McEvoy vows to strengthen brand organic in NOP role

Wants big enough staff—and impact—to beef up enforcement, improve compliance and increase collaboration within organic community

By Greg Bowman
In late October, Miles McEvoy took a break from cramming his head with all the details of his new USDA job make a pilgrimage to the Rodale Institute for some inspiration.  He’s the new deputy administrator of the USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP). He replaces Barbara Robinson, who introduced him at this week’s meeting of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB).

His position pulls him from the farmer-certifier world of the strongly organic Northwestern U.S. smack-dab into the crucible of national organic policy power-politics. This puts him at the junction of the USDA’s huge bureaucracy and the pointed recommendations of the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB). This entity is specially empowered to be the voice of the U.S. organic community, advising the USDA Secretary on how best to implement the organic program.

There’s lots of anticipation for greater responsiveness by the NOP to the board’s recommendations under the new Obama-Vilsack administration, and McEvoy’s position is the one where “new things” should be emerging.

Specifically, the NOSB-NOP interplay goes like this: Once the NOSB delicately crafts a recommendation with its processor, farmer, citizen and environmentalist representatives, the proposal lands on his desk for review and response. Interested groups—from processors to activists—often want more intimate impact, and will assert their intentions to him directly, or through their Congressional representatives, or even—if they know the right people— through the Secretary of Agriculture. Within the USDA, the NOP is a small program—even if McEvoy manages to double its staff size to 30, as he hopes to do—the NOP still has to compete for public and program influence with the prevailing chemical-based and biotech-driven agricultural approaches.

McEvoy accepts these challenges, but feels ready to strengthen and grow the organic program, even in difficult economic and political times.

Here are our questions and McEvoy’s answers.

Rodale Institute: What are focal areas for you as you begin this role?
Miles McEvoy: I want to:
-- Work at greater collaboration within the organic community, bringing people together more often from all parts of the sector, the Organic Trade Association to the Organic Consumer Association, suppliers to consumers.
-- Bring greater transparency to how the National Organic Process works, and how its decisions are made. We need quality management, peer review and outside accreditation.
-- Clarify the standards so producers and handlers know what the standards are, and how what they are doing fits in with the whole organic program.

RI: And what are the big challenges for the NOP?
MM: Enforcement of the standards to protect organic integrity is job number one. We need more training of inspectors and more certifier consistency. We’ll need to use risk assessment to target enforcement where it will do the most good, looking at scale, split-operations (certified and non-certified operations on the same property) and incidences of non-compliance. Market surveillance, checking for pesticide residue and conducting unannounced inspections will be part of this plan.

RI: What happens if measureable pesticide residue is found as part of an organic inspection?
MM: If the level is above 5 percent of the EPA tolerance, the product is rejected as organic. The certification agency involved is responsible to determine what caused the residue to occur (soil residue, pesticide drift, co-mingling after harvest).

RI: What’s been your connection with organics?
(See background, below)
MM: I’ve been working within the organic sector for 20 years in certification. It’s put me in contact with all kinds of people: producers, inspectors, regulators, distributors, marketers and consumers—and with the work my wife (Ami Greenberg) does at the Olympia Food Co-op. In the 80s, I was also an organic farm laborer. 

RI: What’s coming on the draft NOP “grazing standards?”
Background: This NOSB recommendation is the product of years of work within the dairy community to close loopholes affecting compliance with the “access to pasture” provision already on the books. It will mandate the producer-community consensus minimum of 120 days of grazing per year from which ruminants (cows, sheep and goats) will derive no less than 30 percent of their nutrition (dry matter basis).  This means that all organic dairy cattle will graze, no matter where they are in the country.

MM: It’s winding its way through federal regulatory review process to be screened for budgetary, environmental and civil rights impacts, but will be done by end of the year. “I think people will be happy with it. It will be good to have ‘access to pasture’ be the same for everybody.”

RI: What’s the best way to incentivize more organic practices that store carbon in soil to fight climate change?
MM: It will be in the Farm Bill process, where I’d favor targeting incentives to all farmers. If we can measure it and show the value for these techniques, it’s good for everybody.

RI: What do you say to farmers who think converting to organic will be too much paperwork?
MM: I’ve worked to make organic programs work for everybody, small and large. Is it difficult? No, but it is a lot to learn at first, and the paperwork can be daunting. The Organic System Plan, once you get it in place, basically works for a long time.

Yes, organic certification and inspection is an intrusion into how you farm. But it’s intrusion for a purpose: to build trust with consumers who want to believe the USDA organic label. Try it, and we’ll work with you. If our compliance questions feel too intrusive, perhaps the person is really looking for another label.

RI: What should farmers' market shoppers do if a vendor is selling products as "organic" but admits they aren't a certified producer?

MM: Even if a producer has less than $5,000 in income from sales and doesn't need to be formally certified, the producer has to follow to NOP standards. If you think they're over that limit, you can file a complaint with the NOP.  To call what is sold "organic," it has to be USDA certified. Farm markets differ in what they require, so it's always best to ask questions.

RI: Finally, will the non-GMO label be a good thing for organics?
MM: There’s a zero-tolerance in organics for using GMO products in production, but nothing in the standards about what to do if GMO evidence is detected. Testing for GMOs might be a value to some consumers, but a test is limited in what it shows to just what is being tested. It’s mostly a problem in corn….  Testing for GMO levels will show how well our current protections are working, from field buffers to auditing of all records.

McEvoy background: For the last 20 years, Miles McEvoy has led the development of the Washington State Department of Agriculture’s Organic Food Program. The program was one of the first state organic certification programs in the US.

It was the first state program to work at synchronization with other certification standards in product certification (ISO Guide 65) and international organic standards (IFOAM accreditation) in 2004. In 1993 the program established the WSDA Brand Names Materials List that evaluates materials for compliance with US and international organic standards.

In 1993 to 1995 he was the founding director of The Food Alliance, a program that blends sustainable farming practices and social welfare components into an ecolabel program. In 2001, he helped establish the WSDA Small Farm and Direct Marketing Program.

McEvoy helped establish the National Association of State Organic Programs (NASOP) in 1998 and currently serves as NASOP President. He assisted the Montana Department of Agriculture in developing their organic certification program and is currently working with the Oregon Department of Agriculture in developing their organic certification program. He has spoken at state, national and international agricultural conferences on organic certification and the role of government in supporting sustainable agriculture.

Thanks to Krista Hozyash, communications intern, for assisting with this interview.

Greg Bowman is communications manager at the Rodale Institute.