The Organic Blog

Action Alerts

GE & Cloning

Farm Bill

Food Safety

Pesticides

USDA / NOP / NOSB

Welcome to the CCOF Organic Blog

	Thanks for stopping by! Please check in often to read thoughts and comments about current topics and events in the organic sector. Feel free to submit comments. Peggy Miars Executive Director

June 23, 2008

National Organic Standards Board Meeting

I had the privilege of representing CCOF at the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) meeting in Baltimore in May. Even though CCOF is one of the oldest and largest organic certifiers in North America, it was still humbling to witness history being made. Every recommendation made by the NOSB involved a tremendous amount of time, discussion, and consideration on the part of numerous individuals. Dozens of passionate people spoke during the hours of public comment periods over three days. It’s truly a transparent democratic process. Check out the other areas in which CCOF has been at work for our members.

Canadian Organic Products Regulations

There’s been a lot of talk about the new Canadian Organic Products Regulations (OPR). The Canada Organic Office (COO) has confirmed that the regulations are set to be implemented December 14, 2008. We’re frustrated because it’s difficult for us to inform members about new requirements when they’re in a constant state of revision and we’re still not sure what they will end up being! CCOF was named as one of only four U.S. certifiers on a preliminary list of certifiers to be accredited under the soon-to-be implemented OPR.

Biodiversity

CCOF has partnered with the Wild Farm Alliance to introduce biodiversity questions into our inspections of organic operations. Even though implementing biodiversity practices into organic farms creates more work for farmers and may increase their costs, we made this change at the request of CCOF members who feel that biodiversity practices are an extremely important aspect of organic farming. Download a WFM biodiversity guide.

Light Brown Apple Moth

Last Thursday, the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) announced a new strategy to eradicate the non-native invasive pest. CDFA has decided to drop aerial spraying of pheromones from its action plan. Get the details.

California’s Water Crisis

Earlier this month, California Governor Schwarzenegger proclaimed a statewide drought and subsequently proclaimed a state of emergency in nine Central Valley counties due to severe water shortages. Read the Governor’s press release and proclamation.

CCOF Milestone

Earlier this year, CCOF surpassed a half million organic acres in our certification program. This is a major milestone for our organization that was started in 1973 by a small group of organic farmers. CCOF experienced a 129% growth in certified organic acreage over the last two years, along with a phenomenal 141,317 acre increase in 2007, representing a 40.7% single-year acreage growth. CCOF’s 501,066 organic acres is split roughly evenly between livestock and produce operations. Certified pasture and field acreage has risen from just 38,611 in 2004 to 241,511, reflecting the growth in the organic dairy and livestock sector. CCOF now has 62 certified members producing milk. The main areas of growth in crops have been oats, rice, wine and table grapes, wheat, and alfalfa. Certified organic oat acreage increased by 51.6% in 2007, rice acreage by 49.3%, and table grape acreage by 39.3%. Read CCOF’s press release.

CCOF’s E-newsletter and Certified Organic Magazine

Ensure that you’re staying on top of the latest organic news by subscribing to CCOF’s e-newsletter. Just enter your email address in the box on our home page. And, all CCOF supporting members receive a subscription to our highly-regarded quarterly Certified Organic magazine. If you aren’t reading it, you’re missing out! Please join us and support our critical programs.

April 24, 2008

Light Brown Apple Moth

CCOF Government Affairs Committee members, board members, certified members and staff have been spending a lot of time on the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) issue lately. You can read more in previous posts below.

Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Paul Burdick ruled this morning that aerial spraying to control the light brown apple moth could not continue in Santa Cruz County. Burdick ruled that the state had not provided sufficient evidence of an emergency and must complete an environmental impact review before spraying resumes. The ruling was based on the fact that the state could show no evidence that the moth had caused any damage. The state says it will appeal.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture is focused on the safety of the pheromone to be used in the light brown apple moth eradication program, and is awaiting the results of a thorough battery of acute toxicity tests. The estimated date of those results will cause the target date for the department to begin aerial treatment to be August 17, 2008 in the Monterey-Santa Cruz coastal area.

Meanwhile, Congressman Sam Farr, who represents California’s Central Coast, has stepped into the debate and is asking tough questions of USDA officials, including questions about possible de-listing of the LBAM.

CCOF representatives have had discussions with the Governor’s office regarding the concerns of organic farmers. We continue to talk regularly with representatives of conventional agriculture groups, CDFA officials, the Administration, and, most importantly, CCOF members.

Farm Bill

The debate continues between House and Senate Conferees. This afternoon the House passed a one-week Farm Bill extension (until May 2), which passed the Senate this morning.

Health Benefits of Organic

One of the main reasons many people choose organic is because they believe it is healthier. Many studies back up that belief. I recently read a good article titled "Not All Apples Are Created Equal" by Deborah Rich in the Earth Island Journal (Spring 2008). The full article is only available with an Earth Island Institute membership. In her article Deborah references a recently released report titled “New Evidence Confirms the Nutritional Superiority of Plant-based Organic Foods” from The Organic Center that shows that organic fruits, vegetables and grains are 25 percent more nutritious than conventionally grown plant-based food.

Canadian Farmer Percy Schmeiser Settles Battle with Monsanto

Canadian canola farmer Percy Schmeiser, who has battled biotech company Monsanto for a decade, recently settled a lawsuit that he said will allow farmers with fields contaminated by Monsanto’s genetically modified seed to get “compensation without giving up their freedom of speech or their future rights to sue.”

First Online Certificate in Organic Agriculture

Washington State University, the first institution in the country to offer an academic major in organic agriculture, is now offering the nation’s first online certificate in organic agriculture. I can tell you from first-hand experience how difficult it is to find individuals to hire with any sort of organic experience. This new certificate program should help alleviate that problem for many businesses in the organic sector. The program will be available in the summer semester, which begins May 5.

Giving Makes You Happy & Healthy

I recently read an article about a new study in which psychologists found the greatest joys of all can be attained by giving money away. “People who donate their dollars to charities or splurge on gifts for others are more content than those who squander all the dough on themselves,” says the study’s author social psychologist Elizabeth Dunn of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Makes me think of Oprah’s new reality TV show in which contestants must give away money. I haven’t seen it, but it sounds like a show I’d like to participate in! Please support CCOF and our efforts to educate, advocate and promote organic.

March 16 , 2008

New CCOF Position on the Light Brown Apple Moth
On March 10, CCOF modified its stance on the Light Brown Apple Moth.

Farm Bill Deadline Extended
On March 12, S. 2745—another Farm Bill extension—passed the Senate, followed by passage in the House later that evening. The extension, which expires April 18, was imperative for continued Farm Bill negotiations due to the expiration of the previous extension on March 15.

February 19 , 2008

New USDA Ag Secretary
New U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer, who took office last month, may be a key player in whether a farm bill gets approved by Congress and signed by the current President. Some are hopeful that the former North Dakota governor will convince President Bush to back off his veto threat. Let’s hope the conference committee comes to an agreement before March 15, the deadline on which U.S. farm policy would revert to the 1949 farm bill, unless a new farm bill is passed or the current farm bill is extended.

A couple of notes about Secretary Schafer…To expand North Dakota’s job base, he encouraged the growth of value-added agricultural industries such as corn sweetener manufacturing. In 2000, he co-founded and co-chaired the Governors Biotechnology Partnership to increase public understanding and support for the benefits of agricultural biotechnology.

Cloned Animals: FDA Approves; USDA Urges Caution; NOP Prohibits
The Food and Drug Administration has determined that meat and milk from cloned cattle, pigs, goats, and their offspring pose no food safety risk and are safe to eat. The U.S. Department of Agriculture “fully supports and agrees with FDA’s final assessment” but encourages “technology providers to maintain their voluntary moratorium on sending milk and meat from animal clones into the food supply during this transition time”, according to a statement by Bruce Knight, Under Secretary for USDA Marketing and Regulatory Programs on January 15.

Further, the National Organic Program (NOP) stated that “cloning as a production method is incompatible with the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) and is prohibited under the NOP regulations”. The prohibition on the progeny of clones is less clear. A March 29,2007, National Organic Standards Board recommendation suggested strengthening and clarifying existing rules to add “animal cloning technology” to the definition of “Excluded Methods” and that the NOP update other sections of the rule to ensure that animal cloning technology is excluded, including all generations of cloned animals. The NOP is preparing for the rulemaking process.

NOP Reorganizes and Gets Budget Increase
The National Organic Program (NOP) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture is reorganizing into three branches: 1) Standards Development & Review, which will be lead by Richard Mathews, 2) Accreditation, Auditing & Training, which will be overseen by Former Deputy Administrator Mark Bradley, and 3) Compliance & Enforcement, with no decision yet on the leadership of its branch. NOP Deputy Administrator for Transportation & Marketing Programs Barbara Robinson will assume "overall leadership" for the NOP in addition to her other duties, the agency said.

The NOP budget was increased 80% for 2008 from $1.5 million to about $2.7 million. The agency hopes to add more staff with the funds. The NOP staff reviews and interprets NOP regulations, develops amendments to the NOP regulations and manages the rulemaking process. It also works with certifying agents through accreditation, training, and enforcement activities.

USDA’s Cafeteria Goes Organic and Natural
The USDA’s cafeteria recently began selling a line of organic snack food including cookies and crackers. It is also converting from petroleum-based products, such as plastic trays and Styrofoam cups, to products made from materials such as corn or sugar cane. It then converts the crop-based trays and food scraps into compost. These green activities are part of an effort by the USDA to encourage the government to purchase products made of biological or agricultural materials.

Consumer Pathways to Organic
I read an article recently in Organic Processing magazine about a study conducted by the Natural Marketing Institute based on 10 years’ worth of information from more than 400,000 consumers. The article by Maryellen Molyneaux said the top three reasons that prompted organic consumers to start using organic products were 1) they are better for them and their families (52%), to promote overall health (51%), and to avoid additives, pesticides and toxins (50%). “To help protect the environment” ranked number nine out of the top 10 factors.

The article also reported that consumers are looking for organic foods when eating away from home. Twenty-eight percent of general population consumers indicate that they would like to purchase organic foods at restaurants.

U.K. Organics
I also read an article the other day in the Packer newspaper, a business publication of the produce industry. The accompanying graphic illustrated the skyrocketing 70% growth in U.K. organics between 2002 and the present to $2.98 billion in 2007. For comparison, U.S. organic sales totaled nearly $17 billion in 2006.

The current challenge, however, is that demand for local organic food is outpacing the supply. Preference for locally grown food negatively impacted the market share of imports from 70% in 2002 to 30% of U.K. organic sales in 2007.

January 29, 2008

Food Safety
I just returned from the annual Eco-Farm Conference in Pacific Grove, California. Food safety is one of the hottest topics in agriculture today. In response, CCOF hosted a two-day conference on Food Safety for Organic Production just prior to the Eco-Farm Conference. Based on the participant evaluations, it was a huge success and helped organic farmers, handlers, and processors learn how they can improve their food safety practices. Stay tuned because we will soon be posting the presentations on our website so that we can reach a wider audience with this useful information. (2/19/08 Update: Check out our Food Safety Conference page, which includes the presentations.) Many, many thanks to our sponsors: CCOF's Processor/Handler Chapter, California Organic Fertilizers and AgraQuest and to our presenters. In the coming months, we will be discussing the possibility of future CCOF educational conferences. I might mention that CCOF has partnered with Cal Poly's Sustainable Agriculture Resource Consortium for the last five years to present the annual Pest Management Conference, another of our educational outreach activities.

Organic Statistics

I was pleased to moderate an Eco-Farm session titled "Nothing But the Facts," which highlighted statistics on organic acreage, producers, and growth in California, the United States, and Internationally. Presenters Karen Klonsky, Cathy Greene, and Brian McElroy have allowed CCOF to post their presentations on our website. I think you'll find the information fascinating. Just click on their names to download the presentations.

Light Brown Apple Moth

CCOF's position on the pheromone treatment for the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) has been the topic of discussion among government officials, environmental groups, and concerned citizens. I had the pleasure of meeting with a group of intelligent individuals at Eco-Farm who have educated themselves about the issues surrounding the pheromone treatments. In addition, a representative of the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) gave a presentation to our membership about the LBAM and the department's eradication plans, and David Dilworth of Helping Our Peninsula's Environment (HOPE) spoke in opposition. While CCOF's official position is in support, we are continuing to discuss this topic and are in the process of developing an updated position statement based on current information. CCOF holds seats on the CDFA's LBAM Environmental Advisory Task Force as well as the industry Invasive Pest Coalition and will continue to stay abreast of the changing situation. I want to stress that everyone is making the best decisions they can with the information at hand. Each individual I have talked with is a good person with good intentions. Please remember that as we continue the discussion!

Genetic Engineering

AB 541, which could become California’s first state law protecting farmers from the hazards of genetically engineered crops, passed out of the full Assembly today with a vote of 49-12. It has the support of the California Farm Bureau as well as CCOF, Community Alliance with Family Farmers, the National Farmers Union and many food safety and environmental organizations.

Introduced by Assembly Member Jared Huffman (6th AD) early in 2007, the bill was held over in the Agriculture Committee in April. Since then, AB 541 has been scaled back to address two provisions related to farmer protections.

AB 541 will enact protections for California farmers against frivolous lawsuits that intimidate and harass those who have not been able to prevent the inevitable – the drift of genetically engineered pollen or seed. It will level the playing field for farmers accused by agricultural biotechnology companies and other patent holders of contract violations, and discourage the practice of biotech companies sampling crops without explicit permission from farmers and prosecuting based on unverifiable testing results.

Specifically, the newly amended bill would provide for:

Protection from patent infringement lawsuits for farmers unknowingly contaminated by GE crops. Currently, farmers with crops that become contaminated by patented seeds or pollen have been the target of such lawsuits without clear recourse or defense.
The establishment of a mandatory crop sampling protocol to be used by patent holders when investigating farmers they believe may have violated patents or seed contracts. This protocol would require the farmer’s written permission for sampling, and provide for a state agriculture official to accompany the patent holder during the sampling and collect duplicate samples for independent verification if requested by either party.

The original bill included several other elements, including the establishment of the country’s first system of notification for the locations of GE crops; the confinement of experimental pharmaceutical-producing crops to greenhouses to protect the food system from contamination; and, legislative clarity that the GE crop manufacturer is liable in the event of contamination, and not farmers.

The bill will now move to the Senate for consideration.