We did it before

When the Real Organic Project started 5 years ago, I thought it would create immediate and powerful change. It was the right people coming together at the right time. Who else could save organic from the USDA except the farmers who brought us the organic movement in the first place? These pioneering farmers were even supported by respected voices such as Paul Hawken, Vandana Shiva, and Michael Pollan.

But I’ve come to realize how wrong (perhaps naive) I was. Even preeminent organic farmers and respected educators are powerless in isolation. It turns out that they need you and me! And they need many many more farmers and eaters to join them. We need to reawaken a movement that has fallen asleep after accomplishing so much in the creation of the Organic Food Production Act.

Our heroes and role models cannot create change alone. Change will only come from daily face-to-face engagement, often with people who don’t yet get it. We all need to have multiple, deep conversations to build a greater shared consciousness around complex issues. Why does healthy soil matter in agriculture? What is real climate-smart agriculture? How much consolidation is too much? We need to enlighten ourselves. one mind at a time.

So we have our work cut out for us. We need to convince family and friends to join the Real Organic movement. Have them begin by listening to our podcast library and subscribing to our Sunday newsletter. Challenge them to start eating one real organic meal a day. Then two. This may be the work of a lifetime or even generations. Good thing for us, the work is joyous and there is no doubt that we are on the right path.

See you in the field,
Linley

"What can you do?

"You can ask the places that you buy food from if they carry real organic food, and that's a big deal. I have practiced this. You go to a store and you ask them if the food they have for sale comes from livestock in confinement or if it is hydroponic. You'll have some very interesting conversations and that becomes your personal song.

"There's been a lot of talk today about 'preaching to the choir.' I say, 'It’s a big choir!' The choir has millions and millions of people in it. There is magic that happens when we start to connect because once you're in the know, there’s no going back. We start to become a choir instead of just one person. If we could ever get that choir to sing in some kind of harmony, we would take over the world. That’s the truth! "

– Dave Chapman, in his speech at Churchtown Dairy.

"When I started as an organic grower 50 years ago, organic was a way of thinking rather than a profit center. It became a profit center when it was taken over by the USDA.  So in 2002 I published in Mother Earth News that in my opinion, organic is now dead.

"We need to come up with a meaningful synonym for the highest quality food. Our farm says guaranteed RealOrganic. I have been told that the USDA owns the word organic. No they don’t! Besides, I’m not using the word organic, I’m using a new word, RealOrganic!"

– Eliot Coleman

"It can be different. In the last 10 years, while we were losing real organic in the US, the EU tightened their standards. 

"The outcome of all of this integrity in the EU is that in the last year, their organic sales surpassed those of the US. Organic sales in the EU are now a billion dollars ahead of the US.

"We don't have to make weak standards that we don't enforce, in order for organic to grow. The excuse that the USDA uses to cheat on their own standards is that we must make organic really cheap. And the only way we can keep it cheap is by allowing industrial-scale confinement livestock and hydroponics.

"But in the EU, they’re following the standards and organic is growing. Not just the name organic, but the reality of organic."

– Dave Chapman, in his speech at Churchtown Dairy

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