USDA's National Organic Program And GMOs

In a somewhat recent interview with Miles McEvoy, Deputy Administrator for the  USDA's National Organic Program, he made a couple interesting, but equally valid, points on what to do now that GMOs are a part of the United States' agricultural landscape.

He insinuated that it is the organic farm's responsibility to protect their crops from GMO technology. The interviewer attempted to take the simple statement into a form of argument, but McEvoy simply stated that GMOs are a part of the way many farms do business now. Organics need to take the extra measures.

I understood him to say that it's not that "conventional" farms aren't to be held responsible, but that it's equally the responsibility of the organic farmer to be active in protecting his crops.

In order to co-exist with genetically modified farms, the responsibility is two-fold. Though it is unfair that the organic industry has to double check their crops against "conventional" farming techniques, the measure is indicative of the way that industrial farming works: we have to take matters into our own hands because we cannot trust industrial farmers to do it.

It is simply one more reason to support locally-grown, organic methods as often as possible.

Mr. McEvoy will be speaking at the Certification, Consumption, and Change Conference on April 5th at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Those of you who will be going to the conference will have a wonderful opportunity to ask McEvoy yourselves about the responsibility of "conventional" farming and what it means for organics in the future. Will organic labeling need to bend to accommodate mega-corporations like Monsanto? To find out more about the conference, go to: http://www.justmeans.com/pages/Washington-DC.