It’s Climate Week in New York City, and while perhaps not as famous as New York’s Fashion Week, it is bringing agriculture into the spotlight. Speaking at a forum co-hosted by Food Tank and the James Beard Foundation, CEO of Organic Valley, Jeff Frank discussed the benefits of organic farming.
“At Organic Valley, we we’re the nation’s largest cooperative of organic farmers and so our practices and our cooperative really abide by organic standards,” he said. “We’re putting a lot of energy into helping our farmers even get better. So, in the scheme of things, organic farming is pretty good already, but we want to help them get even better and so we’ve pioneered our carbon insetting program, which really is helping to fund projects on farms like solar installations or improved manure management practices, things like that to help them get even better. Through all those practices we do see a meaningful benefit to not only the environment around the farm, but also with the soil health overall.”
He also spoke on getting more local products into school meals.
“I think from our perspective, it’s been both at a local level and at a national level. We’ve definitely worked with our trade associations to have the conversations in DC about what needs to happen in the school lunch program. And we’ve actually made some inroads in just the past year,” he said. He pointed out the efforts are not just on the broad national level, “but also at the local level. Our consumers are great advocates for what they want for their own kids. So, we found also a lot of strength at the local level with just consumer advocacy of what they want in the schools as well. So, working on both ends of that spectrum has been really helpful.” Organic Valley is a dairy cooperative consisting of 1,600 family farms around the nation.
Sabrina Halvorson
National Correspondent / AgNet Media, Inc.
Sabrina Halvorson is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster, and public speaker who specializes in agriculture. She primarily reports on legislative issues and hosts The AgNet Weekly podcast. Sabrina is a native of California’s agriculture-rich Central Valley.