Organic Processing Vo1.7 #1 - January/February 2010

At one point in time, I was probably there every month or so going from trade group to trade group—the American Meat Institute, the dairy groups and so on—to make sure they understood what organic meant and who we were. We spent a lot of time neutralizing. We would go to these organizations and say, “We’re not asking you to support us, but we don’t want you to be against us.” Also, the environmental community and the public interest groups came to our assistance.

I also spent a lot of time working with the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) administrator, who was certainly more on the conventional side, but I was able to befriend him.

Building these kinds of relationships with government officials along the way has been really important for OTA.

What do you think the organic industry
needs to keep in mind for the future?
One thing I wish is that those in the or-
ganic industry would truly understand
the value of a trade association. People
have a tendency to judge a trade associ-
ation by what it does for them, but
trade associations should really be eval-
uated by the collective impact that they
could have—the more people who par-
ticipate, the stronger the collective
energy, which results in a trade associa-
tion that can make a bigger impact. So
many other industries already under-
stand that. Some, like the soy and dairy
industries, have very strong trade asso-
ciations and therefore they have a very
strong lobbying presence and re-
sources to promote their products.
One challenge OTA has is the fact that
we include all types of products, which
makes it hard to focus on one goal. Also, OTA is still continually fighting the
battle to protect what organic really means out there. The biggest problem is

Caren Wilcox Caren Wilcox & Associates, LLC OTA’s Executive Director, 2006–2008

“With the 2008 Farm Bill, OTA’s hard work paid off as the U.S. Congress quintupled the amount of mandatory spending on organic programs, authorizing additional spending if appropriated. OTA was fortunate to have a team in D.C. working with me to help deliver this bill. OTA led the coalition of the organic community that advocated for organic farmers, and was instrumental in conven-ing the panel that testified at the first organic hearing in Congressional history. Among the biggest winners were research, crop insurance, organic conversion, and certification cost share programs. In addition, the inclusion of additional funding for the NOP provides the program with the resources to fulfill its mission.”