Spirit of Organic award honors Anthony Rodale

Presented by New Hope Natural Media’s The Natural Foods Merchandiser, the award honors unsung heroes of the organic movement. The award recipients are peer-nominated and have all demonstrated long-term commitment, innovation, entrepreneurship, passion for organics and a determination to change the way we farm, eat and live.

Anthony is the grandson of Rodale Institute founder J.I. Rodale and the son of Ardath and the late Robert Rodale. From 1992 through 2005, he served as vice chairman and then chairman of the Rodale Institute’s board of directors. He is now chairman emeritus.

Under his leadership, the Institute renewed its commitment to the founding theme of “Healthy Soil = Healthy Food = Healthy People.” The Rodale research farm that serves as home for the Institute received its certified organic status and the long-term Farming Systems Trial celebrated its 25th anniversary during his tenure. Anthony launched NewFarm.org as a webzine reincarnation of The New Farm magazine that his father had started in 1979, and—with Florence, his wife—he also initiated a youth-focused gardening education program and Web site.

Also under his leadership, the Institute created what is now called the Organic Price Report and began work on its online Organic Transition Course.

Anthony Rodale received international recognition for leadership work with farmers in Senegal, West Africa. He has also published and exhibited many of his photographs on food security and cultural change in the U.S. and abroad as he continues as an international ambassador for the Institute.

“I am really happy to see the local movement gaining momentum,” Rodale commented, as he celebrated the parallel and continuing growth in the ranks of certified and non-certified organic farmers. In receiving the Organic Trade Association’s Organic Leadership Award in 2003, he challenged the organic community to reach a goal of 100,000 organic farmers by 2013.

"I describe myself now as a photographer, triathlete and organic activist,” Rodale said. “I really like to inspire people to live a healthier and more active life in whatever way they choose. The organic idea and way is a great place to start."

Rodale continues to advocate for organic farmers and serves on the board of the Rainforest Alliance and the Appeal Board of the Soil Association in the United Kingdom. He remains a strong supporter of the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture (PASA) where he has served as a board member.

Rodale and the rest of this year’s recipients of the Spirit of Organic Award exemplify the power of individuals and communities to create positive change through the principles and spirit of organics. Other winners as listed by The Natural Foods Merchandiser were:

• Kelly Shea, vice president of government and industry relations at WhiteWave Foods Co. Shea is the leader of the Horizon Organic Producer Education program, which sponsors research, offers expertise and provides education for current and future organic partners.
  Shea serves on the Organic Materials Review Institute’s board of directors and has been chairwoman of the Organic Trade Association (OTA) Quality Assurance Council Livestock Committee and co-chaired the OTA’s GMO task force.
• LaRhea Pepper is executive director of Organic Exchange, based in O’Donnell, Texas. Pepper, a fifth-generation farmer, is a founding member of the Texas Organic Cotton Marketing Cooperative and founded Organic Cotton Plus and Organic Essentials—farmer-owned companies that take the cotton from field to finished product. Pepper says she wants agriculture to move from an industry in which farmers are typically invisible, often impoverished and dependent on others for seed, fertilizers and other inputs to a system where farmers are celebrated stewards of the land.
• Kevin Brussell is president of Ag Organics, an organic-grain consulting and marketing firm that seeks to make connections between organic farmers and organic food and feed producers. Brussell is the new superintendent on the Organic Dairy Research Farm at the University of New Hampshire. Funded by Stonyfield, it is the first certified organic dairy-research farm at a land-grant university designed to "emulate the typical organic dairy farm in the Northeast, and then research the questions and challenges that the farm and the farmers present," Brussell said. "Over the next decade, I would like to see as many conventional acres as possible converted to organic production, both for the health of our environment and our food system," he said. “I think we need to rebuild the local and regional food processing and distribution infrastructure that compensates and treats farmers fairly and provides healthier food."