Keynote talk by Dana Jackson

“Organic Farming & Wild Nature:
Setting a Higher Standard

Upper Midwest Organic Farming Conference, La Crosse, Wisconsin Friday, February 25, 2005

Introduction

It is so exciting to come to this conference. I thought it was a wonderful conference in 1994 when I was invited to give a keynote speech, just a year after I moved to the Upper Midwest, but the program has become even richer with information and inspiration in the last 11 years. Thanks to the staff and board of the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service and to all the sponsors, presenters, exhibitors and volunteers who make this great learning and sharing experience possible.

This conference is a real accomplishment, not only for MOSES, but also for the organic movement as a whole. And by the way, I’m going to avoid saying the words “organic industry.” I understand that organic farming and organic food are now commanding enough respect in the marketplace to be considered an “industry.” In a sense, that is good. However, when what we considered conventional farming became known as an “industry,” it became industrial. Organic farming can’t be industrial and still be organic farming.

While we celebrate the growing demand for organic foods and welcome the great opportunities opening up for organic farmers, we must not allow the values and standards of organic production to be weakened or eroded for the economic gains of industry. Today I’m going to talk about strengthening organic standards by invigorating the connections between organic farming and wild nature. But first, let me establish my own personal history with the organic movement, so that you may be able to put my remarks somewhat in context. And maybe it will help you understand why I am so effusive about this conference.

Personal History

When I grew up in Abilene, Kansas, we ate organic food from our backyard: vegetables, chicken and eggs. I didn’t know it was organic food, and I doubt that my parents knew the word either. As I went through college, married and started raising children, I didn’t really give any thought to where grocery store food came from. I should have. Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring was published in 1962, and my daughter, who was born in 1961, was probably fed DDT in my breast milk. Even then, I was totally trustful about food quality and mostly concerned about how to still have enough money for groceries at the end of the month. But by the time my third child was born in 1968, I had begun reading about environmental problems associated with agriculture. By Earth Day 1970 I was a dedicated convert to whole grain foods, baking my own bread and making granola. (My older daughter is fond of saying that I even made them eat whole-wheat marshmallows). Since organic produce wasn’t available in stores then, I began reading and dreaming about organic gardening.

My first organic garden was a very small one in the backyard of a house in the suburbs of Sacramento, California, in 1972. But in 1974, our family became back-to-the-landers in Salina, Kansas, and we planted our first big organic garden. Since I was the cook, totally in charge of meals, I soon took charge of the garden. Our income was quite low, so I managed that garden for serious production, not only for eating during the growing season, but for canning, freezing and drying food for the winter. I knew that what it took to get through the winter when all three kids were home included 50 quarts of tomatoes, 50 quarts of tomato sauce, 25 pints of catsup, and 60 quarts of dill pickles, plus frozen beans, corn, peas, strawberries, etc.

By the time two older children left for college, the garden had also become a project of The Land Institute, which we had founded in 1976, and our family shared it with about 25 employees and interns. Working in the garden became part of the intern training. I taught them what I had learned from reading the Rodale Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening and Rodale magazines, through hard lessons of trial and error, and from listening to experiences of other organic gardeners. Through 1991, I worked with 10 interns who came from all over the country each year, and they introduced new ideas from their experience, which brought beauty and creativity into the garden. I’m really proud that today, two of those interns, Steve Ela and Helen Atthowe, are on the board of directors of the Organic Farming Research Foundation.

There weren’t many organic farmers in Kansas during the 70’s, but there were enough to establish the Kansas Organic Producers. This organization made a decision at some point to become strictly a marketing group, and it has served organic farmers, particularly grain farmers, in Kansas very well since then. Organic farmers thought it only reasonable that agronomists at its land grant college of agriculture should do research that would help solve some of their production problems. One summer, the Assistant Dean of Agriculture agreed to attend a meeting of organic farmers in Marysville, Kansas, and hear their ideas about the kind of research that would help them.

I think this meeting happened after the USDA Report and Recommendations on Organic Farming came out in July 1980. Bob Bergland was Secretary of Agriculture then and Garth Youngberg, who later founded the Institute for Alternative Agriculture, initiated the study.

I attended that meeting, and what I remember is that the nice, diplomatic Assistant Dean listened politely to the farmers’ requests for organic farming research, but said that the College of Agriculture had no resources to do the research they wanted. When the farmers proposed research on their land, he dismissed the idea of on-farm research, because researchers would not have enough control over the variables and they couldn’t produce results that would be credible for publication. It was a very disappointing evening, although quite civil.

I wonder if the sales of organic foods had been increasing 20% a year then, as they are now, if he would have paid more attention?

Progress

I was really pleased to learn that last weekend Kansas State University held a conference on Organic Agriculture that was called “Opportunities for Family Farms in Kansas.” It was co-sponsored by the Kansas Rural Center, an organization that has promoted sustainable and organic agriculture through education and community organizing for 25 years. Mary Fund of the Kansas Rural Center told me that about 150 people attended, and 50 farmers signed up at the Kansas Organic Producers’ table because they were interested in learning how to make the transition to organic production. The Kansas Organic Producers can’t meet the demand for organic grain and are seeking more producers, so there is a real opportunity for family farms in Kansas to make some management changes and earn much more for their crops. You would think that agronomists at Kansas State would be interested in this, but not a one showed up for the conference, even though Katherine Delate from Iowa State University gave a talk about organic agricultural research.

Residents of Minnesota can be proud of the University Research and Outreach Station at Lamberton, which has been doing significant organic farming research for several years. And this year, the University of Minnesota has turned one acre of land north of the St. Paul campus over to an organic farming project with student participation. This is great. However, the U of M is missing a great opportunity to pioneer research on the transition of conventional farmland to organic production in this urban setting. It would make good sense to do research on organic horticultural crops instead of conventional feed grains on those acres. University officials are hip to the public’s attention to fresh, local vegetables and fruits, and they are even talking about getting more healthful foods in student dining halls, but like Kansas State, they haven’t committed any substantial resources to doing research that would benefit organic produce farmers, even though faculty are interested. Will the sales of organic foods have to grow 50% a year or 70% a year to make them wake up? Maybe they are just waiting until the fad for organic food passes, and then no one will bother them again about organics. We must not let the demand for organic foods become just a temporary fad.

Looking back over the last 35 years that I have paid attention to organic production, I’ve seen the status of organic farming rise to heights not dreamed of on the first Earth Day in 1970. There has been real growth in the number of organic farmers, real growth in sales of organic food and now, even a concern about demand exceeding supply, in spite of the disinterest of our colleges of agriculture. This is really exciting. As we look to the future, this is the question I, and most of you too probably have: how are we going to keep this momentum going so organic farmers can make a good living, yet hang on to basic principles of the organic movement that benefits the environment and not get co-opted by the industrialization of organic agriculture?

Strengthening the Connections between Organic Farming & the Natural World

Today I want to suggest an answer to that question, an approach based on strengthening the connections between organic farming and the natural world. We know that organic farming methods in and of themselves are better for the soil, water and wildlife than conventional farming methods, primarily because they do not involve toxic chemicals. But the definition of organic farming in the USDA Organic Rule is more proactive in protecting the natural world. Organic farming is defined as “a production system that is managed to respond to site-specific conditions by integrating cultural, biological, and mechanical practices that foster cycling of resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity.”

There is a distinction about organic farming in this definition that has not been given enough attention. It states an expectation that farmers should purposefully design and manage organic farms to enhance biological diversity. (This doesn’t mean taking down all your deer fences so the deer population can thrive by eating your crops! Not unless you decide that your crop is organic deer meat.) It could mean paying more attention to field edges and planting more flowering herbs and wild species to increase pollen and nectar resources for wild pollinators. It could mean leaving a wider buffer of vegetation near the creek running through your farm. It could mean leaving rest paddocks in your grazing systems until birds have fledged. And many, many more common-sense steps that foster biodiversity and open up opportunities for more wildness that benefits the farm as well as the larger landscape. The opportunities for conservation biologists and agronomists to do joint research in this area are boundless.

The Preamble to the rule explains in more detail what the responsibility for conserving biodiversity means. It says:

“We have amended the definition of organic production to require that a producer must conserve biodiversity on his or her operation. The use of “conserve” establishes that the producer must initiate practices to support biodiversity and avoid, to the extent practicable, any activities that would diminish it. Compliance with the requirement to conserve biodiversity requires that a producer incorporate practices in his or her organic system plan that are beneficial to biodiversity on his or her operation.”

Up until now there has been little discussion about this and no clear understanding about what it means for an organic farm to initiate practices to conserve biodiversity. Other ecolabels, such as the Food Alliance Midwest, have been more explicit. But soon, at their upcoming meeting, the National Organic Standards Board will be deciding whether to endorse biodiversity conservation criteria as additions to the model Organic System Plan. If they do, in the future the environmental benefits of organic farming will be more important in certification. I think that purposefully building a closer connection between organic farming and health of the land and its wild inhabitants beyond the farm gate will be a great benefit to the organic farming movement. It will especially help build consumer loyalty for organic and sustainable foods produced locally and regionally. However, farmers and retailers will need to get better at explaining what organic farming is in an ecological context.

What is the Public perception of Organic Farming?

Imagine that you’re going to select 10 people at random in a large shopping mall and ask them how they would define organic farming. What do you suppose they would answer? I suspect that at least half will define organic farming in terms of practices it does not use. “It’s farming without using pesticides.” If a person says “without chemical pesticides and fertilizers,” give her an extra point. Among the other five respondents, there will be attempts to say what organic farmers do that’s different from what conventional farmers do. The sample may produce someone who does backyard gardening and says that compost is used in organic farming as fertilizer, or that organic farmers “build up the organic stuff in the soil to make plants grow better.” I’m just speculating—this is not scientific research—but if you asked most people which kind of farming is better for the environment, conventional or organic, I think the common perception about organic in the culture would cause them to say “organic.” And they are right. We must be able to tell them over and over that they are right. When I say WE, I mean not just farmers, not just processors, distributors and retailers, but also the whole gamut of groups and consumers supporting organic farmers who, like me, consider themselves part of the organic movement.

If you’re trying to describe organic farming to a person concerned about food safety and nutrition, you’ll probably start by describing how much more healthful organic food is. After you’ve caught their attention though, it’s a teaching moment and an opportunity to talk about how organic farming creates healthy land. I don’t think we should recite to them that official definition in the organic rule, but it’s important to explain the principles behind it. Although it is a definition about production methods to distinguish organic farming from “conventional farming,” it clearly places an organic farm into the context of a landscape, an ecosystem. The organic farm should provide more benefits for society than a supply of healthful food. It should foster the “cycling of resources, promote ecological balance, and conserve biodiversity.”

In 2002, the Independent Organic Inspectors Association asked the Wild Farm Alliance to provide education materials for their inspector trainings to address what it means to conserve biodiversity. The Wild Farm Alliance (http://www.wildfarmalliance.org/) is an organization that I helped found in 2000 to bridge the gap between stewardship farming and wildlands conservation by promoting agriculture that helps protect and restore wild nature. The Wild Farm Alliance collaborated with organic farmers, certifiers, inspectors and conservationists to develop biodiversity conservation criteria for use by organic farmers and inspectors during the certification process. They have presented these to the National Organic Standards Board for approval. If the biodiversity criteria are endorsed, the Wild Farm Alliance will release some Guides to Conservation of Biodiversity on Organic Farms for farmers and certifiers. These guides have been written to help everyone learn to apply the criteria.

I realize that many bona fide organic producers do not choose to get organic certification, so they are not directly interested in exactly what the rule says. But the organic rule is very influential in setting expectations for the practices of all organic farmers. It also influences the standards set by the myriad of other ecolabels being considered or now in use. Implementing biodiversity principles on all organic farms, certified or not, will strengthen the position of the organic movement in the eyes of the public at large.

Why Worry about Biodiversity?

The Upper Midwest was once an area with rich natural resources and incredibly diverse habitats for wildlife: lakes, wetlands, potholes, riparian floodplains, native prairies, forests, savannas. The transformation of those habitats into farm fields has been the primary cause of biodiversity depletion. Agriculture is practiced on two-thirds of the land area of the continental U.S. and habitat degradation caused by agriculture affects 38% of endangered species. Only a small fraction of land in the continental U.S. is strictly protected for biodiversity, with roughly 5% preserved as wilderness. The vast majority of endangered species inhabit private lands, most of it in agriculture, so agricultural landscapes must complement public lands in protecting wildlife and habitat.

From the time the prairie sod was first broken until even the pastures were plowed under to plant corn and soybeans, farmers in the Upper Midwest have destroyed the habitats of grassland song birds such as the meadowlark, vesper sparrow, savanna sparrow and bobolink But in recent years we’ve begun to recover some of that lost habitat. Thanks to the adoption of managed intensive rotational grazing in the Upper Midwest, and thanks to the standards set by the Organic Valley Cooperative which requires their milk suppliers to feed dairy cows on pasture during the growing season, some grassland is being restored. As my daughter Laura pointed out in our book, The Farm as Natural Habitat, (http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/programs_agroecology.html) the pastures may not contain the same species as were there in the original prairie, but well-managed pastures can mimic the structure of the prairie and provide habitat for grassland birds. Protecting biodiversity doesn’t just mean restoring historical plant systems; it can also mean restoring ecosystem services, which the continuous cover of perennial grasses can provide. On farms where there are no grazing animals, patches of grassland along field edges, roadsides and stream banks can serve as stepping-stones for birds making their way to grassland habitats large enough for nesting.

The Farm as Natural Habitat emphasizes that it is possible to restore a relationship between farming and the natural world that enhances the sustainability of both. Society at large has come to accept agricultural landscapes as ecological sacrifice areas without biological diversity, aesthetic diversity, or much recreational potential. People think of the area between the Twin Cities and Des Moines, those hundreds of miles of corn and soybeans, as just empty space. We tried to say in our book that farming landscapes are not all like that and that farms of the future are not doomed to be like that. Fortunately, there are organic and sustainable farmers today whose farming practices and land stewardship make their farms natural habitats. You can read stories about these farmers in The Farm as Natural Habitat, especially in the four chapters written by Brian DeVore.

For example: Brian describes Mike Natvig and Amy Miller‘s farm in northern Iowa and how Mike monitors the aquatic life of a creek running through a fen, a unique type of marsh that he protects on the land. He wrote about Mike and Jennifer Rupprecht in southeastern Minnesota who transformed a farm heavily eroded in the 1930’s into productive pastures that attract grassland birds in their grazing system. There is an account of the Dennis and Jean Fagerland farm in northeast South Dakota and the duck habitat they have created by catching water in check dams and allowing it to percolate through heavy permanent vegetation that filters runoff and protects water quality in the lake below. Brian tells why Dave and Florence Minar of Cedar Summit Farm quit using chemicals on their crops and then created a grass-based farm, which has made it an ecological blessing in the Sand Creek watershed. These are just a few of the farmers described in our book.

The Land Stewardship Project has been doing research with a number of university partners for several years to gather data on how changes to current farming practices in two specific watersheds (Wells Creek in southeastern Minnesota and the Chippewa River watershed in western Minnesota) could affect the environment. A major paper describing the analysis appeared in the recent January issue of BioScience, authored by George Boody, executive director of Land Stewardship Project, and the team of university researchers. The analysis (http://www.landstewardshipproject.org/pr/05/newsr_050208.htm) indicates that diversifying agriculture and increasing continuous vegetative cover on actively farmed land could provide environmental, social and economic benefits. But if present land use trends continue, such as monocultures of corn and soybeans to fuel what Montana rancher Becky Weed calls the “corn-bean-feedlot machine,” then environmental, social and economic problems will worsen. The land needs the practices associated with organic farming: diversification and continuous cover through crop rotations and cover crops, and diversification through mixed crop and livestock grazing systems.

Increasing Biodiversity on organic farms

Not all organic farms automatically satisfy the definition of organic farming in the organic rule. The use of “conserve” establishes that the producer must initiate practices to support biodiversity and avoid, to the extent practicable, any activities that would diminish it. Up to now, there’s been no uniform comprehension of how to implement such conservation in the certification process. The Wild Farm Alliance guides will help, but in every geographical area their application will depend upon the local natural resources and the landscape around each farm. Farmers will need to work with inspectors and conservationists and farm maps, and then ideas will surface for actions that can benefit both wildlife and the farm’s bottom line. But I should give some examples. So I’m going to describe three general strategies to conserve biological diversity.

The first and easiest strategy is it to minimize adverse impacts that farming can cause. For example, farming too close to a stream can cause runoff and increased sediment in the stream. Adverse impacts can be avoided by leaving a significant buffer zone between fields and water. Sometimes just minor changes in management will protect wild plants and animals. An example would be to avoid disturbing nesting birds until after the young have fledged. This could mean delaying the mowing of certain areas, or leaving a paddock ungrazed for a longer period.

A potato grower in Wisconsin told me at the annual meeting of Food Alliance Midwest that because of advice from Food Alliance certification inspectors, they were doing something different with the corners outside the circles of irrigated potato fields. Instead of mowing them twice a year, they were mowing just once a year, so they wouldn’t disturb bird habitat until after the nesting season. This not only benefited bird populations, but also helped with potato pest control. When the corners were mowed, the potato leaf hoppers and aphids flew out of the corners and into the potatoes, causing more damage. By not mowing the corners, the insects stayed put in the weeds and the birds fed on them. Here’s a case of how protecting bird habitat benefited crops.

Woodlands are vital for wildlife, and the number of acres of woodlands on farms in the U. S. were cut in half between 1959 and 2002, most probably for timber sales or expansion of fields. Overly tidy land managers who love mowing machinery and chain saws also cause lots of problems for wildlife. Not only do many birds need trees, they need dead trees with nesting cavities in them. To make up for the absence of dead trees, some farmers provide nesting boxes for birds and bats.

At the recent Eco Farm Conference in California, the Wild Farm Alliance sponsored a day of sessions on farming for biological diversity. Jim Riddle made a presentation called “What’s Wild in the Rule,” explaining all the parts of the organic rule stating responsibilities for conservation. One of the farmers who spoke described his farm on the coast in Marin County, a unique area surrounded by Point Reyes national seashore with wildlife habitat all around his land. He grows 30 different varieties of cool season vegetables like kale, chard and broccoli with squash on the warm end of the season. But California Quail and other birds were eating the sprouting squash. Instead of trying to get rid of the birds, he bought birdseed and spread it on the edge of his fields, which satisfied the birds and they stayed out of his sprouting squash. Their presence when the squash plants were mature helped control bugs from harming the squash plants.

A second strategy to enhance biodiversity can be to make special plantings of native perennial plants. In California farmers are planting hedgerows on the edges of fields. They don’t actually use hedge trees, as we know them in the Midwest, but combinations of California native trees, shrubs, grasses and flowering plants. The hedgerows provide habitat for birds and mammals, but also help the farm by attracting beneficial insects and native pollinators, which improve crop yields. When the crops aren’t blooming, the native plants provide nectar and pollen to sustain them.

The value of pollinators in agriculture has been overlooked. Steve Buchman, co-author with Gary Nabhan of The Forgotten Pollinators, estimates that we should thank a pollinator for one out of every three bites of food we eat. Around the world, about 70% of crops need pollinators.

Claire Klevins, who does ecological research, spoke about pollinators at the Wild Farm Alliance Biodiversity sessions. She said that pollinators are mostly bees, not just domestic honeybees, but lots of other wild bee species. There are 20,000 bee species known in the world; 4,000 are in North America. They’re not all in one place, but any agricultural area might find as many as 50 or 60 different bee species working crops.

It’s to the advantage of farmers to protect these wild bees, because over the past 50 years there has been a 50% decline in honeybee colonies because of diseases. Beekeepers in the West are quitting out of concern about hybridization with an African strain that is now in southern California. Almond growers in California depend upon renting beehives to pollinate their crop, and there haven’t been enough beehives in recent years.

Bees need flowering plants, and farmers in every part of the country can take advantage of field edges and pieces of land that aren’t farmed to plant flowering plants and shrubs, preferably native plants.

A third major strategy to conserve natural biodiversity would be to actively restore native habitats such as wetlands or prairie or savanna to natural conditions. This requires knowledge of what was there before the land was farmed, knowledge about vegetation, drainage and natural disturbances. Such projects can be expensive in time and dollars, but there are government conservation programs to tap into that help pay costs. Consulting local conservation groups or agencies to find out what species are at risk in a neighborhood is a good place to start. Working with neighbors to increase the size of restorations can be more effective. The role of organic inspectors could be very important here in suggesting where to go for information.

Whole farm plans and maps will be essential tools to conserving biodiversity. Restorations may also involve several farms working together, especially on borders where connectivity of habitat is important. I visited the Juliet Tompkins and Prescott Bergh farm near River Falls, Wisconsin, a few years ago with the Wild Farm Alliance, and Juliet showed us a map of their farm. She explained how they are conscious that the wooded creek running through their land and into their neighbor’s land is important as a wildlife corridor, and it eventually empties into a larger stream. Their plans were to keep that area undisturbed by farming.

An ecological reality is that whatever an individual farmer does on one site may not be enough to protect elements of biodiversity at landscape level. Large patches are more important than small patches to create greater species diversity, larger populations and stability. If organic farmers take the lead on ecological restoration, they will need to cooperate with neighbors, watershed and conservation districts. A cost of this will be time and the annoyance of working with government bureaucracies to access conservation funding. I’m not saying that the organic rule will require every farm to go this far, but the opportunities for long-term conservation effectiveness will certainly be enhanced.

Conservation biologists haven’t paid much attention to what happens on individual farms. They know that wildlife requires much larger expanses of habitat in order to thrive, so they have focused on public lands that are protected. However, since two thirds of the land in this country is used for farming and ranching, wildlife corridors are likely to cross agricultural land. This is why Laura and I had conservation biologists in mind as a major audience for The Farm as Natural Habitat. Individual farms and ranches are needed as linkages to habitat.

There are examples in this driftless region where we are today, close to La Crosse, where upstream farming hurts downstream natural resources. Sediment runoff from corn and soybean farms in the upper Root River of Minnesota hurts trout habitat in the lower Root River. In our book The Farm as Natural Habitat, there is a chapter by Tex Hawkins, a National Wildlife Service employee in Winona, Minnesota, who tells the story of the Coon River Valley in Wisconsin close to here, the nation’s first watershed chosen by the USDA Soil Erosion Service in 1933 for restoration. Careless farming practices had produced incredible erosion that impacted the Mississippi River and destroyed fish habitat. It took years of publicly funded conservation projects to revegetate hillsides and install terraces to stop the hills from washing into Coon Creek and pouring sediment into the Mississippi. In recent years, farms on those hillsides have been taken out of crop rotations and grass and planted to only two crops, corn and soybeans, crops guaranteed payments from the government commodity program. We are in danger of repeating the whole sad story over again.

Tex concludes his chapter with these words:

“The small reservoirs of wildness and traditional life that remain on farms, the natural nooks and crannies that still survive in some of the world’s more rugged and lovely landscapes, need to be protected now, because their days are numbered. This is not just a matter of aesthetic preference, or even of ethical responsibility; it’s an evolutionary necessity. Without reservoirs of biodiversity, how can ecosystems recover from overexploitation, cleanse themselves of contaminants, or adapt to future changes. The accelerating losses of biodiversity and family farms are the strongest indicators yet of declining land health.”

Tex ties biological diversity and land health to family farms, like many of the farms represented here today. But these farms are endangered, like much of the wildlife. Farms are getting larger and less diverse as land is being concentrated into fewer hands. USDA statistics show that in Minnesota in 1964 there were only 180 farms of 2,000 acres and more, while today there are 1,835 such large farms. At the same time, the total acres of harvested cropland remains about the same.

Making Organic Growth Sustainable

The organic farming movement is at a transition point in how seriously it is going to take the definition of organic production in the rule and how it will be implemented. Today there is not really a uniform understanding among farmers or certifiers about what practices would promote ecological balance and conserve biodiversity. There is much to learn, and very much to be gained from that learning.

It’s common knowledge that the demand for organic food is growing dramatically. A recent background paper prepared for the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service on the growth of retail sales of organic products quotes the Nutrition Business Journal. It projects a 13.8% annual increase in organic sales over the next five years, with some products projected to grow much faster, such as a 48.6% annual growth for organic poultry and 39% growth for organic meat. Who will supply that demand for organic products? Will it be current U.S. organic producers, overseas producers, or new organic producers? Will industrial organic producers and vertically integrated corporations sweep the organic market? Or will small and mid-sized organic farmers gain a strong economic foothold in their region that is sustainable. The latter is what most of us hope for, of course.

I truly believe that customer loyalty can be built upon the faith that organic food is not only good for human health, but health of the land, especially the land near them in their region. Sure, the majority of Americans only pay attention to price tags on food, which doesn’t reflect costs of environmental degradation. That makes it imperative that organic consumers be educated to understand the multiple environmental benefits that result from buying organic food. We can certainly increase our niche market among people who already care about “the outdoors” —and this includes environmental activists, conservation biologists in academe and working for natural resource agencies, people who love to fish and hunt, hike, ski and canoe, watch birds and collect butterflies. The audience is there, but the message hasn’t reached enough of them yet.

I am hoping that the National Organic Standards Board will decide in the near future to endorse biodiversity criteria as additions to the model Organic System Plan. I believe the small and mid-sized organic farms that serve regional markets can adapt their management practices to conserve biological diversity, can set the standard high, earn the loyalty of eaters in the region and build their markets.

Dana Jackson is the Associate Director of the Land Stewardship Project. She can be reached at 651-653-0618 or danaj@landstewardshipproject.org.

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