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Change has come big-time to USDA National Organic Program
Surprise checks on farms & factories, staff increases, action on advisory board requests are coming, says new NOP deputy administrator Miles McEvoy.By Greg Bowman State College, Pennsylvania -- He may have socked his early afternoon audience at the Pennsylvania Certified Organic conference with more National Organic Program structure, protocol and details than they were expecting, but Miles McEvoy delivered on this message: organic change has come big-time to the USDA. McEvoy is the new deputy administrator for the NOP. He was the main speaker at the “All Matters Organic” pre-conference program organized by PCO in the lead-up to the annual conference of the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) conference, held over the weekend. He cited a band of new inspectors to surprise-check farms and factories, new officers to investigate complaints of organic cheating, and movement on long-delayed recommendations from the National Organic Standards Board. A projected increase in staff from 16 last year to 31 this year is a major factor. Beyond beefing up enforcement, personnel, morale and budget of the NOP, McEvoy said organic agriculture will soon be part of all the USDA does. Expanded organic presence Taking organics beyond its bureaucratic NOP niche within the Agricultural Marketing Service is Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Kathleen Merrigan. She’s leading a process that will vest the organic option in every sector of its vast reach. As an aide to Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy some 20 years ago, she is credited with authoring the bill that became the foundation of the USDA organic program. McEvoy clearly relishes the prospect of the believed-to-be-imminent final approval of the NOP’s “access to pasture” rule. This heavily debated clarification of what it really, truly means to give cows “access” to growing forage has followed a tortured path during the past several years. Dairy producers across the country largely agreed that organic cows should be on actively growing pasture at least 120 days per year—more, if possible—and should derive at least 30 percent of their dry matter intake from what they eat from pasture. “This will mean the end of the controversy [over pasture requirements], and should help accomplish research into how the grazing can happen,” McEvoy said. He said his move to Washington, D.C., after 20 years as an organic program inspector and administrator in Washington state, puts him in a situation where there are “more steps and more politics” involved. More than compensating for these difficulties, however, is his ability to work under new leadership at the USDA that gives organic agriculture and marketing a green light to grow and prosper. McEvoy said he is leading the National Organic Program to collaborate with all sectors (from farmers to certifiers to businesses), as well as clear and consistent in the requirements and transparency in its processes and decisionmaking. Strict and sensible He credited PCO executive director Leslie Zuck with the overall characterization of “strict and sensible” as to how he wants to approach protecting the integrity of organic agriculture. Writing in the current PCO newsletter in response to McEvoy’s early description of his plans, Zuck said: “We are glad to see the NOP taking a collaborative approach by inviting certifiers and producers to contribute toward moving the program forward. The organic community can now work as a partner [with the NOP] in developing and improving the organic program rather than feeling oppressed by it.” A boost in funding and increasing the staff from 16 to 31 people gives McEvoy the ability to carry out many needed improvements in strengthening the program, and enforcing compliance. New initiatives and enforcement angles include:
McEvoy cited freshly released findings from the first-ever USDA survey of organic producers to note that the number one barrier for organic producers was not insects or price or markets, but organic program regulations.(The survey results are available here.) He wants to change that reality for hard-working organic farmers. Upcoming issues the NOP will tackle will be the origin of livestock (organic status during gestation), including cloning; apiculture (beekeeping and honey); mushroom production; pet food; and aquaculture (fish, shellfish and aquatic plants). McEvoy announced that the next meeting of the National Organic Standards Board will be April 25 to 29 in Davis, California. The board meetings offer time for public input, and public observation of the citizen advisory board’s deliberations in what it recommends to the USDA for action. High on the new NOP’s priority list is acting on a backlog of NOSB recommendations over recent years. Sorting through these and working with the most critical ones first will help to restore the NOSB to its intended role of high-level input from the organic community. The state-now-federal organic administrator ended on a high note, with this quote from Wendell Berry: An organic farm, properly speaking, is not one that uses certain methods and substances and avoids others; it is a farm whose structure is formed in imitation of the structure of a natural system that has the integrity, and independence and the benign dependence of an organism. (The Gift of Good Land) Greg Bowman is communications manager for the Rodale Institute. |