January 26, 2009: Organics: Rising by popular demand

Hello: We’re starting 2009 with a quick look back at 2008, reviewing all the ways the Rodale Institute has been able to raise the profile of organic agriculture as an answer to global problems such as climate change, worldwide famine and declining nutrition. Read more >>

See more photos of the Institute on our Flickr page here >>

We’ll continue to make the case that organics deserves to be at the center of the discussions about sustainability, institutional green assessment, watershed management, rural renewal, youth empowerment, food sovereignty and food nutritional quality labeling.

Our staff is involved in outreach and conferences from Pennsylvania to California to Wisconsin, talking about our Organic Transition Course and the no-till roller-crimper with farmer audiences. These are two great resources that help the women and men engaged in making decisions about working their land to see how soil-building practices—such as cover crops and complex crop rotations—will fit into their 2009 plans to cut input costs and increase their sustainability quotient.

Making practice-by-practice advances is the way whole farm systems develop to take advantage of the biological diversity that organic practices bring. The principles are global, but the application is always informed by regional, community and farm-based realities. (Such as the crop contouring and rotation on the Rodale Institute farm, pictured here.)

The persistence of farmers to apply these changes and their quest to find extra value for them in the marketplace have been the twin story lines of organics in the United States for the last 20 years. Consumer demand for organic food and products is rapidly morphing into political demand for sustainable organic solutions. We’re now at a new threshold where the rest of the world—beyond farmers and the consumers who love them—is beginning to see organic farming as a bridge to the future.

There’s no use dedicating billions of dollars to stimulate failed chemical-based farming schemes or to prop up industrial livestock systems that pollute air and water, excessively concentrate animals and animal waste, and require massive transport of crops that are never recycled back to their fields of origin. It’s time to close the loops that depend on fossil fuels, and invest in systems where natural cycles create sustainable outcomes.

You can help us make sure policymakers know about the positive environmental impact organic agriculture can have. Check out our new donate button on our homepage. It’s quick and easy, so you can invest in your organic future and forward this newsletter on to your friends who need some good news for a change.

Greg Bowman from the Rodale Institute