We are pleased to be featured alongside OTA member, Once Upon a Farm, in today’s edition of Agri-Pulse, sharing our perspective on how organic presents a major opportunity to help achieve MAHA objectives. But to fully realize its potential, we need greater investment from Congress. View the original article in Agri-Pulse here.
We are at a pivotal moment in agriculture and food with the rise of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, which is no surprise to anyone following consumer trends over the last two decades. More and more consumers – and especially Millennials and Gen Z – want food that aligns with their personal values, particularly health, wellness lifestyles, and sustainability.
Never before have food trends caught such strong political currents, including the president establishing a Make America Healthy Again Commission, and yet the momentum is likely to meet headwinds with an administration that prioritizes deregulation for farmers and businesses. How do you deliver to consumers RFK Jr.’s promise to reduce exposure to pesticides and synthetic additives in food without creating additional regulatory burdens?
There is a simple solution, one that Congress has already codified into law, that tens of thousands of farmers and food businesses have opted into and that consumers recognize, value, and are willing to pay for.
The USDA Organic seal is the most trusted food seal in the United States, with organic having a more than 20-year track record of being the fastest growing food sector. Organic already offers attributes that consumers continue to identify as desirable in their foods, from eliminating artificial dyes and preservatives to the absence of hormones and antibiotics as well as the elimination of most pesticides and synthetic fertilizers. The organic industry has shown us how to reliably deliver to consumers what they desire without compulsory regulations.
This is important and often overlooked - the National Organic Program regulations are voluntary and are required to be upheld by only those who opt into them. The program allows farmers, businesses, and consumers to opt in as they wish – choosing it for some crops, some products, some items in your pantry, but not necessarily all.
It should be no surprise that farmers want the freedom to farm the way they want to farm, just as consumers want the option for what’s on their plate and the ability to choose based on what they deem “right” for them. Organic delivers that opportunity without being an all-or-nothing proposition.
Yet organic remains out of reach for many farmers, businesses, and consumers. Too often, USDA programs don’t provide the same level of support to organic operations as they do to conventional ones—from farm services and crop insurance to access to leading research and market data.
Organic producers also bear the full burden and cost of keeping their products separate from conventional ones to ensure consumers maintain the integrity of their purchases. These challenges, combined with limited infrastructure and government underinvestment, have made organic more costly than it needs to be—for everyone.
We encourage the administration and Congress to expand the investment for organic as a smart solution for delivering choice to consumers who want food aligned with the MAHA principles and for farmers and businesses that want to deliver it to them.
Additional investments, especially in expanding domestic opportunities for organic, will be much less costly and disruptive than the alternatives. Unfortunately, this opportunity has at times been seized by overseas operations to meet the demand, a demand that we should expect to grow with the momentum of MAHA. As one example among many, we currently import hundreds of millions of dollars in organic beef in part because we lack certified organic processing facilities needed for farmers to access the market.
The return on this investment speaks for itself. Organic farms are more profitable, agricultural communities with clusters of organic farms and businesses experience lower poverty and higher household incomes, growing domestic demand meets new domestic supply, and more Americans gain access to food that helps combat chronic illness.
As the saying goes, “the customer is always right.” Nowhere is that truer than in food. It’s personal and cultural, and for many, they see it as the foundation of their well-being. While successful businesses are built on meeting consumer demand, farmers also need the freedom to make choices that work for their land, their livelihoods, and their values.
Let’s work together to delight the consumers who want food that aligns with their values while supporting farmers and businesses who want to deliver these products.
Matthew Dillon is co-CEO of the Organic Trade Association. John Foraker is co-founder and CEO of Once Upon a Farm, which began selling fresh, organic baby food and has expanded to pantry snacks for toddlers and big kids.