Feature Article Guided by Integrity

50 Years of Advocating for Organic by Gaea Denker

“We have a strong reputation of being honest and being fair,” says organic farmer and two-time CCOF Board of Directors Chair Phil LaRocca. That reputation was hard won from CCOF’s 50-year history of uplifting unheard voices and crucial issues for organic producers that are often overlooked or under-prioritized by policymakers and other advocacy groups.

The Long Road to Enforcement

CCOF played—and continues to play—a critical role in state and federal organic regulations. Before federally recognized standards for organic food were even introduced, the CCOF community rallied to create and uphold a system of trustworthiness.

One example was the California Organic Food Act (COFA) of 1979, which legally defined organic practices in California, but made no provisions for support or enforcement. CCOF and similar organizations had to bring infractions to court in order to make sure the standards were upheld.

“From the mid to late ’80s, our advocacy was basically defensive,” recalls Mark Lipson, who started working at CCOF in 1985 as its first paid staff member. “We were just trying to get some enforcement of the health and safety provision, because there would be food labeled as organic, but it wasn’t under state law. Certification wasn’t required in the marketplace at that point.”

Consumers trusted CCOF standards. In 1989, when CBS 60 Minutes and TimeMagazine featured stories about unsafe food pesticides, the phones at CCOF rang loudly with reporters, retailers, and consumers all wanting to know where they could get safe, organically grown food. After CCOF’s tireless advocacy efforts, the state of California finally put programs into place to institutionalize organic enforcement.

Both the California Organic Foods Act (COFA) of 1990, which added enforcement to the state law, and the Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) of 1990, which created the USDA National Organic Program (NOP), were passed the following year. “When we got it passed, it was an amazing moment,” Lipson recalls. “California was the de facto national standard because the national law took 12 years to be put into place, and in the meantime the marketplace basically relied on California law.”

Both acts were based heavily on CCOF’s organic certification standards. Developing the official organic standards that are recognized today has required a long road of advocacy—years of collecting data, energizing communities, and educating policymakers—and advocacy remains a core focus of CCOF’s policy work today.

Starting at the grassroots level 50 years ago, the initial 54 grower–members of CCOF did their best to fight marketplace fraud on a shoestring budget. They provided each other with community support, they democratically developed organic standards, and they conducted peer-to-peer organic inspections—all long before the USDA had an official organic program.

Now, half a century later, as organic enforcement standards not only exist at the federal level, but are being strengthened this year, CCOF continues to promote solutions to the unique set of challenges that organic producers face.

“We are not a transactional business,” explains CCOF Director of Policy Rebekah Weber. “At our core, we are of and for organic producers. We are in service to organic through education, through grant-making, and through advocacy.”

“What sets CCOF’s advocacy apart is that we remain a memberbased organization working with thousands of diverse producers across North America,” says CCOF CEO Kelly Damewood. “Today, we remain governed by organic producers who set our policy priorities based on the on-the-ground needs of our membership.”

For example, when the first draft of the National Organic Program (NOP) standards was released in 1997, the organic community was appalled to learn that it allowed the “big three” offenders.

“The NOP was going to allow genetic engineering, irradiation, and sewage sludge,” says LaRocca. “I wasn’t crazy about getting the government involved. They had never been too friendly towards organic before. Was it the wolf guarding the chicken coop?”

The controversy fired up the CCOF community. “We asked ourselves, how can we be advocates for the organic industry?” LaRocca says. “We felt we had the right to speak up.”

CCOF rallied its community to join nearly 280,000 people nationwide in raising their voices until the “big three” were finally prohibited, five years later, when the NOP’s final rule of organic standards was implemented nationally.

Once the federal government was regulating and enforcing the use of the term "organic," producers and consumers became exponentially more aware of their marketplace options. “Becoming champions of a protected, regulated market wasn’t necessarily what the elder children of the ’60s thought was their desire, and we probably had some unexamined assumptions about capitalism and markets,” Lipson recalls. “Now, we know public policy is still the most important vehicle for change.”

Speaking Out Against Genetic Engineering

CCOF protects the integrity of organic farming against genetically engineered (GE) crops. As a member of the Californians for a GE-Free Agriculture (CGFA) coalition in 2004, CCOF fought the biotech industry head-on and won. The court overturned the state’s decision to allow genetically engineered pharmaceutical rice containing human genes in California. Two years later, CCOF also won a major victory against genetically modified organisms (GMOs) when Santa Cruz County supervisors voted unanimously to adopt a moratorium on GE crops, and SB 1056, a bill that would have revoked the right of local governments to impose bans on GE crops, failed to pass in the California Senate.

In 2008, CCOF, along with partners in the Genetic Engineering Policy Project lobbying coalition, celebrated the passing of the Food and Farm Protection Act (AB 541) in California— the first law to protect farmers against lawsuits linked to genetically engineered crops. Under this law, farms that are unknowingly contaminated by GE crops in California are protected from all kinds of liability. CCOF now proudly offers producers use of the “Organic is Non-GMO & More” seal to better communicate with consumers about the many benefits of organic.

“We were one of the first people to sign on against GMO,” says LaRocca. “We really put a strong fight there, and CCOF spread the word.”

Energized by its early big-picture wins, the CCOF community has continued to advocate for issues—both big and small— that help make organic food more accessible to producers of all sizes and to consumers in all communities.

The Roadmap to an Organic California Project

“The Roadmap to an Organic California project was a milestone in shifting our focus from reacting to issues as they arise and more proactively working on issues that matter to our members,” explains Damewood.

Wanting to ensure that all people have access to organic, CCOF set out to create the Roadmap to an Organic California. The Roadmap project convened stakeholders across diverse spaces, including justice, labor, climate, health, and education, to discuss how the benefits of organic have impacted different sectors and which sectors still face barriers to full adoption. CCOF paid close attention to where the gaps were and created data-driven policy recommendations to fill those gaps.

In 2019, as a culmination of the project, CCOF published two reports focused on the findings. The RoadmaptoanOrganic California:BenefitsReport synthesized over 300 scientific studies to analyze how organic agriculture impacts the United States, finding that organic provides evidence-based solutions to the nation’s most complex challenges. The RoadmaptoanOrganicCalifornia:PolicyReport built upon those findings to recommended concrete, science-backed steps to promote organic as a solution to climate change, economic instability, and health inequity in our communities.

Laetitia Benador, CCOF senior policy research specialist, adds, “After we developed the Roadmap, we shifted our advocacy approach from ‘support organic farmers’ to ‘support organic to solve economic, social, and economic challenges.’ We have been able to expand the organic tent of allies beyond those focused on agriculture to those focused on solving a variety of social, economic, and environmental issues.”

One example of those issues: Organic food has proven benefits, but not every consumer has access to organic food. Even as we work toward organic being the norm, for many communities, organic food is still out of reach. CCOF is working hard to expand organic food access in institutions like schools and hospitals to ensure that more communities have access to the proven benefits of organic.

“We work on policies so that a diversity of producers can go organic and stay organic,” explains Weber, “and so a diversity of eaters can eat organic. It’s one thing to know that what we’re doing is good for people and the planet. But it’s another to say, ‘Are we really capturing and extending those benefits to all people and all parts of the planet?’ We realized we have much more work to do.”

That work includes heavy policy and advocacy commitments, such as directing resources to small-scale producers who otherwise couldn’t take on the three-year risk of the transition to organic, or streamlining reporting requirements so organic producers can minimize the regulatory burden. In all its ongoing projects, CCOF builds upon the strong political advocacy foundation laid by the founding members.

Strengthening Organic Enforcement

The initial federal organic standards released in 2002 were inspired by CCOF’s strong example, and over the last two decades, CCOF’s influence has continued to shape policy decisions. This year, the USDA finalized the Strengthening Organic Enforcement (SOE) rule, which further protects integrity in the organic supply chain and builds consumer and industry trust in the USDA organic label. As with every step in the process of protecting organic integrity, CCOF members have had an active voice in shaping the rule.

As CCOF’s Certification Service Specialists glean insights from certified members, Sarah Reed, CCOF director of handler certification, funnels this information to the CCOF policy team so the member community can be fully represented in comments on proposed NOP rulemaking. “We never let an opportunity go by to comment on proposed rules. If there’s a public comment, we’re going to comment. We always get the word out in our certification news posts to make sure our members know they can advocate for themselves. As a membership-based organization, we represent the perspectives and needs of our membership. And we have a very diverse membership,” Reed adds with a laugh, “so sometimes we represent multiple sides at once.”

In the summer of 2020, when the first draft of SOE was published, CCOF submitted a full 15 pages of comments advocating for its members. In one comment that was particularly impactful for handlers and producers, CCOF pushed for greater flexibility on import certificate requirements. CCOF recommended that, to avoid truckloads of produce left to spoil while physical paperwork is completed, a single certificate could instead be applied to entire shipments. This commonsense amendment was adopted in the final version of the rule. As Damewood puts it, “CCOF always works to balance the need for strong oversight with sensible and not-overly-burdensome regulations.”

CCOF’s focus has been and continues to be integrity in organic and maintaining consumer trust in organic products. As future policymakers continue to draft regulations around the enforcement of organic standards, CCOF members will continue to make their voices heard.

Streamlining Regulations

“A core component of CCOF advocacy is to ensure organic producers are not unfairly regulated or subject to duplicate regulations,” says Damewood. “Organic producers voluntarily opt into a robust certification process, and often states like California issue rules designed for inputs and practices that are already prohibited in organic systems or develop incentive programs that fail to recognize organic producers’ stewardship of soil and natural resources.”

CCOF has been at the forefront of breaking down regulatory barriers for producers who want to grow organic. For example, because California is the only state with its own organic program, producers in California face a double burden of redundant paperwork and fees at the state and federal levels. CCOF worked with the California legislature to pass AB 1870, which streamlined reporting requirements, capped fees, and increased accountability of the program.

CCOF advocacy to recognize the value of certification also includes working on areas like nitrogen management rules and pesticide use fees and reporting.

Making Organic Accessible for All

CCOF created the Organic Transition Program, securing $10 million to provide direct and technical assistance as well as resources to producers in order to alleviate the financial burden of transitioning to organic. “There are barriers to organic that are particularly high for under-resourced producers,” says Benador. “But CCOF believes that organic certification should be accessible to everyone.”

A core component of CCOF's theory of transition is market readiness. "Our transition advocacy focuses not just on supporting producers through the three-year transition process to organic, but also on developing new or increasing access to current market opportunities,” says Damewood. “For example, we helped secure incentives for schools who source organic foods in California.”

CCOF’s policy team helped build a California program to support organic transition, which was modeled after the Organic Transition Program and CCOF’s theory of transition. Weber says, “We were successful because we connected with small-scale operations, BIPOC producers, beginning farmers, bringing everyone’s voices to the table and asking, ‘What resources do you need? What does success look like to you?’”

“It was a very collaborative process,” says Benador. “CCOF members showed up and testified in the legislature, which hadn’t been a big fan of organic before that. They brought their stories and changed some hearts.”

Feeding Kids Organic Food

CCOF is connecting farms and schools so kids can eat organic lunches—but this simple goal had to overcome many hurdles.

“I had a farmer call me and say, ‘I’m watching the big Sysco truck pull up to the school right now, but I can’t figure out how to give them my crops that are grown literally in the lot next door to that school,’” says Benador.

In response, Benador worked closely with the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) to make the connection between schools and organic producers. “There were so many barriers,” she recalls, “from insurance to needing refrigerated trucks for transport to schools wanting the produce cut in a certain way. The barriers were there simply because supply chains have not been built for this.”

CCOF connected organic food producers with the CDFA to understand exactly what they would need to do to be able to sell to a school. They discussed the climate benefits of organic farming and how using organic food could allow schools to become eligible for climate grants. The connection was a success, and the Farm to School Program is now entering its third year.

Helping Dairy Producers in Crisis

Last summer, CCOF-certified dairy members, along with organic dairies across the country, were in severe financial distress. There were preexisting supply chain issues, but when the pandemic, trade wars, and drought arrived together, the disruption was immense. The price of milk was far less than what it cost to produce that milk, and producers were in the red.

“We knew we had to do something,” says Benador. “We created a task force through the Organic Trade Association (OTA) and asked Congress for emergency support.” In response, Congress added funds for organic dairy emergency relief in the Appropriations Bill, which was passed in December 2022. The bill directed the USDA to create the first organic-specific commodity emergency relief program—a decisive win for CCOF dairy producers.

“Our task force worked closely with USDA to create that program. There’s such a lack of data around organic dairy and the cost of production and marketing that the USDA didn’t understand the scope of the problem,” Benador explains. “We demonstrated, with a data set, the depth of the need to the USDA and where assistance would be most useful.” provide faster support. The CCOF Foundation team worked together with CDFA, which runs the California Underserved and Small Producer Program (CUSP) to create an specific emergency relief grant for organic dairy producers.

“Again, we had to educate the CDFA with numbers to show that organic dairies are different than other small, cropproducing farms,” says Benador. The hard work paid off: More than $400,000 was distributed to dairy farmers, allowing them to keep their farms running during the crisis until additional assistance came through. CCOF is now promoting long-term reforms through the upcoming farm bill that will make the organic dairy sector more resilient to future shocks.

Keeping Small California Ranchers in Business

In the last 50 years, California lost half of its USDA-inspected meat processing facilities due to industry consolidation. Small local shops, as well as ranchers looking to start small and grow their production, simply can’t compete with the existing industrial ranchers for access to the facilities. Without access to certified organic facilities, ranchers cannot sell their meat with an organic label, even if all other organic standards were upheld in raising their animals. Therefore, many small producers are being forced to sell their meat as conventional and lose profit.

“Back when I had 400 head of sheep, I had access to three different processors that were USDA approved that I could use and be CCOF certified,” recalls LaRocca. “Now they’re all gone. Only the big guys are left. Some of our chicken guys have to go 200 miles to get their stuff processed.”

When the COVID pandemic hit, many of the small ranchers who remained were pushed out of business. Workers became ill and supply chains slowed; in response, many large processing facilities scaled back and almost entirely stopped serving small U.S. ranchers. There was no way for these producers to get their meat onto shelves or plates. “Meat processing is the bottleneck right now in getting meat from ranch to table,” says Benador. “It’s the top challenge facing our producers.”

The loss of facilities serving California’s small ranchers has led to a decrease in small ranching operations. This heralds another, ecological problem: losing these ranchers also means losing the environmental benefits they provide for our planet, because integrating farms and livestock is one of the best ways to build organic matter, sequester carbon, and reduce energy use.

Of course, change at the government level moves slowly, so in the interim nine months before the commodity relief was available, CCOF examined more immediate options to

Seeking a solution to the crisis, CCOF partnered with Roots of Change and the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) Food Systems Lab to create the California Meat Processing Coalition by convening academics, researchers, and producers. Together, we embarked on a research project, led by UC Davis, to map out the scope of the need for meat processing in California. After statewide assessment and extensive stakeholder interviews, we came up with recommendations to address the gaps. One recommendation was expanding on-farm meat processing.

Our coalition worked with California State Assemblymember Marc Levine’s office to create the bill AB 888, which expands ranchers’ ability to have a mobile slaughter operator come to the farm and harvest animals on site.

Not only does this bill benefit small ranchers and family farms, but it also decreases carbon emissions from hauling heavy livestock to increasingly remote facilities and reduces the transport stress livestock animals experience. In a big win for CCOF members, the bill went into effect on January 1, 2023.

Connecting Communities, Moving Forward

“CCOF’s core values are integrity, courage, community, and representation of and for organic producers,” says Damewood. “We strive to live these values through our member-focused advocacy and by promoting policies that help a diversity of producers go organic and stay organic.”

CCOF’s biggest wins come not from acting alone, but from bringing communities together. “We’ve stepped into a number of coalitions and deepened partnerships with farmworker groups, pesticide fighting groups, and environmental groups. Through collective action, we inserted for the first time, unprecedented, an organic target into California’s climate strategy,” says Weber. “We bring together different stakeholders with the same message.”

“Organic can be a bridge builder because it connects so many issues that people care about,” observes Benador.

“What I find most exciting about organic policy and advocacy is the scope of work—every step of the supply chain, from farm to eater, needs policy support,” Damewood says. “Some days you are working to reduce paperwork burdens on small farmers and other days you are building out a complex funding program to develop new organic markets. Even small policy wins can make big impacts.”

“I think our influence in governance is going to grow,” LaRocca observes. “We are going to become even more active in state politics and reach our goal of 30 percent of California ground being certified organic by 2030.”

“We’ve had some monumental wins,” says Weber. “I’ve been in policy work for over a decade, and I know that change is slow. We’re living through a shift in California policy right now that is uplifting organic in an unprecedented way. That’s happening because of our collective action—leveraging our collective power.”