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Higher Standards
To earn the Regenerative Organic Alliance’s ROC label, farmers must use practices that naturally replenish the soil’s nutrient content and preserve its vitality.
A new “Regenerative Organic Certified” label helps customers find products that are best for people, livestock, and the environment.
THE NATIONAL ORGANIC PROGRAM, launched by the USDA in 2000, introduced an easily recognized label to designate certified organic products based on verifiable criteria. It has earned the public’s trust, with sales of products bearing the “USDA Organic” seal reaching $70 billion in 2022. The requirements for organic certification are rigorous, but they don’t address key concerns of many buyers. Rodale Institute is a founding partner of an effort to add on to the USDA label and bring consumers a tool to support the highest level of organic food and fiber production.
In 2017, a group of farmers, scientists, organic business leaders, advocates, and Rodale Institute established the Regenerative Organic Alliance, a nonprofit aimed at creating “a healthy food system that respects land and animals, empowers people, and restores communities and ecosystems through regenerative organic farming.” To achieve that goal, the alliance has developed an advanced set of standards and an independent, third-party system to verify them. The new Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC) program highlights food, textiles, and personal-care ingredients that are produced using practices that exceed the USDA standards for organic certification.
Three Pillars
The ROC standards have been built to meet consumers’ expectations in three important areas.
Soil health. Farmers who achieve ROC designation must continuously replenish nutrients and preserve the natural vitality of the soil through cover cropping, crop rotation, reduced tillage, and other strategies. Farms are managed as ecosystems rather than solely as production plots. Soilless systems, such as hydroponics, can currently receive the USDA Organic certification, but they are not eligible for the ROC label.
Animal welfare. Meat and dairy operations must furnish livestock with the “Five Freedoms.” These include freedom from thirst, hunger, and malnutrition; freedom from discomfort via spacious, species-appropriate shelters and comfortable resting areas; freedom from pain, injury, and disease through prevention or rapid diagnosis and treatment; freedom to express natural behaviors such as rooting and socializing; and freedom from fear and distress by ensuring conditions minimize potential for mental or emotional suffering. Livestock must have access to pastures and feed themselves primarily through grazing. The confined animal feeding operations (known as CAFOs) that are common in industrial agriculture are prohibited. This sets a high bar for ROC livestock producers to meet because about 99 percent of meat currently sold in the US comes from CAFOs.
Social fairness. ROC operations must pay living wages to farmers and farmworkers, and they must provide safe working conditions and freedom of association (with a union) for employees. Treatment of farmworkers is not covered in the USDA criteria for organic certification.
Look for the ROC label on a wide range of items, including food products, supplements, and clothing.
Ramping Up
To qualify for ROC status, farms and food processors must first be certified with the USDA Organic designation. This requirement helps to sustain the label that consumers already know and trust, and it is a baseline step toward attaining the next level of approval. Some refer to the new ROC standard as “beyond organic,” or the highest standard currently available in the marketplace.
Farms, ranches, farmer cooperatives, and grower groups may apply for the ROC program for all or a portion of their operations. Products with ROC ingredients can also display the label on their packaging. Certified farms and products are audited annually, says Elizabeth Whitlow, founding executive director of the Regenerative Organic Alliance. “We’re looking at many details from the audit reports to see the real impact of certifica- tion. We check on soil test results and indicators of biodiversity. We pay attention to gender equity and other aspects of the social-fairness pillar. We are asking farmers to make improvements in both processes and outcomes.”
To date, more than 15 million acres of farmland have gained ROC status, and the program is approved to operate in 97 countries. As you see in the photographs on this page, you can already find a wide range of products and ingredients bearing the label. These include items from ROC founding partners Patagonia Provisions, Dr. Bronner’s, and Lundberg Family Farms, as well as brands such as Gallant International apparel and Ancient Nutrition and New Chapter supplements. “Our next goal is to reach 200 million acres,” Whitlow says. “We have a growth mindset and want this program to be as big as anyone can dream it.”
FAST FACTS
The ROC program is growing and has tallied these numbers as of October 2024.
273 farms and ranches
15.2 million acres
454 types of crops
205 brands
1,799 products
regenorganic.org
