Big Organic Bull

By Samuel Fromartz

The dust up over Aurora Organic Dairy's alleged misdeeds in the organic dairy business has kicked into full gear.

The latest missive flew out Tuesday, as one of  Aurora's certifiers, Quality Assurance International (QAI), said it did nothing wrong even though a farm and milk it certified were cited by the USDA in its Aurora complaint.

For those not following this sordid saga, the USDA had threatened to decertify Aurora in April, citing 14 instances of willful violations of regulations. Aurora then reached a plea bargain with the USDA last month that contained provisions for the company to stop selling some milk, remove some improperly transitioned organic animals from its operation and increase grazing rates for its herd. They are the largest producer of private-label organic milk in the nation.

Significantly, the plea  contained no admissions about the 14 allegations of wrongdoing: it only states that the company was fully certified (ie, the organic certifiers knew what was going on). And secondly, there were "inconsistencies" between its Organic System Plan and USDA regulations -- that is, between what it was doing and what it was supposed to be doing under organic regulations.

Meanwhile, the watch-dog (and attack-dog) Cornucopia institute that had first brought a complaint against Aurora two years ago added the certifiers to a new filing, alleging they should have known the company was skirting organic regulations. Aside from QAI, the Colorado Department of Agriculture also certified Aurora's facility.

Now QAI has pointed a finger back at Cornucopia, and indirectly at Aurora and the Colorado certifiers. It stated:

Contrary to the spin asserted by the Cornucopia Institute, QAI has not been accused of any wrongdoing by the United States Department of Agriculture (“USDA”) Agriculture Marketing Service (“AMS”), and there is no suggestion by the USDA that QAI did anything wrong in its certification activities.

In the complaint, however, the USDA did cite Aurora's Dublin, Texas farm that QAI certified, saying:

During the spring and early summer of 2006, AOD (Aurora  Organic Dairy) entered conventional dairy animals into organic milk production at its Dublin, Texas, facility before they completed the required one-year period of continuous organic management, which began sometime after September 30,2005, in willful violation of 7 C.F.R. § 205.236(a)(2).

So what is QAI's defense? One source tells me these animals in question had organic certificates from the Colorado Department of Agriculture and QAI had to accept them. As its press release states: "By law, QAI is required to accept all certification decisions of other accredited certifiers." In other words, the Colorado certifiers were to blame. But this defense amounts to turning a blind eye on wrongdoing rather than trying to correct it. Frankly, I expect more of certifiers.

Meanwhile, Colorado is pointing a finger at the USDA, with a state agriculture official telling Sustainable Food News ($) that "Some of those (organic) regulations lack a great deal of clarity.” Further, "If this doesn’t demonstrate the need for additional USDA organic dairy training procedures, I don’t know what does.” (Other dairy certifiers don't seem to have these issues).

So what does all this add up to? USDA alleged Aurora was breaking the law. Aurora only admitted its certified farm plan and practices needed to be reworked. QAI said it did nothing wrong. Colorado said the problem was with USDA regulations and training.

In short, every party involved in this mess sounds like a two-bit capo out of the Sopranos: "We didn't do nothin' wrong! It was da other guy!"

Hence, my picture of the bull above.

Image source: North American South Devon Association

Gretta's Film on Flooded Organic Farms

Here's the short film of the flooded Midwest farmers by Madison filmmakers Gretta Wing Miller and Aarick Beher, who talked to some of those mentioned in the  post I wrote on the floods.

Gretta informs she explored the organic farms previously in a full-length documentary called "Back to the Land...Again," released in 2006. I haven't seen the doc but it's touring with the intriguingly named Rural Route Film Festival.

And now, without further delay, the short:

Farmers, Flooding and Whole Foods' Mea Culpa

By Samuel Fromartz

You probably saw the pictures of flooded farms, overflowing rivers, and the rain that swamped the Upper Midwest last month.

What you might not know is that organic vegetable farmers in the region had severe losses. I knew one of them, Jack Hedin, who owns Featherstone Farm, in southeastern Minnesota.

His farm is nestled in the Wiscoy Valley, beside a tiny stream called Money Creek, literally ground zero for the storm. When it rained, and kept on raining (a total of 26 inches), the creek overflowed, swamped fields, flooded a packing shed and cooler and washed out roads. A levee in the nearby town of Rushford gave way and the town was devastated.

Reached on his cell in a field, Jack told me he lost $200,000 worth of crops – and not just in his fields. (The image at left shows a flooded corn field at Featherstone).

The day the rain began to fall, his crew had picked 10 pallets of cantaloupes and put them in a cooler. But the power went out overnight during the storm and by the time he rigged up a generator the next day, the melons were rotten.

In nearby Wisconsin, Richard de Wilde of Harmony Valley Farm, told me his organic vegetable losses reached $750,000, or about two-thirds of his annual produce revenue.

Featherstone and Harmony Valley are relatively large organic produce farms in the upper Midwest, selling to co-op and Whole Foods stores as well as through their CSAs. (The image below shows washed out top soil at Harmony Valley Farm). The region is home to one of the highest concentration of organic farms in the nation.

They weren't alone with losses, just the biggest. Two others, Avalanche Organics and Driftless Organics, were also hit. You can see a short video of the farmers by Madison filmmaker Gretta Wing Miller here.

The floods came at a particularly devastating moment, for the end of August marks the height of production. Before then, farms are running up expenses. But around the first week of September, the harvest comes in and so does the cash.

Hedin had drawn down $89,000 on a working credit line and was planning on repaying it with the fall harvest. He pared expenses, cutting his crew to 11 workers from 19.

While many of Hedin's fields were under water, a number on dry, higher ground had made it through without damage. He figured he had about $90,000 in crops remaining, but they had to be picked if he was going to make that money.

Retailers Respond

In the days after the storm, co-op supermarkets called up and started buying. Some took mark-ups of only a few cents per item, emphasizing that the produce was coming from badly hit farms. A non-profit called Sow the Seeds Fund, spearheaded by the co-ops and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, also started a fund-raising drive to raise money for the farmers.

Whole Foods, a big customer for these farms, initially took a different tack, placing a moratorium on purchases because of concerns about food safety.

Bobby Turner, Whole Foods VP of purchasing in the Midwest, told me he first looked into the issue after a store customer sent an email asking if the produce was safe. He talked with another central produce manager as well as USDA officials. Based on these talks, the company decided to ban all produce from the flooded counties until the farms carried out what's known as a USDA GAP (Good Agricultural Practices) audit of their fields, at Whole Foods' expense.

The fear was that stream water containing potentially toxic e. coli (from nearby dairy farms) and banned pesticides would have flooded the fields, contaminating the produce.

It was around this time I got a critical email from a farmer outside the region (yes, farmers talk to each other) describing Whole Foods as a "fair weather friend." Jim Slama, an organic and local food advocate in Chicago, with the non-profit, Sustain, told me he heard similar complaints and began working the phones with contacts at Whole Foods.

The farmers were cognizant of food safety concerns, but they argued their fields on higher ground had not flooded, so a need for a total purchasing ban was overblown.

De Wilde actually tested his fields for pathogens and got two positive hits for e. coli contamination, but it was only on rotted crops in flooded areas next to a stream.

All his other fields and crops tested negative.

Turner soon flew out from Chicago to visit the farms, walking the fields and learning the extent of the damage. He realized the moratorium had been enacted too quickly. Within a day, Whole Foods reversed itself and was buying again.

"We could have been more compassionate, and more communicative," he said.

Writing Checks

De Wilde said his 875 CSA customers who get a box of produce a week will absorb about one-third of his $750,000 loss, in the form of smaller boxes.  (This demonstrates the viability of the CSA system, in which the customer shares the farmers' risk by paying up front for a full season's worth of goods. They get the bounty, or shortfall.) His CSA customers remain fiercely loyal, in fact, they've gone beyond loyal, and have raised $25,000 for the farm.

He, alone among the farmers, also had crop insurance but it only covered $100,000 in losses.

Local co-ops in the Twin Cities are also seeing a rush of donations to help the farmers. Barth Anderson of the Wedge Co-Op in Minneapolis told me the store had raised about $10,000. One customer even wrote an $800 check at the cash register.

Whole Foods is donating $25,000 to Sow the Seeds and will match another $10,000 donated by customers at the cash register.

"Whole Foods is back to buying everything we have, there's no arguing about price, and they're telling us, 'We want to be aware of any surplus product you have,'" Hedin recounted.

Silver Lining?

The crisis may have a silver lining, since the farmers and Whole Foods are discussing three issues that are central to ensuring a sustainable supply of local food:

• Long-term commitments. Farmers have been planting crops based on verbal pledges from Whole Foods. Turner admitted, "that doesn't work if the manager leaves and we don't know what was agreed upon." Now they plan on sealing contracts discussed in the winter, with some built-in flexibility on both sides.
• Pricing. Local farmers will never match California producers on price, because the growing season is much shorter and more variable, labor is more costly and farms are smaller. Whole Foods and the farmers need to agree on prices that work for both sides and are appropriate for the particular farm.
• Quality Standards. If Whole Foods wants to get the best local produce, it may need to consider a wider range of standards, rather than grading to a blemish-free standard on items such as heirloom tomatoes.

Turner said the company is cognizant of these issues and committed to sourcing from these farmers. He said the company has appointed a manager in charge of local foods, who ironically began work just as the storm hit.

The bigger question is whether these farms will be in business the coming year. De Wilde thinks he can squeeze through the crisis and Hedin is also optimistic, but he's not sure how he'll handle his debt. I've heard other farms are struggling but no one has dropped out of the race.

Through all of this, one thing is certain: good partners - and fanatical customers - are key.

Image credits: Featherstone Farm, Harmony Valley Farm via the Wedge co-op.

© Chews Wise 2007

Certifiers, USDA dropped ball

Here's a an op-ed I wrote for the Rocky Mountain News focusing on the recent agreement between Aurora Organic Dairy and the USDA.

 

By Samuel Fromartz

September 8, 2007

After years of complaints and aggressive public advocacy, the U.S. Department of Agriculture last week did what it should have done long ago: It forced the largest private- label organic milk company in the nation - Boulder-based Aurora Organic Dairy - to amend its farming practices so they comply with regulations.

The department also threatened to revoke the company's organic certification, which allows it to sell organic milk, if it failed to comply during a one-year probationary period.

This enforcement action was among the most significant the USDA has taken to protect the organic marketplace. Earlier this year, it shut down a big organic dairy in California, which also flouted the regulations.

It's a win for organic consumers, ensuring that the private-label organic milk they are buying for $5 to $6 a gallon in the supermarket actually is organic.

It's also a win for the majority of organic dairy farmers, many of whom run much smaller farms and face higher costs as a result of complying with the letter of the law.

Right now, the organic industry has in place a comprehensive certification program to make sure farms and food producers do things right. You can actually see the certifier identified on the organic food product you're buying.

Consumer trust at the heart of the market depends upon every producer and certifier following these regulations.

But this system works only if the certifiers know what they are doing and the USDA takes action to bring scofflaws into line. Until two weeks ago, the system broke down on both counts.

In its "Notice of Proposed Revocation," the USDA alleged that Aurora was in "willful violation" of the organic rules in 14 instances, primarily at its farm in Platteville.

Among the most egregious, Aurora Organic Dairy did not adequately graze its animals on pasture. It also brought cows onto its farms that did not meet the requirements of organically reared livestock.

Aurora countered that its farms always have been certified organic.

True. And therein lies the rub. The Colorado Department of Agriculture, which certified Aurora's farming operations, fell down on the job.

It has agreed to step up training of its staff.

But the state certifiers aren't the only ones deserving of a failing grade. The USDA had been getting loud complaints about Aurora Organic since 2005 from the farm advocacy group, Cornucopia Institute, and competing organic dairy farmers. Aurora was also open about its minimal grazing policy, saying this method, which squeezed thousands of cows into feedlots, was better suited to arid Colorado.

It took two years for the USDA to investigate the complaints and then negotiate a settlement with the company. (This stems from another problem: The USDA has a staff of about a half-dozen people to oversee the entire $17 billion organic food industry in this country.)

Aurora was not standing still at this time, aware that pressure was building. It opened another farm in Colorado designed to increase grazing access for its cows. It began cutting back the size of its massive herd in Platteville (more than 4,000 cows at one point) and plans to reduce the figure to 1,250 animals. It razed buildings to add pasture.

Given the experience of Aurora's founders, who have been in the organic dairy business since the early 1990s, it stretches credulity to believe they did not know what they were doing. What seems more likely is that they made a calculated bid to game the system while building a fast-growing, venture-backed organic dairy business, only correcting things once the action got too hot.

Under the pressure of the USDA consent agreement, Aurora will no doubt complete its program and get back in line.

Hopefully, the system will now work - with certifiers and regulators preventing this kind of case from ever happening again.

Wegmans Launches Organic Research Farm in NY

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle has an in-depth look at Wegmans' organic research farm in upstate New York. "The farm's mission ... is to provide locally grownfruits, vegetables and honey to nearby Wegmans stores and, eventually, to serve as an educational model for local growers, employees and consumers who want to learn about organic food production," the newspaper says. (The family-owned Wegmans chain has 70 stores from New York to Virginia).

Photo of CEO Danny Wegman, linked from Rochester Democrat and Chronicle slide show

Supermarket Wars Part Deux

Whole Foods, confounding regulators who argued the retailer would do otherwise, announced it was lowering prices at Wild Oats stores in the Rocky Mountain region.

While this might be seen as a way to calm anxious customers (or thumb its nose at regulators), it is also informed by something else: competition. On that score, Whole Foods said it was rolling out a smaller store format, called Whole Foods Market Express at a test site in Boulder, which will focus on value-priced products and items for shoppers in a hurry.

This smaller format store (the initial one located at the original Wild Oats location in Boulder is 18,500 square feet) might eventually be used in the battle against Trader Joe's and  Britain's Tesco. The latter is opening "Fresh & Easy" markets in the United States that will be around 10,000 square feet, with ready-to-eat meals and fresh produce (among the most profitable aisles in the grocery biz). Whole Foods lately has been focusing on giant format stores of around 80,000 square feet but now it seems to be protecting the lower flank as well. So much for monopoly....

One note: In yesterday's item on Aurora Organic, I failed to mention that Wild Oats stocks private label milk from Aurora. With Whole Foods takeover, it will be interesting to see how that contract progresses. Currently, Whole Foods relies on Organic Valley for its private label organic milk and has not been exactly quiet about criticizing Aurora's practices.

(Picture link from Wikipedia)

- Samuel Fromartz

USDA Gets Tough on Giant Organic Dairy

By Samuel Fromartz

After years of complaints and aggressive advocacy by the Cornucopia Institute and organic dairy farmers, the USDA did what it should have done long ago: it got the largest private-label organic milk company in the nation, Aurora Organic, to agree to reform its farming practices. It also threatened to revoke Aurora's organic certification if the company did not follow through on these reforms during a one-year probation period.

Cornucopia and others have lobbed criticisms at Aurora for years, primarily for keeping its organic cows in feedlots against the letter and spirit of organic regulations that require the animals to have "access to pasture." Though this entire period, it should be noted, the Colorado Department of Agriculture and Quality Assurance International continued to certify the company's practices as organic and Aurora denied it was doing anything wrong.

According to the USDA complaint, however, the company did not have enough pasture for its cows and was bringing animals onto its farms that may have been improperly transitioned to organic production.

The media was all over the story, but here's a couple of things you might not know. Based in Boulder, Aurora Organic was backed by $18.5 million in venture capital funds from Harvard University's endowment fund and made a business selling store-labeled organic milk to retailers such as Costco, Wal-Mart, Trader Joe's, Target and Safeway. Despite the inordinate negative publicity, no retailer has stepped forward and dropped the company's milk, nor has Harvard or its alumni ever raised any questions publicly about this investment (made through Charlesbank Capital Partners of Boston).

The USDA Agricultural Marketing Service said in a press release it "will exercise increased scrutiny over Aurora's operations during a one-year probationary review period. If Aurora does not abide by the agreement during that time, AMS may withdraw from the agreement and could revoke the organic certification for Aurora's Platteville, Colo., plant."

In its own press release on the matter, Aurora said that it was increasing pasture at its Plateville farm to 400 acres -- a figure I found astounding because company officials had told me the farm had 2,900 acres of irrigated pasture and 12,000 acres of range land when I spoke to them for my book in 2005. What happened to the 14,900 acres of pasture they previously said they had?

It will graze 1,250 animals on those 400 acres, a herd that has been shrinking from the more-than 5,000 cows it once had at the Colorado facility.

Pasture wasn't the only issue. Under the new organic system plan (which every farm must have to get certified), Aurora must:

• Provide daily access to pasture during the growing season, acknowledging that milking cows is not a reason to deny access to pasture
• Reduce the number of cows to a level consistent with available pasture with agreed maximum stocking densities
• Eliminate improperly transitioned cows from its herd and not market those cows' milk as organic
• Agree to use the more stringent transition process in the regulations for animals added to its dairy herd.

This is the second major action by the USDA against an organic dairy company this year. In May, the USDA yanked the organic certification for the Vander Eyk farm - a giant operation in the central valley of California.

Is the USDA finally getting the message that consumers and organic dairy farmers want a high-integrity product? We hope so.

With My Re-Entry, A Fat Post

By Samuel Fromartz

Whew! What a nice break.

I did the unthinkable and went on vacation for 2 weeks without a laptop. I checked email a couple of times  at a public library, but truth be told, I didn’t miss it. Not a bit. Without pending deadlines, I had very few emails that demanded attention. And as for all those pesky email lists and alerts, I just scanned and tossed them once I got back.

What I realized was something I already knew but found hard to accept - that email and the web are an incredible time suck, with a plethora of minutia sapping your attention and brain power. It’s the intellectual equivalent of eating too many corn chips in front of the tube. You wonder where all the time went and what you got out of it. (Perhaps I’d even include this post in that -- actually, I will. Take it or leave it).

But now that I am back in this unnatural position, in front of a screen, consuming my metaphorical brain corn chips, a couple of items have grabbed my attention. Like fat. It’s been on my mind this summer. In the summer lull, I happened to catch Shaq’s Big Challenge on ABC in which the giant basketball star corralled a group of morbidly obese kids from the Sunshine state for months, trying to get them to lose weight and get in shape.

The show itself had its moments, leaving me teary-eyed and bleary-eyed. The challenge these kids faced was truly heartbreaking at times, but it was also difficult to dramatize what was a months-long slog of weight loss, exercise and diet change. Shaq helped. He’s actually entertaining. The kids were also heroic. But it’s a crime that they got to such an extreme stage before there was any sort of intervention. Indeed, the public school, with its lack of a physical ed requirement and its fast-food lunches, was an enabler of the epidemic. The parents didn’t help either. In fact, they were part of the problem, which shows how love, spoiling, and nutritional ignorance are a recipe for disaster.

The key, though, was you couldn’t finger anyone for the blame: The clueless school, trying to offer food kids would actually eat (for $1 a meal); the parents, who obviously had their own food issues; the kids, who bellyed up to the trough of candy, soda, burgers, pizza and fries at any opportunity and the culture at large, which provides this smorgasbord and offers absolutely zilch in the way of accessible healthy food alternatives or education. Yes, the critics will claim, these kids and their parents were just exercising free choice to eat what the hell they wanted. But frankly, that’s like saying they were choosing to stick a very slow acting gun in their mouths and pulling the trigger. The bullets were edible and called food. We know the result - an epidemic of obesity that is only getting worse.

As everyone knows, the only way to lose weight is to eat less and move more. Both are difficult. Even with a personal trainer in the mold of Attila the Hun, Shaq’s personal counseling sessions, an obesity doctor, a nutritionist, a receptive school principal and a chef re-engineering the school lunches, it was difficult. And people without resources are expected to do this on their own? No wonder dieting is a $35 billion business which people perennially fail at. (It’s kind of an ideal business model for it ensures repeat customers). All of these kids, however, lost weight, some dramatically. But the big winners were clearly in the minority, which shows you how difficult it is -- even with the most extreme sort of intervention -- to succeed.

There have been several TV shows along these lines (ABC seems to be flogging the genre with its current Fat March in which several obese adults walk from Boston to D.C. to lose weight). Why the interest? There’s a growing audience for these shows -- literally. We are now told that we are getting fatter, according to a widely reported study this week. Not a single state has shown a drop in obesity rates in the past year. People in 31 states have gotten fatter. So there's a entertainment genre for couch potatoes worried about  being couch potatoes. (Now if TVs were powered by treadmills rather than enjoyed with potato chips we might actually get somewhere...)

Forget for a moment the impact on heart disease, diabetes, and other illnesses. (Obesity-related hospital costs for children ages 6 to 17 more than tripled from 1979 to 1999, rising from $35 million to $127 million, according to the report.) Just consider the quality of life issue. The overweight kids in Shaq’s show were unhappy, depressed, with extremely low self-esteem. Their parents, schools and society had failed them. Everyone recognized the train wreck but no one knew what to do. Even the Superstar was flummoxed.

But at least he (even at the behest of a prime time ABC show) tried. The Washington Post mentioned a couple of other examples in its report on the latest statistics, like a "Shape Up" program in Somerville, Mass., that added school crossing guards to previously unattended corners and alerted parents to the change. That boosted by 5 percent the number of kids who walked to school.

But here’s the kicker quote to the Post story, which we should all keep in mind. “Interventions are important to put in place," said Jeffrey Koplan, who directs the Global Health Institute at Emory University in Atlanta. "But none of this is going to turn around [the obesity epidemic] in a year or two, or three and maybe not even in five. We have got to be in this for the long haul."

Kind of sounds like, well, exercising.

Naturally, Whole Foods Wins

I'm surfacing from my self-imposed Internet vow-of-silence to take note that a judge has ruled in Whole Foods favor (WSJ $) and allowed its acquisition of Wild Oats to proceed. On its face, this supports the position that I've articulated before -- that Whole Foods does indeed face competition from others besides Wild Oats and that the merger does little to alter that reality.

The organic, natural food, and grocery market is fast-changing and to think anyone has a hammer lock on consumer choice when it comes to this food is myopic. The competitive advantage presented by Whole Foods and Wild Oats stores does not mean shoppers have no other choices. Indeed, I wonder how others will now respond to this merger, if it goes ahead. I doubt they will sit still or give up on organics.

I would also note that the FTC, in an improperly redacted court filing, actually presented evidence of that broader competitive market. It argued that Whole Foods was muscling organic suppliers to keep them from selling directly to Wal-Mart -- instead forcing Wal-Mart to buy through distributors. That way, Wal-Mart would not be able to pursue its favored tactic of demanding lower prices from suppliers and passing on those savings to customers.

The FTC was arguing that Whole Foods was stamping out a competitor -- an especially ironic argument considering how Wal-Mart's entry into grocery sales has vastly reduced consumer choice by driving other supermarket companies out of business. Also, regardless of what you think of these strong-arm tactics (if one can actually strong-arm Wal-Mart), this suggests that Whole Foods was worried about competition from the retail giant. So then Wal-Mart is the competition?

Every company wants an edge, a distinctive way to stand out to consumers, but that alone does not make for a unique market or wipe out competition from other vastly different-looking companies selling the same  things. Whole Foods understands that, which is why it is consistently paranoid about losing customers to the competition, whatever their size or shape. Apparently, that point was lost on the FTC, which seemed to take John Mackey's chest-thumping at face value. It was not, however, lost on the judge.

Finally the ruling was sealed but if anyone wants to leak it, I'd be interested in reading it and commenting further...

Fromartz Unplugged

In case you're wondering, we've entered a Net detox program for a couple of weeks this summer. Instead of blogging, we're in the mountains eating good food, reading books, having conversations, running up and down mountain trails and generally enjoying ourselves. We're only at step five of the detox program (and this post put us back a step) so it'll be a couple of more weeks. Believe me, it's great.

Enjoy your summer!

Samuel Fromartz

How Organic Fared in House Farm Bill

Organic agriculture won backing in the House version of the food and farm bill, though not at the level the organic lobby was pushing for. I'd call it a solid double rather than a home run. Here's the break down, as reported by the Organic Farming Research Foundation:

• The organic research and extension initiative got $5 million a year, plus $25 million in discretionary funding (that portion will only appear if money can be found). The money will fund much-needed research on organic methods and USDA extension agents who can advise farmers on organic agriculture. OFRF comment: "While the mandatory funding is an increase of $2 million per year from the 2002 Farm Bill, it falls short of the $15 million per year in mandatory funding which OFRF recommends."
• An organic data initiative to collect information on production and marketing got $3 million over five years.
• The Organic Conversion Assistance Program was allocated $50 million, providing technical and educational assistance to farmers who are transitioning to organic production, a three-year process. Transitioning farmers can receive up to $10,000 per farmer per year for three years. OFRF comment: This was "significantly less than the $50 million per year in mandatory funding recommended by OFRF." But it would be the first time money was set aside to help farmers through the financially difficult transition period.
• The National Organic Certification Cost Share Program, which helps defray the cost of organic certification, was reauthorized with mandatory funding of $22 million, up $5 million from the 2002 farm bill. Under the program, farmers can receive up to 75 percent of their certification costs, to a maximum of $750. This was less than the $25 million that OFRF had sought.

The action will now switch to the Senate, which writes its own version of the bill. The differences eventually will be resolved in conference. For more on the ins-and-outs of the farm bill action last week, especially on farm payment limits (or lack thereof), check out Mulchblog, Blog for Rural America and FarmPolicy.com.

- Samuel Fromartz

GMOs Ruled Out in Africa Hunger Fight

In a significant announcement, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, backed by the Gates and Rockefeller Foundations, has ruled out the use of genetically modified crops to fight hunger and poverty on the continent, according to the group's chairman Kofi Annan, in a report in the Kenyan Business Daily.

"We in the alliance will not incorporate GMOsin our programmes. We shall work with farmers using traditional seeds known to them,” he (Annan) said. Mr Annan said poor pricing of commodities, and not type of seeds, keeps African growers away from their farmlands despite spiralling food insecurity and poverty on the continent.

“We need to get the right seeds into their hands by strengthening research partnerships with local universities and other institutions,” he said. Mr Annan said insufficient infrastructure such as roads, poor storage facilities and  weak market structures were to blame for Africa’s continued dependence on food aid.

High-yield seeds were at the center of the former Green Revolution in Asia. While many have viewed GM crops as the latest step in high-yield agriculture and a way to fight hunger in the Third World, many others have criticized that approach and African countries have resisted for numerous reasons: the risk of GMO contamination, trade impediments to GM crops, the issues of patenting seed and the high costs of large-scale intensive agriculture. Although AGRA has not ruled out GMOs, the group says on its web site:

The Alliance is not at this time funding the development of new varieties through the use of genetic engineering. We have chosen to focus on conventional breeding techniques—which can be quite technologically sophisticated—for two main reasons:

1. We know that conventional methods of plant breeding can produce significant benefits in the near term at relatively low cost. Until now, however, conventional plant breeding has not received sufficient attention or investment in Africa, leaving untapped the inherent genetic potential available in African crops. With improved seeds produced through conventional breeding methods, plant scientists and farmers could readily raise average cereal yields from one tonne to two tonnes per hectare—making a major contribution toward ending hunger and poverty in Africa.
2. Conventional crop breeding fits within the regulatory frameworks now in place in most African countries, enabling relatively rapid dissemination to farmers of the new varieties they desire.

In a speech last month in Cape Town, when Annan was appointed to the post, the former UN secretary-general laid out the broad goals for the initiative.

We aim to make a concrete difference in our lifetimes. With respect to seeds, the Alliance is already in the fields, working with African farmers and African agricultural scientists to breed new varieties of maize, cassava, rice, beans, sorghum and other major crops that will offer better resistance to disease and pests. Our goal is to produce 100 new crop varieties in five years. And to ensure farmers have access to these seeds, we will also move to create a wider network of local seed distributors and agro-dealers to better serve remote rural areas.

In addition, the group has goals with regards to maintaining and improving soil health, irrigation, and marketing infrastructure.

Agra was established last year with an initial $150 million grant from the Gates and Rockefeller foundations. It seeks to help millions of small-scale farmers and their families get out of poverty and hunger through sustainable growth in farm productivity and incomes. According to the Kenyan report, Annan said food production in Africa could be doubled in the next decade with improved seeds and increased access to inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides.