An Overview Of Our Solution
Wild Farm Alliance (WFA) is a national nonprofit organization that works to promote a healthy, viable agriculture that protects wild nature. The foundation of organic agriculture is to operate in harmony with the natural ecosystems, but unfortunately it has not been a priority since the inception of the U.S. National Organic Program (NOP). To solve this problem, we initially advocated for clearer biodiversity conservation policies, and currently are focusing on farmer and certifier education and outreach. We use educational materials, offer technical assistance, and on-the-ground trainings. With this work, the integrity of organic standards is upheld, organic farmers reap the benefits of biodiversity, and safe and healthy food is produced.
Who is this solution impacting?
Community Type
Suburban
Rural
Additional Information
- Population Impacted:
- Continent: North America
General Information
Organization type
Nirlaba
Ecosystem (select all that apply)
Deserts
Forests
Freshwater
Grasslands
Oceans/Coasts
Population impacted
144 million Americans who buy organic food
Challenge
Size of agricultural area
4,730,530 acres in the U.S., and 16,971,206 acres worldwide using NOP label
Production quantity
$43 billion in U.S. organic sales in 2015
People employed
There are 24,686 NOP operations in the U.S., and 37,050 worldwide generally employing more than one person.
Solution
Describe your solution
Our work is centered on conserving and restoring agriculture’s capacity to support healthy soils; clean water; native bees and monarchs; natural enemy insects, birds and mammals; and threatened wildlife populations and habitats. After the NOP published their Natural Resources and Biodiversity Conservation Guidance, we created two supporting documents: Biodiversity Conservation: A Guide for Organic Farmers and Certifiers (www.wildfarmalliance.org/biodiversity_guide) and How to Conserve Biodiversity on the Farm: Actions to Take on a Continuum from Simple to Complex (www.wildfarmalliance.org/biodiversity_continuum). These publications clarify the new NOP Guidance and increase organic farmers’ and certifiers’ understanding of the myriad benefits provided by biodiversity conservation that supports sustainable harvests. We are also collaborating with The Organic Center to further develop their online resource, the Healthy Farm Index (HFI), which helps farmers manage on-farm practices to increase ecosystem services provided by biodiversity. Combining HFI with our written resources will provide organic farmers with more on-the-ground information and examples on conservation practices they can implement.
Implementation
Describe your implementation
As our community building and advocacy work has lessened, our outreach and education work has grown in an effort to ensure strong implementation of the NOP Guidance. We are offering to distribute WFA’s Guide to all certification and inspection staff and providing them with postcard-size handouts to share with their farmers. We are giving in-house webinars to staff, and reaching farmers through conference presentations. Farmers will also soon benefit from our collaboration with The Organic Center and the integration of WFA’s Guide into their Health Farm Index. In addition, we are assisting organic certifiers with how to better address biodiversity conservation in their Organic System Plans (OSP) that contain inspection questions, and will be publishing a scorecard on how well they are doing collectively, while privately sharing their scores to ensure adoption. A clear enabling condition in this project was that no one in the organic community has ever declared publically that biodiversity conservation doesn’t matter. We will consider our work successful when the integrity of biodiversity conservation in the NOP regulation is upheld. We are using a consistent evaluation process to track impact and make continuous improvements. Milestones and evaluation points will be: at least 75% of all 48 US-based NOP certifiers (many of whom work in other countries), and 50% of all the 33 international NOP certifiers accept our offer to share WFA’s Guide with their inspectors, and to distribute our postcard-sized handouts about WFA’s Guide with at least 20,000 of their organic farmers. At least 25% of the certifiers will be interested in setting up webinars for their staff. We will also successfully integrate the Healthy Farm Index with the conservation section of OSPs, publish a report with an update on improvements of the certifiers’ OSPs, and help several of them with on-the-ground trainings at dozens of farms.
External connections
We have built strong partnerships to promote biodiversity conservation on organic farmland and its associated riparian areas that support healthy fisheries, and woodlands that support sustainable forestry practices. We work with conservation organizations to stay current on pollinator and predator issues (Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and Wildlands Network), and with scientists to include the latest tools and research (Furman University, The Organic Center, University of California-Davis, and University of Michigan). Our collaborations with organic farmers have helped us refine model OSP questions and assist with planting over 60 conservation practices on organic farms. Our partnerships with large farm organizations have allowed us to share our workshops and webinars with their constituencies (Ecological Farming Association, Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service and USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS)). We have also partnered with certification and inspection agencies to develop educational materials they can use (Int. Organic Inspectors Assn., Montana Dept. of Agriculture, Northeast Organic Farming Assn. of New York, Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Assn., Vermont Organic Farmers, Washington State Dept. of Agriculture), and with members of the NOSB and certifiers to advocate for the NOP implementing biodiversity conservation requirements worldwide (California Certified Organic Farmers, Oregon Tilth, and Stellar Certification Services.
Results
What is the environmental or ecological challenge you are targeting with your solution?
WFA is building upon the theme that the NOP label means more than just pesticide free; it means food and farms that carry this label are actively working to create healthier ecosystems; it means organic food and farming embody more - supporting the beauty and functionality that biodiversity provides on the farm. The NOP requires that operations maintain or improve natural resources, including soil, water, wetlands, woodlands and wildlife. Up until recently, organic certifiers have been ignoring this regulation because it was partially buried in the definitions. Due to our work with National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), the guiding body for the rule, and the organic community, the NOP clarified that operations are required to implement measures that support natural resource conservation and biodiversity in addition to soil and water quality. Even so, too many certifiers still mistakenly allow production that doesn’t maintain or improve wildlife or conserve biodiversity.
Describe the context in which you are operating
To begin, we created educational materials with a broad coalition, and tested model biodiversity inspection questions with partnering organic farmers (see photos). Changes started to become apparent when we, through the NOSB, encouraged the NOP to add the natural resource/biodiversity rule to their checklist used to accredit certifiers. Through further encouragement, the NOP published their Natural Resources and Biodiversity Conservation Guidance that we initially wrote. During this time we assisted many organic farmers, who realized they should conserve biodiversity better, by planting 60 hedgerows and riparian buffers in our region. Today most organic certifiers say they check for biodiversity conservation, even though many don’t ask clear and comprehensive questions about it. There are organic farms that still don’t provide for even the smallest of wildlife—the pollinators and beneficial insects that help to support the production of safe and healthy food.
How did you impact natural resource use and greenhouse gas emissions?
Organic farmers and certifiers are benefiting greatly from WFA’s education and outreach about best practices that meet compliance and build biodiversity on the farm. In addition, by incorporating more direct questions on certifiers’ OSPs, farmers and certifiers are becoming more knowledgeable about implementing effective plans. Million acres of organically managed land are benefiting from our work, along with farmers and ultimately consumers. Fundamentally, the building blocks of our farms and our survival—the billions of individual pollinators, birds, insects, native plants, and the water and soil—are benefiting from our project. This work will move our vision of farming with nature forward, where public and private resources are consistently invested in truly sustainable conservation-based agriculture; where beneficial organisms and threatened plant and wildlife populations increase; and where farmers treat agricultural productivity and conservation as integral and complementary goals.
Language(s)
English
Water
By working with certifiers to update their OSPs, and farmers to better understand NOP requirements, we are improving water quality and increasing water conservation that benefit crops and livestock, and safeguard terrestrial wildlife and aquatic ecosystems. For example, we promote plantings that keep the soil covered and filter excess nutrients and biocides, the use of regionally appropriate crop varieties and drought-tolerant natives, and clean water sources for wildlife to drink and bathe.
Food Security/Nutrition
In the misguided effort to provide food security now and for future generations, great pressure is being applied to intensify diverse agricultural landscapes and expand current industrial farming practices. Yet biodiversity is the foundation of agriculture. Therefore, most effective answer to these challenges that threaten our food security is to use the diversified organic agriculture methods we are promoting, along with stabilizing human population and lowering carbon emissions.
Economic/Sustainable Development
Ecosystem services, the benefits that nature provides, are estimated globally to be worth $145 trillion/year. Increased biological complexity on farms is associated with increased pollination, decreased pest populations and more profitable, safe, and sustainable food production systems. We educate certifiers and farmers about directly encouraging the preservation of such services on their farms and in the wider landscape.
Climate
Extreme weather and pest pressures are becoming more common as climate change affects agriculture and the natural world. We educate certifiers and farmers about storing carbon in soils by building organic matter with cover crops and compost, and using pasture-based livestock farming methods. We promote catch crops that tie up nitrogen, and plantings of hedgerows and riparian areas to store carbon in woody biomass, and to also provide habitat for natural enemy insects and birds, and wildlife.
Sustainability
Farms that support a diversity of crop and non-crop species benefit from increased ecosystem services, have more stable production, and more profit than those without this diversity. Currently, due to industrial farming practices, over half the land used for agriculture is moderately or severely degraded. We are losing trillions of dollars of ecosystem services. Our work, supported by grant funding from private foundations and government programs along with in-kind donations from farmers and others, is helping to reverse this loss. Part of what we teach is how organic farmers can access government subsidies to cover partial costs for conservation practices from USDA NRCS. In this way, all can better afford to farm with nature.
Return on investment
The project costs are being more than paid back through the social and environmental benefits that occur when giving farmers the tools they need to broaden and deepen their understanding of farming with the wild. By encouraging soil microbial diversity, carbon storage, nitrogen fixation, and water retention will occur. By conserving and restoring native plants, soil will be protected, water will be filtered, and food web that provides for beneficial organisms will be supported. By fostering wildlife diversity, adequate pollination and pest control will be ensured. Fostering this biodiversity in the U.S. results in significant economic values–wild pollinators ($3.4 billion/year), all wild insects ($57 billion/year).
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Replication and Scale
How could we successfully replicate this solution elsewhere?
Since IFOAM NORMS which require farmers to —“…maintain and improve landscape and enhance biodiversity quality, by maintaining on-farm wildlife refuge habitats…,”—are similar to the NOP’s standards, there is great potential for this project to be replicated by other organic regulatory bodies in the world that don’t have or enforce biodiversity conservation requirements. Partnerships would need to be forged with organic farmers, farm and conservation organizations, scientists, and certifiers, and at least two years of grant funding sought for 1 FTE. OSP questions and educational materials could be modeled after this project, lessening costs significantly. As farmers and certifiers outside the U.S. begin to better comply with NOP standards, they can be resources for their own region’s or country’s process for updating their standards.