we want to do is contribute to that by creating something completely alternative.
00:10:25
Speaker
People generally understand what it means for a farm to be certified organic. But at the same time, even when I was farming, before I worked for Real Organic Project, I would have customers come up to me at the farmer's market and say, oh, that doesn't really mean anything, does it? You just want to charge more. So I think there's a little bit of confusion or lack of trust already in the marketplace. And we would like to fix that and not contribute to it.
00:10:50
Speaker
Definitely. I feel like there's so many terms that you come across on a daily basis, like new verbiage of what is like a clean or sustainable or regenerative or past your base to pass your raise. There's just so many different terms out there.
00:11:04
Speaker
I think all of those terms have also come up and are not really, are often not regulated because of that kind of creeping mistrust or lack of confidence. Because all of those terms, pasture raised or grass bed, they're all kind of fall under the umbrella of what organic means. It's just that.
00:11:24
Speaker
organic has started to not mean what it is supposed to mean and was originally supposed to mean. So these other terms you had to kind of crap up to be an additional differentiation when really that's what organic has always meant past your race. Could you maybe talk about like, what does that mean today? Just the base level USDA organic certification and what does that kind of allow?
00:11:48
Speaker
Yeah, so our soil management standards are actually exactly the same as the way that the National Organic Program standard for soil management is written. And the difference is just in how we interpret it. We expressly prohibit hydroponic or container production.
00:12:07
Speaker
So there's not a whole lot of difference in terms of crop production. Things start to diverge more with the livestock standards. So one thing that comes to mind is there is a standard in the National Organic Program that requires a certain amount of ruminant animal speed to come from dry matter. So there's a dry matter intake percentage calculation that farms do and a certain
00:12:33
Speaker
amount of their dry matter intake is supposed to come from pasture. And the natural organic program standard for that is I believe 30%. So 30% of their diet essentially is, is supposed to come from actively growing pasture and our standards is 50%. So it's a little bit higher there. And then we do actually require not just
00:12:55
Speaker
access to the outdoors. An example that comes to mind there is like with chickens. With organic poultry or egg production they are required to have outdoor access but that often means that in a very very large
00:13:12
Speaker
House or structure that is that is housing all of these chickens they you know there's thousands of them in this structure and there's one tiny little door that they're definitely not using or not all able to feasibly access that goes out onto a concrete.
00:13:29
Speaker
porch instead of grass. And that is certainly not, like I said, what people think of when they feed chickens that have outdoor access. So we have some more strict and more specific requirements of the way that we, the way that we kind of verify that outdoor access and that they are actually
00:13:50
Speaker
going on to pasture is a little bit more strict. We want to see a certain minimal amount of vegetative cover and very legitimate and clearly being used access for the birds. And then we also have pretty specific.
00:14:06
Speaker
space requirements for both indoor and outdoor areas for poultry. So those are the specific divergent things in our standards that come to mind. The only other one that I can think of off the top of my head is we, we also have labor standards. National organic program doesn't have any labor standards. And that was something that we wanted to incorporate because what we're really trying to do is look
00:14:28
Speaker
at the farm, instead of checking a bunch of boxes to kind of certify a singular product the way that organic certification does, since we're building on top of that work that has already been done by the farms since they're already certified organic, what we're looking at is more of a holistic picture of the entire farm.
00:14:47
Speaker
Yeah. There's a lot of farmers who maybe just don't see the value in one paying for that certification and kind of going through that process and taking the time to do so. So what would kind of be your response to, to a farmer who might say that to you? I'm sure that's something that you've run into before. I think about this a lot because I worked on a farm before I worked a real organic project and it was a certified organic farm, but I often thought about if I had my own farm, if
00:15:12
Speaker
organic certification is something that I would pursue or not. And there was a time when I would have said that I wouldn't. And I think that my feelings about that have changed or shifted largely because I think a lot of firms that are operating that way when the OMS is prohibitive, that is just something that I completely understand.
00:15:31
Speaker
I think that all farms are going to design their system and get whatever certifications they're pursuing or not pursuing based on their specific market and what's going to work for them. So for a lot of farms, it just doesn't make sense or the scale that they're on makes it cost prohibitive for them to pursue organic certification.
00:15:48
Speaker
So things like that I completely understand and I would love to see organic certification be completely free for all parts to kind of at least remove that barrier. Cost aside the decision to not be certified is often rooted in this line of reasoning that, you know, my customers know me and they know my practices. I have a relationship with them.
00:16:09
Speaker
I don't need a certification to prove to my customers that they can be confident in what I'm doing. And I also completely understand that. And that's kind of the line of thinking that I initially had when I was pondering this in thinking about what I would do if I had my own farm. But working for Real Organic Project especially has really.
00:16:29
Speaker
highlighted for me that there are all kinds of organic farms that are all kinds of different sizes and have all kinds of different customers. And I love the know your farmer idea. I would love to know exactly where and who everything that I consume came from. That is pretty much completely not feasible or very, very difficult these days. And there's at least.
00:16:55
Speaker
something that you're probably going to the grocery store for. And I would like to be able to confidently have a way to make a choice when I can't know my farmer or when I can't know where something is coming from. And I think that's why I personally want it to be a really strong program because a lot of people rely on it to make their choices. And I think that a lot of farmers rely on it to demonstrate what they're doing to a consumer that they don't have a direct relationship with.
00:17:22
Speaker
Something that I think we always are telling farmers is that, you know, your customers probably do have a really good understanding of the practices that you use at your farm. And if you have a good relationship with them and they know you, then that's really great. And that obviously is the core to starting your business is having that trust with your customers.
USDA Organic Certification Process
00:17:39
Speaker
But for generating new customers and growing that audience, you know, those people aren't familiar with you yet. And so having a certification, especially one that's as well-respected as one such as The Real Organic Project, it's an easy way to communicate that to new customers who maybe just popped onto your website for the first time and are starting to do a little bit of research, but they don't know you, they haven't been to your farm like maybe some of your customers have. And so having that logo or that certification is a really good way to kind of fast track that communication and hopefully increase your customer count.
00:18:09
Speaker
I think a lot of times the, like we talked about a little bit, but the two biggest barriers to that are time and money. So could you maybe kind of walk us through like, what is that process from beginning to end of getting your farm first, just certified by the USDA as organic? A lot of what you have to do is just record keeping.
00:18:26
Speaker
And that also reminds me that something that I liked to say when I was working on the farm was that even if you think organic standards should be higher or should be more of a bare minimum instead of kind of the highest level of attainment certification wise, I think it's nothing else. It is a system that requires you to create a paper trail and a level of traceability.
00:18:50
Speaker
that anyone could ask to see and have an idea of what you're doing on your farm and have records that say where you got your seeds from and, you know, what you sprayed on your crops or what you fertilized with or what you amended your fields with. I think from start to finish, I would describe it as there's something called an organic systems plan that all certified organic farms have to create. And it's essentially just, you know, lists your fields
00:19:19
Speaker
their acreage, their location. You fill out paperwork that states what crops you're growing that year in each field and what crops you grew the previous three years in each of those fields. So it really is just a lot of keeping track of where you bought your seeds from, when you planted things.
00:19:38
Speaker
you know, when you started things in your greenhouse. And I'm describing this from a vegetable perspective because that's what my experience is in, but it is pretty much the same for livestock operations. And they're doing things like, excuse me, they're doing things like calculating that dry matter intake percentage that I mentioned earlier. So there's not really any specific requirements in terms of what your crop rotation
00:20:00
Speaker
has to be, you just have to demonstrate that you have some kind of rotation and that you are taking measures to conserve or improve or maintain the soil that you're growing in. That sounds daunting, but I will also say that I think a lot of people that decide to become certified organic find that those records are really good to have anyway.
Achieving Real Organic Project Certification
00:20:24
Speaker
Once you have solid systems in place for keeping track of all of that stuff,
00:20:29
Speaker
It's really nice and helps you with just the management of the FAR to have all of that information compiled and to have a reason to be accountable for keeping that information around.
00:20:39
Speaker
They get that certification and then they decide, all right, now I want to be certified by the real organic project. What would kind of be their next steps to, to make that happen and to reach out to you guys and get certified? We have tried to make it a very painless process, especially because all the programs that we're working with have already gone through the process of being certified organic. And for us, we have an application online and available in paper form as well that takes.
00:21:07
Speaker
I would say 15 to 20 minutes to complete. It's really more of kind of the questionnaire than the more formal bureaucratic feeling organic systems plan doesn't take very long at all. And so we have that application and then we do with new farms, we do a visit to the farm that usually takes anywhere from
00:21:26
Speaker
depending on the size of the farm and on how long we end up just hanging out with them. Just because sometimes it's really fun and it takes a while. But I think actually doing our inspection process is 60 to 90 minutes.
00:21:43
Speaker
Again, depending on the size of the farm. It's an opportunity also for a farm that we're visiting to show us stuff that they're doing that they're really excited about that may not necessarily come up in their organic inspection.
00:21:57
Speaker
Yeah, that's awesome. I feel like every farm has those things, you know, it's kind of unique to them and that they give them a, give them a platform and a chance to speak to that. That's great. So for farmers who are maybe just starting out and, and maybe that real organic certification is, is a little bit of a ways off, what are some of the steps that they can take to maybe still participate and contribute to real organic project mission in the meantime?
Farmer Participation in Real Organic Project
00:22:21
Speaker
Oh yeah, that's a great question. I think what comes to mind first is we have our virtual symposium every year that kind of does a deep dive into some of these issues as well as we have a real organic podcast that is fantastic. I have to say that does more of a deep dive into some of these specific issues or features, farmers that we work with. I think a lot of people that engage with those things feel a little bit more informed and confident in talking to other people about these issues.
00:22:49
Speaker
Just kind of demystifies what I think it's seen as frustrating and opaque that a problem. So we have a podcast and a symposium, and then we do also have a consumer facing campaign called real organic friends. That is, we're kind of developing it and trying to.
00:23:07
Speaker
get it more off the ground a bit, but that we're planning to do things like online webinars or tours of farms in different areas or screenings of the symposium footage and stuff like that, that is a little bit more kind of just building community around what we're doing.
00:23:23
Speaker
And what's the name of the podcast? We got to plug the podcast. Yeah. And it's called real organic podcast. And I always feel funny kind of plugging it because I worked for real organic projects. It seems like that's why I'm plugging it. But even if I did not work for this organization, I think it's a really great podcast and they have fantastic guests and great conversations. So.
00:23:45
Speaker
Yeah, but it's a personal endorsement. Awesome. Definitely. That's great. Well, hopefully our listeners to check it out. You guys also work with an advisory board made up of farmers. What is their role in the organization and how do they support the real organic projects mission? Yeah, we have a few different boards. So the advisory board is largely farms or farmers that they publicly support us and they're kind of there as a resource if we need advice.
00:24:12
Speaker
about something, a lot of them are featured in podcasts or in symposium footage. A lot of them are farmers that I have admired for my entire career in agriculture. And then we also have a standards board that maintains our reviews and creates our standards and kind of reworks them or revisits them every year as necessary. So that is also made up largely of farmers.
00:24:36
Speaker
What are some of the accomplishments from last year that Real Organic Project is most proud of, or even maybe that you're personally
Achievements & Future Plans of Real Organic Project
00:24:43
Speaker
most proud of? We started the podcast, like I said, and I think that, as I'm sure you know, is a huge undertaking, a lot of work. I'm sure you're very familiar with a lot of work that goes into a podcast. And then the symposium is something that just ended. And I think that we, I am also impressed with that every single year and just the amount of work
00:25:01
Speaker
and passion that goes into that. And other than that, we vastly increased or expanded the number of farms that we were working with this year. I think that in 2020, we finished with around 400, maybe a little bit over 400 farms, and now we're right over 800.
00:25:20
Speaker
doubling the program was no small task. And this past summer, there were only, there were five of us doing inspections. So splitting up those 400 new farms amongst the five of us needs that we, we all visited around 80. I don't know if that math is right, but a lot of more than 50, but it was over quick. Yeah. So even just physically going to that many farms feels like a huge accomplishment.
00:25:47
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. It sounds like the growth has been awesome. It's great to hear that you guys doubled that growth in just two years and that you're on your way to over a thousand farms. What kind of programming or events or growth on the horizon are you most excited about? Something I am very excited about is I just talked to somebody from the farm and ranch freedom Alliance.
00:26:12
Speaker
There's just so many great people and organizations and businesses out there doing so many amazing things. And I think I'm really excited for us to connect with these other organizations or businesses that are doing complimentary things to what we're doing, or that, you know, we both care about the same things or are talking about the same problems, trying to address some of the same challenges and
00:26:38
Speaker
there's ways that we can collaborate or support each other in addressing those things. So I'm excited to do more of that. And other than that, I'm also very excited about expanding that Real Organic Friends program, just because I think that the more awareness and
00:26:58
Speaker
support and enthusiasm that we can build amongst consumers and leaders. And I think the more successful and the more rapidly successful we will be. Yeah.
Getting Involved with Real Organic Project
00:27:10
Speaker
Awesome. Well, for farmers who want to participate in your guys's mission or just learn more or even join in and look into that add-on certification, where should farmers go to do those things and how can they learn more about the Real Organic Project?
00:27:24
Speaker
We have a website that is just realorganicproject.org. And again, there's a podcast. So that application is available on the website. There's a lot of other information. We have some, what we call know your farmer videos, short videos that we've done with a lot of our certified farms. Um, and those are really very compelling and I love them. Um, Oh, we're on social media. What are the handles? Go ahead and shout them out. I think they're just real organic project.
00:27:53
Speaker
Cool. Awesome. Well, I think that's all the questions that I had for you. Thanks so much for doing this. It was very fun. I want to extend my thanks to Abby and all the farmers at The Real Organic Project. At Barnador, we're delighted to serve farms in all 50 states, including certified organic and certified real organic farms across the country.
00:28:09
Speaker
For more information on the Real Organic Project, visit realorganicproject.org. And to learn more about Barnadore, including access to numerous free resources and best practices for your farm, you can go to barnadore.com slash resources. Thank you for tuning in and we'll see you next week. Thank you so much.