News from NOFA/Massachusetts
A Certification Tail Wagging the Dog of Local Food System -
Farmers and consumers debate meaning, value of certification
By Jim D. Pitts
Delta Organic Farm
This past year the NOFA/Mass organic certification committee held up our farm recertification. The delay, primarily over recordkeeping, threatened our farm operations and our livelihood. Certified organic is at the heart of our marketing strategy to local retailers.
This is our sixth consecutive year being certified. In all those years we have used only natural and approved inputs except once when we used a very small amount of a regulated product. There have been other small oversights over the years. But nothing was so serious in our growing or handling practices as to warrant holding up our certification.
At first, I wanted to blame the problem on the standards, the process...even the certification committee...which may wrongly believe that they certify farms as organic. Believe it or not, it's we farmers who certify our farms are organic, by what we do: commit our resources, plan and design systems, prepare soil, plant, cultivate, protect and harvest the crops. Certification can only help us stay on the common course we've already laid out for ourselves. The process cannot keep someone from "cheating." Anyone who has gone through it knows it is hopelessly flawed at discovering outright fraud.
The growing emphasis in certification on record keeping, data collection, and reporting (the three-headed monster) hurts dedicated, smaller organic growers. Some of the paperwork is irrelevant to actual farming operations and practices, and some is about matters that may be confidential in nature like marketing and financial data. The cheaters will insure their "fraudulent" records meet the highest requirements so as not to raise suspicion. Large operations with built-in administrative overhead have the advantage in producing the three headed monster, as do the more academically inclined. But we who care about the integrity of organic care little for reports and record keeping that do not help us in our growing practices.
National Organic Standards
As I searched for answers to my difficulties with the certification process, I discovered my situation was not unique. Others - long time organic growers - have seriously considered not being recertified. The certification committee itself suggested that non recertification is one way to resolve our differences. I was outraged.
But the certification committee is not "out to get me" or any other small farmer. They are our friends and colleagues. The problem is deeper - driven by the national organic certification program.
NOFA has decided to help nationalize organic standards. Our participation is an implied endorsement of a national food system. This, however, has negative consequences for local food systems and small farms. The message to consumers is that buying organic from California is preferable to buying a conventionally grown product from the local farm stand.
The reasons given for participating in the national organic standards are:
- Our continued use of the term "organic" binds us (NOFA) legally to participate in the process. To continue certifying organic farms, we need to follow the national standards.
- National standards will expand organic practices across the nation. This will open more markets for organic farmers and give more people more food options.
I do not disagree with the above. The question is - are the negative consequences of participating in this process greater than the net benefits, particularly to health and sustainability?
Even "in season," a local organic product may not always be on the shelf. So shoppers are often faced with the dilemma of which to buy - organic or local. I have concluded buying local supports our NOFA values (support of our endangered local agricultural base, movement toward sustainability) more than buying non-regional organic.
At Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA), we learn that consumers prefer locally grown foods. We also find that working with conventional farmers helps convert them to more sustainable practices. Whether integrated pest management, rotational grazing or organic certification - our local farmers are moving in the right direction. I believe in thinking globally, but our actions locally - our priority - must be to save our local farms, all of them.The tail of organic certification is wagging the dog of the local food system. Organic certification now defines our movement, but it should be the other way around: our organic movement (what it is and where it is going) should define why we certify farms and what process we use. The question of where we want to go belongs to the members, not only those who work on certification. Let us take back our leadership role from the national organic movement by focussing on local and organic farms and markets.I suggest we define our movement in holistic terms: retain farm land, build healthy local food systems, and of course grow healthy (organic) food.
Responses to Pitts:
Some Loss in AOS, Mostly Gain
by John Hoffman
for the NOFA/Mass Certification CommitteeIn the last issue of the NOFA/Mass News, Jim Pitts wrote an article, "Certification Tail Wagging the Dog of Local Food Systems," which raised several important questions. The certification committee would like to add its voice to the conversation.To respond to Jim about record keeping would require a letter of its own. As you can imagine, the devil is in the details. Our standards have become more rigorous and we defend that development. From our perspective they are fully in line with other current and proposed standards. All the farms in our program comply and many have said they appreciate the value of the information they compile.
We agree with Jim that this is a critical moment to consider the impact of national standards. The move toward national standards began in 1990 at the request of consumers. Authority to develop them was lodged with USDA.When the first draft of federal standards appeared two years ago, NOFA strongly opposed it - because the standards did not measure up to our own. Instead, NOFA supported the development of standards from within the organic movement - i.e. not federal but "in-house." This effort has lead to the drafting of the American Organic Standards. These are one step away from being finalized. It seems very likely that either the national federal standards (revised) or the in-house AOS will be approved soon. In either case there will be a phase-in period of at least a year and a half.How shall we understand this moment? We think it represents that phase in a social movement which marks widespread success. The organic movement, which was once fringe, is now on the verge of being mainstream. These new standards will be a victory to celebrate - and, as Jim anticipates, there will be unforseen consequences.What will it mean to sign on to these new standards? In terms of the integrity of the organic movement, the AOS are slightly more stringent than our own with respect to livestock; for vegetable growers they require the same data that we currently do. (No one knows what the revised federal standards will look like).And what might some of those unintended consequences be? One is the likelihood that there will be more and larger organic producers. Supply will increase and price will decrease - probably. Positively, this means that organic food is more affordable and eaten by more people.On the other hand, we in Massachusetts will lose a measure of control over the standards we follow. Thus far the NOFA/Mass board has been the oversight body for our standards. Every year they approve or disapprove each and every change in the standards which the committee proposes. (This year, for instance, they chose to experiment with somewhat looser requirements for one aspect of record keeping). Once national standards come in, we will be one small fish in a much larger pond and our ability to regulate ourselves will diminish.We see this as a smaller loss within a larger victory. Are there alternatives? Regardless of what we do, national standards will be adopted and once these standards are adopted, it will be illegal to sell as organic anything not certified. Any producer who wishes to sell organic products will have to get someone to certify them.Some farms will have the option of going outside the system - CSA's, others with face to face relations with their customers may not need a certifying agency (and can call their products "natural," or "cosmic" or whatever they want, except organic). But many of our growers depend on certification for access to their markets.Overall, we think the benefits of consistent national standards, expansion of the market and the spread of organic food outweighs the possible decline in prices and the loss of autonomy - dear though that is. And we see no viable alternatives.
That's the view from the rear. Any other parts of the dog want to weigh in?
For Rigor in Certification
To the editor:
In the last issue, Jim Pitts wrote about the paperwork involved in organic certification and whether the tail was, in fact, wagging the dog. He said, "The message to consumers is that buying organic from California is preferable to buying a conventionally grown product from the local farm stand".
Although I'm not a farmer, and I exist at the fringes of the NOFA community as a vegetarian and grateful purchaser of organic produce, I have to agree with the above statement. Clearly, rigorous certification is necessary to inspire confidence in buyers. I sympathize with the predicament of small farmers, and if certification can be done with less paperwork, great. But I don't think the solution is to abandon organic and take locally grown produce on trust. I want to know that nothing has been done to the food, and with anything less than organic, I don't have that assurance.Personally, I'll continue to buy California organic over locally grown conventional.
Mark Lipsman
38 Harvard Road
Littleton, MA
Farmer wants to keep it Local
To the editor:
A hearty hear! hear! to Jim Pitts' article on certification (NOFA/Mass News Dec.'99). We farmers, consumers and coop members are the ones who have given our hearts & souls (and a lot of sore backs and skinned knuckles) to bring organics to what it is today. Now a national board is going to tell us whether what we do is organic or not? What about integrity, trust, and a person's word? Many of us live by these values - it does work.
Locally-produced food will always be preferable for me. We can't have organic farms here if all the farms have gone out of business. Yet we can have local farms thrive and work with these conventional growers (our friends & neighbors) towards a more sustainable and organic end. Look at how much apple growers in Massachusetts have reduced their chemical inputs over the past 15 years through IPM (integrated pest management) practices. Trust that farmers inherently want to make good ecological decisions; it's for their benefit as well as ours.
Perhaps the free market system pushes growers to make these choices toward chemical inputs. Perhaps consumers can learn to eat less-than-perfect looking food. Perhaps we can all start working with each other in our towns & neighborhoods to make the right decisions for ourselves, and not have a national board telling us what is organic & what is not. Thanks, Jim.
Alan Suprenant
Brook Farm, Ashfield
This page was last modified on November 25, 2008 at 10:44:41 AM.
This page was last modified on November 25, 2008 at 10:44:41 AM.
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