Feed the Soil, Not the Plant with the Real Organic Project
In this episode of the Direct Farm Podcast we're excited to welcome, Abby Lundrigan, Certification and Farmer Liason at Real Organic Project. The Real Organic Project is a farmer-led movement created to distinguish soil-grown and pasture-raised products under USDA organic. In response to the lack of enforcement of some vital USDA Organic standards to protect soil health and animal welfare, organic farmers rallied together to fight to protect the integrity of the organic label.
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Rory: 0:26
Welcome to the Direct Farm Podcast. I'm Rory, your host for today's podcast. We've got a great conversation for you today with the Real Organic Project. Real Organic Project is a nonprofit organization dedicated to growing people's understanding of the foundational organic values and practices, including crops grown in soil and livestock raised on pasture. They also offer an add on label to the USDA organic certification to provide more transparency on organic farming practices. I'm delighted to welcome Abby Lundrigan certification and farmer liaison at Real Organic Project. Welcome Abby. Thanks for joining. It's great to have you here.
Abigail: 1:02
Thank you, Rory. I'm very excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Rory: 1:05
Yeah. So for farmers who may have never heard of the Real Organic Project could you just give us a little bit of an overview and maybe kind of how the organization got started and a little bit about what you've accomplished to this point today?
Abigail: 1:18
Yes. So as you mentioned we are focused on promoting or highlighting certified organic farms that are raising livestock on pasture. And that are soil focused, so are growing their crops and soil. And those probably sounds like kind of strange things to kind of specify or call out. But the project or the organization was kind of born out of some recent developing issues in organic integrity and organic enforcement. So namely there have been in the last several years, more and more hydroponic operations certified as organic and not labeled as hydroponic, so we're attempting to distinguish farms that are growing crops and soil, since that is one of the foundational tenants of the organic standards in the organic program. And there are some issues with livestock, not actually being on pasture and having kind of questionable access to pasture and not actually grazing. So essentially what we're trying to do is certify farms and educate the public on the fact that most organic farms match the picture that they have in their head, when they think of an organic farm I would say the vast majority of them, they have their cows on pasture. They have beautiful blueberry bushes or vegetables or row crops growing in healthy living soil. But recently there have been a very few, but very large sort of bad actors that have entered the marketplace and started to kind of erode the consumer confidence in the organic label and find some loopholes or work arounds to not really be meeting those standards or meeting, especially the image of what people think of when they think of organic agriculture.
Rory: 3:01
What are some of those specific problems that certified organic farmers kind of face that the Real Organic Project is trying to kind of help correct, and support?
Abigail: 3:10
The first thing that comes to mind, probably because I was just at the organic grain conference I think that one of the major issues is a problem with imported grain that is not organic, somehow mysteriously becoming labeled as organic. Once it reaches ports in the United States and enters the country. And that causes a problem for the organic grain farmers here that are actually raising their crops organically. They have trouble competing in that marketplace. They can't match the prices that imported grain is going for. And it is oftentimes not actually organic so that is one specific thing that, that comes to mind. And that also creates kind of a cascading effect where a large portion of that grain is potentially are probably going to feed certified organic livestock because certified organic livestock have to be fed certified organic grain. And then you get into this issue of, you know, there's potentially certified organic livestock, not being fed the organic grain that they're supposed to be getting. And that grain is also not coming from, actual organic farms here. So that's one specific issue that, that comes to mind. Another one which I kind of touched on is just this issue of the allowance of hydroponics as being certified organic. I would say it's less about the specific system of raising something hydroponically and more about these methods of raising crops that do not involve those crops growing in living soil. So, one thing that comes to mind is a lot of organic berry production is actually done in large containers. So there will be acres of berries that has like a landscape or weed fabric on the actual ground covering the soil. And then all of the strawberries or blueberries or whatever are grown in these really large pots. And they might have some kind of inert soil like media in them, like some combination of peat Moss, or almost like potting soil. But they're getting the majority of their nutrition from liquid fertilizer. And in addition to that aspect, there's really not any stewardship of the underlying actual, you know, native soil on that land. When production is happening that way, and we are not necessarily against those methods of production, there's just an issue in our minds with those methods being certified as organic and on top of that, not being differentiated or labeled as, you know, container grown or hydroponic. I think that when somebody goes to the store and buys organic blueberries, they have, again, this like idea in their head or this image in their head. You know, rows of blueberry bushes growing in the ground and, you know, strips of grass in between, or the bushes getting mulched or like habitat for wildlife being part of the equation and people have that image in their head, but it is often and increasingly not the case with the organic berries that are available to them in the marketplace. And that is just an issue of transparency. And the reason that we see this container production or soil is production as an issue is because there's a standard in the national organic program. That says that an organic farm should be managing their system or, growing their crops in a way that actively maintains or improves the health and biology and chemistry and organic matter, et cetera of the soil that they're growing in. And that is kind of a foundational tenant of the national organic program. And a lot of the rules around organic production kind of are based on that assumption that you're growing in soil. So rules around, you know, being able to apply micronutrients or perform soil tests or apply amendments are predicated on this assumption that you're growing in soil. Because that is a foundational concept of organic agriculture. It's just kind of one of the major issues that we're working on. When that transparency isn't there, it makes it really difficult for the farmers that are growing their blueberry bushes in soil and have wildlife habitats and are stewarding and actively improving or maintaining the soil that they're growing in. It creates a marketplace that they just can't compete in. And then that kind of watered down product becomes the lowest common denominator or becomes what is the majority of what's available in the marketplace.
Rory: 7:34
Why did Real Organic Project choose an add on certification to the current USDA certification of organic?
Abigail: 7:41
That is a really great question. And one that I get a lot from farmers that are interested in what we're doing are just probably one of the most common questions. In general. And it's funny because people are either very glad or very disappointed that we are an add on certification. And I think the people that are glad feel the way that they do is because the standards as they're written in the national organic program are really solid. And it has been a very successful industry and the people that worked to make it happen and to create the standards and this set of rules in the system, the farmers that were involved in that from the beginning, put a lot of work into it and have seen it be very successful. And the fact that it has been a successful as it has, and the fact that it's a industry that generates billions and billions of dollars is the reason that these very large corporate entities have decided we would like to make some of that money. We would not necessarily like to follow the rules, but we would like to get a piece of that pie. And have kind of found these loopholes and, and are creating these problems for the smaller, legitimate you know, passionate, committed, real organic farmers. So because that foundational system is really solid and has been working, we kind of want to fight to fix it or to keep it, and to not surrender it to those bad interests. So I probably told you guys this when we first talked, but an analogy that I have heard Dave, our executive director use is, my friends and I built this swing set was a great swing set, works great. And some bullies noticed how great it was and decided that they wanted to take it over. And I could definitely go and build another swing set. I know how to do it. We built one that was working really well, but I already made this one and I don't want to give it up.
Rory: 9:32
Yeah, I love that analogy too. I think it really does sum up what you guys are doing very well.
Abigail: 9:37
Yeah, it's such a beautifully simplistic line of reasoning.
Rory: 9:40
Yeah. Yeah.
Abigail: 9:41
And I think it really resonates, with people that have been certified organic for a very long time and really confident and passionate about their own practices and how they align with organic standards or how the standards align with, what they're doing. So that is essentially the reason that Real Organic Project was designed to be an add on certification and not an alternative. And I think another reason is that there is already because of the issues that we've talked about, a degree of mistrust or kind of an erosion of confidence on the consumer side, in the organic label. And the last thing that we want to do is contribute to that by creating something completely alternative. People generally understand what it means for a farm to be certified organic. But at the same time, even when I was farming before I worked for Real Organic Project, I would have customers come up to me at the farmer's market and say, oh, that doesn't really mean anything does it? You just want to charge more. So I think, there's a little bit of confusion or lack of trust already in the marketplace. And we would like to fix that and not, contribute to it.
Rory: 10:50
Definitely. I feel like there's so many terms that you come across on a daily basis like new verbiage of what is like a clean or sustainable or regenerative or pasture based pasture raise. There's just so many different terms out there.
Abigail: 11:04
I think all of those terms have also come up and are not really are often not regulated because of that kind of creeping mistrust or lack of confidence. Because all of those terms pasture raised, or grass fed they're all kind of fall under the umbrella of what organic means. It's just that organic has started to not mean what it is supposed to mean. And it was originally supposed to mean. So these other terms have had to kind of prop up to be an additional differentiation when really that's what organic has always meant. Pasture raised.
Rory: 11:40
Could you maybe talk about like, what, what does that mean today? Just the base level, USDA organic certification, and what does that kind of allow?
Abigail: 11:48
Yeah. So our soil management standards are actually exactly the same as the way that the national organic program standard for soil management is written and the difference is just in how we interpret it. We've expressly prohibit hydroponic or container production. So there's not a whole lot of difference in terms of crop production. Things start to diverge more with the livestock standards. So one thing that comes to mind is there is a standard in the national organic program that requires a certain amount of ruminant animals feed to come from dry matter. So there's a dry matter intake percentage calculation. That farm's do in a certain amount of their dry matter intake is supposed to come from pasture. And the national organic program standard for that is I believe 30%. So 30% of their diet essentially is, is supposed to come from actively growing pasture. And our standards is 50%. So it's a little bit higher there. And then we do actually require not just access to the outdoors. An example that comes to mind there is like with chickens with organic poultry or egg production they're required to have outdoor access, but that often means that in a very, very large house or structure that is, that is housing, all of these chickens they, you know, there's thousands of them in this structure and there's one tiny little door that they're definitely not using or not all able to feasibly access that goes out onto a concrete porch instead of grass. And that is certainly not, like I said, what people think of when they think chickens that have outdoor access. So we have some more strict and more specific requirements or the way that we, the way that we kind of verify that outdoor access and that they are actually going onto pasture is a little bit more strict. We want to see a certain minimum amount of vegetative cover and very legitimate and clearly being used access for the birds. And then we also have pretty specific space requirements for both indoor and outdoor areas for poultry. So those are the specific divergent things in our standards that come to mind the only other one that I can think of off the top of my head is we, we also have labor standards. National organic program doesn't have any labor standards. And that was something that we wanted to incorporate because what we're really trying to do is look at the farm instead of checking a bunch of boxes to kind of certify a singular product, the way that organic certification does since we're building on top of that work that has already been done by the farms, since they're already certified organic, what we're looking at is more of a holistic picture of the entire farm.
Rory: 14:47
Yeah. There's a lot of farmers who maybe just don't see the value in, one paying for that certification and kind of going through that process and taking the time to do so. So what would kind of be your response to, to a farmer who might say that to you? I'm sure that's something that you've run into before.
Abigail: 15:01
I think about this a lot because I worked on the farm before I worked here Real Organic Project and it was a certified organic farm, but I often thought about if I had my own farm, if organic certification is something that I would pursue or not And there was a time when I would have said that I wouldn't. And I think that my feelings about that have changed or shifted largely because I think a lot of farms that are operating that way when the cost is prohibitive, that is just something that I completely understand. I think that all farms are going to design their system and get whatever certifications they're pursuing or not pursuing based on their specific market and what's going to work for them. So for a lot of farms, it just doesn't make sense. Or the scale that they're on makes it cost prohibited for them to pursue organic certification. So things like that, I completely understand, and I would love to see organic certification be completely free for all farms to kind of at least remove that barrier. Cost aside, the decision to not be certified is often rooted in this line of reasoning, that you know, my customers know me, they know my practices, I have a relationship with them. I don't need a certification to prove to my customers that they can be confident in what I'm doing. And I also completely understand that. And that's kind of the line of thinking that I initially had when I was pondering this in thinking about what I would do if I had my own farm but, working for Real Organic Project, especially has really highlighted for me that there are all kinds of organic farms that are all kinds of different sizes and have all kinds of different customers. And I love the know your farmer idea. I would love to know exactly where and who everything that I consume came from that is pretty much completely not feasible or very, very difficult these days. And then there's at least something that you were probably going to the grocery store for. And I would like to be able to confidently have a way to make a choice when I can't know my farmer or when I can't know where something is coming from. And I think that's why I personally want it to be a really strong program because a lot of people rely on it to make their choices. And I think that a lot of farmers rely on it to demonstrate what they're doing to a consumer that they don't have a direct relationship with.
Rory: 17:22
Something that I think we always are telling farmers is that you know, your customers probably do have a really good understanding of the practices that you use at your farm. And, if you have a good relationship with them and they know you, then that's really great. And that obviously is the core to starting your business is having that trust with your customers, but for generating new customers and growing that audience, you know, those people aren't familiar with you yet. And so having a certification, especially with one that's as well-respected as one such as the Real Organic Project it's an easy way to communicate that to new customers who may be just popped onto your website for the first time and are starting to do a little bit of research. But they don't know you, they haven't been to your farm, like maybe some of your customers have. And so having that that logo or that certification is a really good way to kind of fast track that communication and hopefully increase your customer count. I think a lot of times the, like we talked about a little bit, but the two biggest barriers to that are time and money. So could you maybe kind of walk us through, like, what is that process from beginning to end of getting your farm first, just certified by the USDA as organic.
Abigail: 18:23
A lot of what you have to do is just record keeping. And that also reminds me that something that I liked to say when I was working on the farm, was that even if you think organic standards should be higher or should be more of a bare minimum instead of kind of the highest level of attainment certification wise, I think if nothing else, it is a system that requires you to create a paper trail and a level of traceability that that anyone could ask to see and have an idea of what you're doing on your farm and have records that say where you got your seeds from and you know, what you sprayed on your crops or what you fertilized with or what you amended your fields with. I think from start to finish, I would describe it as there's something called an organic systems plan that all certified organic farms have to create. And it's essentially just you know, lists your fields, their acreage, their locations, you fill out paperwork that states what crops you're growing that year in each field and what crops you grew the previous three years in each of those fields. So it really is just a lot of keeping track of where you bought your seeds from when you planted things. You know, when you started things in your greenhouse and I'm describing this from a vegetable perspective, because that's what my experiences in, but it is pretty much the same for livestock operations. And they're doing things like, excuse me, they're doing things like calculating that dry matter intake percentage that I mentioned earlier. So there's not really any specific requirements in terms of what your crop rotation has to be. You just have to demonstrate that you are, that you have some kind of rotation and that you are taking kind of, again, measures to conserve or improve or maintain the soil that you were, that you're growing in. That sounds daunting, but I will also say that I think a lot of people that decide to become certified organic find those records are really good to have anyway. And once you have solid systems in place for keeping track of all of that stuff it's really nice and helps you with just the management of the farm. To have all of that information compiled and to have a reason to be accountable for keeping that information around.
Rory: 20:39
They get that certification and then they decide, all right, now I want to be certified by the Real Organic Project. What would kind of be their next steps to make that happen and to reach out to you guys and get certified.
Abigail: 20:51
We have tried to make it a very painless process, especially because all the farms that we're working with have already gone through the process of being certified organic. And for us, we have an application online and available in paper form as well. That takes, I would say 15 to 20 minutes to complete. It's really more of kind of a questionnaire then the more formal, bureaucratic feeling organic systems plan doesn't take very long at all. And so we have that application and then we do with new farms, we do a visit to the farm that usually takes anywhere from depending on the size of the farm and on how long we ended up just hanging out with them. Just because sometimes it's really fun and it takes a while. But I think actually doing our inspection process is 60 to 90 minutes. And again, depending on the size of the farm. It's an opportunity also for a farm that we're visiting to show us stuff that they're doing that they're really excited about that may not necessarily come up in their organic inspection.
Rory: 21:57
Yeah, that's awesome I feel like every farm has those things, you know, it's kind of unique to them and that they give them a, give them a platform and a chance to speak to that. That's great. So for farmers who are maybe just starting out and and maybe that real organic certification is, is a little bit of a ways off what are some of the steps that they can take to maybe still participate and contribute to Real Organic Project mission in the meantime?
Abigail: 22:21
Oh, yeah, that's a great question. I think what comes to mind first is we have our virtual symposium every year that kind of does a deep dive into some of these issues, as well as we have a real organic podcast, that is fantastic I have to say, that does more of a deep dive into some of these specific issues or features farmers that we work with. I think a lot of people that engage with those things feel a little bit more informed and confident in talking to other people about these issues. And just kind of demystifies what I think is seen as frustrating and opaque set of problems. So we have podcasts and the symposium, and then we do also have a consumer facing campaign called real organic friends that is where we're kind of developing it and trying to get it more off the ground a bit. But that we're planning to do things like online webinars or tours of farms in different areas or screenings of the symposium footage, stuff like that. That is a little bit more kind of just building community around what we're doing.
Rory: 23:23
And what's the name of the podcast. We got to plug the podcast.
Abigail: 23:26
It's called Real Organic Podcast. And I always feel funny, kind of plugging it because I work for Real Organic Project. So it seems like that's why I'm plugging it. But even if I did not work for this organization. I think it's a really, great podcast and they have fantastic guests and great conversations. So yeah, but that's a personal endorsement.
Rory: 23:48
Awesome. Definitely. That's great. Well hopefully our listeners check it out. You guys also work with an advisory board made up of farmers. What is their role in the organization and how do they support the Real Organic Projects mission?
Abigail: 24:01
Yeah. We have a few different boards. So the advisory board is largely farms or farmers that they publicly support us and they're kind of there as a resource. If we need advice about something, a lot of them are featured in the podcast or in symposium footage. A lot of them are farmers that I have admired for my entire career in agriculture. And then we also have a standards board that maintains or reviews and creates our standards and kind of reworks them or revisits them every year as necessary. So that is also made up largely of farmers.
Rory: 24:36
What are some of the accomplishments from, from last year that Real Organic Project is most proud of, or even maybe that you're personally most proud of?
Abigail: 24:43
We started the podcast, like I said, and I think that as I'm sure you know, is a huge undertaking, a lot of work. I'm sure you're very familiar with the amount of work that goes into a podcast. And then the symposium , is something that just ended. And I think that we, I'm also impressed with that every single year and just the amount of work and, and passion that goes into that. And other than that, we vastly increased or expanded the number of farms that we were working with this year. I think that in 2020 we finished with around 400, maybe a little bit over 400 farms, and now we're right over 800. Doubling the program was no small task. And this past summer, there were only, there were five of us doing inspections. So splitting up those 400 new farms amongst the five of us means that we, we all visited no around 80. I don't know if that math is right, but a lot of farms more than 50.
Rory: 25:40
But it was over quick.
Abigail: 25:41
Yeah. So even just physically going to that many farms feels like a huge accomplishment.
Rory: 25:47
Yeah, definitely. It sounds like the growth has been awesome. It's great to hear that you guys doubled that growth in, in just two years and that you're on your way to over a thousand farms. What kind of programming or events, or growth on the horizon, are you most excited about
Abigail: 26:02
Hm. Something I am very excited about is, I just talked to somebody from the Farm and Ranch, Freedom Alliance. Yeah. Yeah. There's just so many great people and organizations and businesses out there doing so many amazing things. And I think I'm really excited for us to connect with these other organizations or businesses that are doing complimentary things to what we're doing or that, you know, we both care about the same things or are talking about the same problems, trying to address some of the same challenges and there's ways that we can collaborate or support each other in addressing those things. So I'm excited to do more of that. And other than that, I'm also very excited about expanding that Real Organic Friends program, just because I think that the more awareness and support and enthusiasm that we can build amongst consumers and eaters, and, I think the more successful in the more rapidly successful we will be.
Rory: 27:09
Yeah. Awesome. Well, for farmers who want to participate in your guys's mission, or just learn more or even join in and look into that add on certification where should farmers go to do those things and how can they learn more about the Real Organic Project?
Abigail: 27:24
We have a website that is just realorganicproject.org. And again, there's the podcast. So that application is available on the website, there's a lot of other information. We have some, what we call know your farmer videos. Short videos that we've done with a lot of our certified farms and those are really very . Compelling and I love them. Um, Oh, We're on social media.
Rory: 27:48
Are the handles? Go ahead and shout them out.
Abigail: 27:50
I think they're just Real Organic Project.
Rory: 27:53
Cool. Awesome. Well I think that's all the questions that I had for you. Thanks so much for doing this
Abigail: 27:57
it was very fun.
Rory: 27:58
I want to extend my thanks to Abby and all the farmers at the Real Organic Project at Barn2Door we're delighted to serve farms in all 50 states, including certified organic, and certified real organic farms across the country. For more information on the Real Organic Project, visit RealOrganicProject.org and to learn more about Barn2Door, including access to numerous free resources and best practices for your farm, you can go to Barn2Door.com/resources. Thank you for tuning in and we'll see you next week.
Abigail: 28:26
Thank you so much.