The National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) is the expert citizen’s advisory panel established to advise the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) over policies which govern regulation of the organic industry.  The NOSB was created upon passage of Sen. Patrick Leahy’s (D-VT) Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) in 1990.  For the first time, OFPA set in motion construction of a government regulatory process designed to protect the interests of American consumers and honest organic producers such as family farmers and appropriate-scale food processors.

     In the years since passage of OFPA, the corporate capture of our government, and the growing corporate control of our economy and society has been relentless and ever accelerating.  One disastrous example of this takeover is the corporate insertion of artificial soil-less hydroponic systems into organic which many of us are now fighting. 

     In 2010 the NOSB passed a recommendation making clear that hydroponics have no place in organic.  In that ruling, the NOSB was backed up by over one hundred years organic farming experience based on in-the-soil in-the-ground food production. Organic was developed and has always been practiced exclusively as a soil-based system.  The superior nutrition and taste of organic food is a function of this inextricable connection to healthy soil.

    In fact, so foundational is soil to the concept of organic, that the very name ‘organic” refers to the crucial organic-matter-content in an organic farm’s soil.

    However, the USDA-NOP, acting against the best interests of the organic community, has allowed the false organic certification of unlabeled hydroponic food production.  In the marketplace - right now - are tremendous amounts of bogus “organic” corporate hydroponic tomatoes, peppers, greens, cucumbers, blue berries and other food.  Hydroponic “organic” sales are already in hundreds of millions of dollars, growing at breakneck speed and fooling both retailers and consumers.

    Much of the fraudulent “organic” corporate hydroponic production is being imported from countries like Mexico, Canada, and Holland.  Astonishingly – and tellingly -  it would be illegal to sell these same hydroponic items under the “organic” label in the countries where the goods are produced.

     Nationwide, the organic community is upset over hydroponics and protests have developed.  Jim is President of the national membership trade group, Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association (OSGATA).  He and other organic family farmers will be traveling to St. Louis to urge the NOSB to maintain organic integrity and tell USDA NOP to kick out hydroponic production from organic.  Stay tuned.

Caleb, Jim & Megan

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