In May 2023 a detailed Position Paper titled “Organic Agriculture is Soil-based: A Fundamental Principle Underlying Organic Crop Certification” was filed with USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) by 5 dissenting USDA Accredited Organic Certifiers (out of 80 total) who have banded together refusing to certify soilless operations in the face of NOP’s continuing unilateral blanket allowance of hydroponic production to qualify for the organic label.
During the month of February, the members of the Farmworker Association of Florida, low-income Latinx workers, many of them undocumented, held 5 asamblea (member assemblies) around the state to share about their lives and set priorities for action by their organization. Then delegates met in a statewide assembly. Top of their list of policy priorities is immigration reform.
On March 29, 2022 the final Origin of Livestock (OOL) Rule was at long last instituted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), finally resolving statutory language ambiguities from the 1990 Organic Food Production Act (OFPA) that have been keeping family dairies at a major disadvantage in the organic milk marketplace for years now. The rule goes into full effect one year from that date. While we celebrate a Big Win for organic integrity and the surviving grassroots organic dairy farmers who have long suffered under the loopholes – we need to become even more vigilant going into the future.
On March 29, 2022 the final Origin of Livestock (OOL) Rule was at long last instituted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), finally resolving statutory language ambiguities from the 1990 Organic Food Production Act (OFPA) that have been keeping family dairies at a major disadvantage in the organic milk marketplace for years now. The rule goes into full effect one year from that date. While we celebrate a Big Win for organic integrity and the surviving grassroots organic dairy farmers who have long suffered under the loopholes – we need to become even more vigilant going into the future.
I feel so grateful that our Founder was with us for last year’s 50th Anniversary Celebration of NOFA’s beginnings in 1971. He was featured in Al Johnson’s wonderful NOFA history compilation, “Organic Roots” as well as a panel participant in the ‘Thrilling Tales of Yesteryear” presentation. These Anniversary videos, along with Elizabeth Henderson’s “The Next 50 years of NOFA” are available for viewing at https://nofa.org/nofa-50th/.
Acting through its North America subsidiary at the end of August, Groupe Danone, the multinational corporation and owner of Horizon Organic abruptly cancelled the contracts of 89 of their longtime northeast milk suppliers in Vermont, New York, New Hampshire and Maine – effective by August 2022. Danone’s exit means that over 10 percent of the northeast region’s organic dairy farms will be left without a market since other organic processors have limited capacity to accept new producers. The terminations will further have an acute impact on local economies, community resilience and area environments.
First, some Good News. After years of industrybacked climate change denial and misinformation strategies that included derailing legislation in the Obama era and further impeding advancements under the Trump administration – the federal government is finally stepping forward to address the existential threat of the planet’s irrefutable Climate Emergency. With climate change now set as a full governmental priority, the Biden Administration is also officially recognizing a major role for agriculture in removing displaced carbon dioxide from the atmosphere via soil carbon sequestration practices.
Re: Identifying Barriers in USDA Programs and Services; Advancing Racial Justice and Equity and Support for Underserved Communities at USDA; Docket ID FSA- 2021-0006
By Elizabeth Henderson When asked what impact the changes they made as a result of this project have had, a farmer wrote: “More employee buy in, less stress around Covid since people can afford to be sick.” “Fair from Farm to Retail,” a joint project of the Agricultural Justice Project and the Northeast Organic Farming […]
Although Interstate NOFA’s policy agenda stretches from soil health and food system justice to GMOs and the implementation of food safety regulations with numerous issues in between, here in the dawn’s early light of a new decade the Policy Committee is dealing more than ever with multiple challenges to organic integrity. Not surprisingly in this scoundrel time, an increasing number of trials have been of the top-down governmental variety. Understanding where we’ve been informs where we’re going – what follows is a more in-depth look at these federal onslaughts and the organic community efforts to thwart them.