NOP Releases New Guides for Organic Certification

Written by NCAT experts, guides are part of NOP ‘Organic Literacy Initiative’

Beginning farmers and existing organic operations can find detailed information about organic certification in a series of new guides available now on the ATTRA-National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service website.

The guides were written by sustainable-agriculture experts at the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) in partnership with the USDA National Organic Program (NOP).

They are part of the USDA’s Organic Literacy Initiative, which was launched earlier this year. This effort has included self-paced training modules, outreach materials, and a guide to organic and organic-related USDA programs.

The initiative is focused on answering one of the main questions for farms and businesses considering organic certification: “What would I need to change in order to go organic?”

The earlier Organic Literacy Initiative materials provided an overview designed as a first step in understanding organic certification. The new guides help prospective organic operations take the next step: learning more about their specific type of organic production.

They also are helpful for current organic operations looking to adopt new management approaches and better understand NOP standards.

The four guides provide detailed information about the relevant organic requirements, provide best practices, and further explain the certification process.

• Guide to Organic Crop Producers
https://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/summaries/summary.php?pub=67

• Guide for Organic Livestock Producers
https://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/summaries/summary.php?pub=154

• Guide for Organic Processors
https://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/summaries/summary.php?pub=407

• Organic Certification of Farms and Businesses Producing Agricultural Products
https://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/summaries/summary.php?pub=152

The guides can be downloaded for free or ordered as a paper publication for a small handling fee either at the links above or on the ATTRA website at www.attra.ncat.org.
ATTRA has been the nation’s leading resource for information on sustainable agriculture since 1987. NCAT developed and maintains ATTRA through a cooperative agreement with the USDA’s Rural Business-Cooperative Service.

ATTRA covers a wide range of topics, including reducing pesticide use on cropland, promoting food safety in sustainable production systems, reducing farm energy use and costs, enriching soils with the use of cover crops, and providing technical assistance in the growing areas of local farmers markets and urban gardening.


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Since 1976, the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) has been helping people by championing small-scale, local and sustainable solutions to reduce poverty, promote healthy communities and protect natural resources. In partnership with businesses, organizations, individuals and agricultural producers, NCAT is working to advance solutions that will ensure the next generation inherits a world that has clean air and water, energy production that is efficient and renewable, and healthy foods grown with sustainable practices. More information about its programs and services is available at www.ncat.org or by calling 1-800-ASK-NCAT.

Study Points to Roles for Industry and Organics in Agriculture

By ANDREW C. REVKIN
The New York Times
APRIL 25, 2012
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/25/study-points-to-roles-for-
industry-and-organics-in-agriculture/

A paper in this week’s issue of Nature reinforces the argument that a hybrid path in agriculture — incorporating both industrial-style production and organic practices where they make sense — gives the best chance of feeding some 9 billion people by midcentury with the fewest regrets.

The paper, “Comparing the yields of organic and conventional agriculture,” is  by a doctoral student, Verena Seufert, and the geography professor Navin Ramankutty, both of McGill University, and Jonathan Foley, the director of the Institute on the Environment of the University of Minnesota. They found that, over all, conventional farming methods produced 25 percent higher yields than organic techniques, but organic came close for certain crops in certain soils.  The authors’ core conclusion?

[T]here are no simple ways to determine a clear ‘winner’ for all possible farming situations. However, instead of continuing the ideologically charged ‘organic versus conventional’ debate, we should systematically evaluate the costs and benefits of different management options. In the end,  to achieve sustainable food security we will probably need many different techniques — including organic, conventional, and possible ‘hybrid’ systems —to produce more food at affordable prices, ensure livelihoods for farmers, and reduce the environmental costs of agriculture….

To establish organic agriculture as an important tool in sustainable food  production, the factors limiting organic yields need to be more fully understood, alongside assessments of the many social, environmental and economic benefits of organic farming systems.

I caught up with Foley by e-mail, saying that the paper appeared to paint a  picture in which cereals, particularly, benefit from fertilizer and the other inputs favored in large-scale farming, while specialty crops can offer smaller farming operations sustainable levels of income. Here’s his reaction:
We really need new “hybrid” approaches, taking the best of the conventional  and organic paradigms, and deploying them when and where they make the most sense.

In this study we found that organic systems can compete very well with conventional farms when it comes to fruits and many kinds of vegetables. And they do very well (understandably) with legumes. That’s the good news for organic farming.

Where organic has a lot of ground to make up is in the major grains, especially staples like wheat and rice. There we found that organic farms have significantly lower yields than their conventional counterparts.. And since most of the world’s bulk calories come from these cereals, this is a really big deal.

Organic practices, as we know them today, just cannot produce the same  volume of grain calories that conventional farms do on the same land base.  That assumes, of course, that our goal is to grow calories — which is only one measure of food production and only one aspect of food security.

The bottom line? Today’s organic farming practices are probably best deployed  in fruit and vegetable farms, where growing nutrition (not just bulk calories) is the primary goal. But for delivering sheer calories, especially in our staple crops of wheat, rice, maize, soybeans and so on, conventional farms have the advantage right now.

Looking forward, I think we will need to deploy different kinds of practices  (especially new, mixed approaches that take the best of organic and conventional farming systems) where they are best suited — geographically, economically, socially, etc.

Organic Food No Guarantee Against Foodborne Illness

By Madhu Rajaraman, NEWS21

Original Link: http://foodsafety.news21.com/2011/safety/organics

Eating organic may limit your exposure to pesticides. It may make you feel environmentally conscious. It can help support local farmers.

But scientists warn it won't necessarily protect you against foodborne illnesses. Organics, like conventionally farmed foods, can harbor dangerous pathogens including E. coli and salmonella.

A 2006 study in the Journal of Food Science did not find a significant difference in the prevalence of E. coli between organic and conventional produce. And a 2009 Kansas State University study did not find a difference in the prevalence of E. coli between organically and conventionally raised cattle.

Organic foods have caused their share of outbreaks of disease. Last winter, for example, sprouts from an organic farm in Illinois infected at least 140 people in 26 states and the District of Columbia with salmonella. And over a three-month period in 2011, a massive outbreak of a deadly strain of E. coli linked to sprouts from an organic farm in Germany killed 50 people and sickened more than 4,300 in several countries.

Organics are a big business in the U.S. Sales of organic food and beverages totaled $26.7 billion in 2010, according to the Organic Trade Association, with sales of fruits and vegetables up nearly 12 percent over 2009.

Consumers buy organic for a number of reasons, including to avoid certain pesticides, to encourage smaller farms and to support agriculture that doesn't introduce harsh substances into the environment. In a June 2011 health survey by Thomson Reuters and National Public Radio, 58 percent of respondents said they preferred organic over non-organic foods. The most popular reasons cited: to avoid toxins and support local farmers.

Despite the public's favorable perceptions, however, "the science doesn't show a difference," said David Lineback, senior fellow in food safety at the Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at the University of Maryland.

Federal organic standards set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture do not include explicit requirements for food safety, nor are they intended to. The primary purpose of organic farming is not to prevent foodborne illness but to practice and promote environmentally sustainable agriculture.

"We don't purport that organic is healthier than conventional food," said USDA spokeswoman Soo Kim.

"The organic standards do not directly address issues of food safety but instead production and processing and handling methods of agricultural products," Kim said in an email. But, she added, "organic certification by the USDA doesn't preclude any operation from having to meet the food safety and environmental requirements" of two other federal bodies: the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Organic labeling standards are based on the percentage of organic ingredients in a product.

For crops, this means growing on land without the application of any prohibited substances (as defined in the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990) and without the use of genetically modified organisms, most conventional pesticides or sewage sludge, for example. Organic livestock must be raised without hormones, fed 100 percent organic feed without byproducts and given year-round access to the outdoors.

Carrie Vaughn, vegetable production manager of the recently certified organic Clagett Farm in Upper Marlboro, Md., said she believes the food safety risks are lower on her farm because of strict standards for manure composting that come with organic certification.

USDA's organic program requires composted manure to be heated to at least 131 F for a minimum of either three or 15 days (depending on the composting system) in order to reduce pathogens.

Vaughn said the close relationship she has with her buyers and their families motivates her to be vigilant about food safety in the field. "It's terrifying for me as a grower to think that I could grow something that could kill a small child," she said. "So we're careful on the farm, and we also work directly with our customers. ... If something ever happened, it would be so easy to trace that contamination back to us."

Lineback, at JIFSAN, remains skeptical of what he calls consumers' "I-know- the-farmer" attitude. That trust, he said, is rooted not in science but in consumers' feelings about food and a distrust of corporate agriculture.

There is even debate over whether organic food is more nutritious, as proponents maintain. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported in 2010 that a study of 50 years of academic articles on the topic found that organic and conventional foods are nutritionally comparable.

So, which is better for you: organic or conventional? In the end, as Lineback noted, "it's a matter of choice and what people believe."