What are the opportunities and chal-
lenges as OTA heads into the future?
One of the biggest things we need
to focus on as we go forward is to
educate the public about the nutritional density of organic and the
connection between food quality
and healthy soil. Organic should be
at the table as part of the health
care debate. We should have nutritional experts discussing the health
benefits on TV and radio shows. Focusing on the lack of pesticides is
an easy sell, and is important, but it
is not the only benefit.
As part of this, OTA also needs
to maintain an institutional history
of why the rules were originally written in certain ways. For example,
the original reason why there
needed to be a three-year transition
period was based on decades of observation and research about how
long it takes for a biological system
to restart and produce a healthy
crop based on improving the soil
with green manures and cover
crops. Today, that has been forgotten. Institutionally, the three years
are viewed as a waiting period
where you don’t do anything and
the pesticides will just go away, but
that is not what Sir Albert Howard
observed in the ’40s or what J.R.
Rodale wrote about 50 years ago. It
takes three years to proactively
build soil fertility. The rules are in
place because they align with nature’s perfect systems. Continuous
improvement is built into the system and we need to train the industry on this and educate the public
on it as well.
It is also important for OTA to
Bill Wolf
President,
Wolf, DiMatteo +
Associates
Board President,
1993–1994
push to better align the regulations so that we can reduce the compliance quagmire. The organic regulations are still maturing and difficult to understand,
which is leading to different interpretations. It’s not a stable regulatory environment for those thinking about getting involved. Let’s get it straight. I think that
is what Miles McEvoy, the new director of the National Organic Program
(NOP), is trying to do. I am very excited about the direction he is taking as far
as creating a manual and clarifying the program regulations.
The third challenge and opportunity for OTA is to encourage an increase in
domestic acreage by identifying barriers and educating farmers about the differ-
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