For food co-ops, working with local farmers is baked into what we do—it’s a key part of the special recipe that makes co-ops such awesome places to work and shop.
As your national co-op, NCG leverages the long history of partnership between food co-ops and organic farmers to advocate for strong national organic standards. We also periodically fund organic research and educational resources for farmers that document organic farming knowledge, demonstrate the benefits of organic agriculture, share best practices and grow the domestic organic food supply.
We’ve funded the production of two important resources for organic farmers, a guidebook that summarizes techniques to maximize carbon sequestration and a biodiversity calculator to help farmers comply with organic regulations.
Guidebook informs organic farmers (and Congress!) about soil/climate connection
We worked with Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF) to fund Soil Health and Organic Farming: Organic Practices for Climate Mitigation, Adaptation, and Carbon Sequestration, a guide that summarizes current research and best practices for mitigating climate change by building soil health, one of the many benefits for which organic farming has been recognized by the scientific community. The guide is one in a series of educational guides designed to help organic farmers improve soil health and farm resilience.
In addition to being a great tool for farmers, the guide has been used by organic advocacy groups on Capitol Hill and resulted in OFRF staff being invited to a Congressional hearing on agriculture and climate change, where they shared their research about how organic agriculture can benefit our climate. We’re thrilled to have been able to leverage food co-ops’ long term support for the organic movement into a practical item that is helping to move the national conversation on climate and agriculture forward.
Online calculator measures biodiversity on organic farms based on wild bird count
We also worked with The Organic Center to fund the production of a biodiversity calculator, a free online tool that organic farmers can use to track and record biodiversity on their farm. This tool is suitable to demonstrate compliance with the biodiversity conservation requirement of USDA organic regulations. It’s a practical tool for farmers because it allows them to track readily identifiable species like wild birds visiting their farms to gauge overall biodiversity.
Biodiversity is foundational to life on our planet and increasingly threatened by changes in climate, industrial agriculture and toxic chemicals in our land, water and air. Organic farming demonstrates that biodiversity can be encouraged and effectively increased with time, on the farm and off. This tool will help put scientific evidence behind the claims that organic agriculture has a positive impact on biodiversity.
Both these resources are offered to the organic farming community for free, and are shared with farmers via webinars and conferences. Please consider sharing a link to download the guide and the biodiversity calculator with your local farmers if you think it would be of interest to them.
