Organic farmers are innovators by nature, and their practices often serve as models for others. With U.S. sales of organic reaching over $60 billion in 2020, organic farm practices are having a rippling effect throughout agriculture.
In principle, organic farms have more diverse farmscapes and are helping to address biodiversity loss. In reality, some do and some don't. However, they are required to conserve biodiversity as part of the National Organic Program (NOP) regulations, and the NOP’s Natural Resources and Biodiversity Conservation Guidance that WFA initially wrote is helping with that.
For most, the USDA organic label conjures up images of pastoral beauty, co-existence of wildlife and livestock, and fields of diverse crops. For some organic farmers, this too is the expectation they set for themselves when they certify their land and crops. However, not all of the organic community is on the same page.
Farmers can implement a progression of activities that increasingly support biodiversity and the benefits it provides to the farm. Each farmer has a unique set of circumstances and will begin at different places in the continuum, depending on their need and capacity for supporting nature.
We and the NOSB sought to change the current perverse regulation that incentivizes the immediate destruction of Native Ecosystems and conversion to organic production as a cheaper and faster option than transitioning existing conventional farmland over a three-year period.