Eliot Coleman: Denying Our Understanding Of Real Organic Practices Robs The World

Real Organic Podcast

#160: Organic farmer and Real Organic Project champion Eliot Coleman returns to discuss the role corporations, trade associations, and government policy has had on limiting the amount of real organic food found in the marketplace today. In the second half of the interview, the conversation focuses on growing on-farm fertility and stifling pest pressure by building up organic matter and biodiversity.
Eliot Coleman is an author, market gardener, and educator. His work on the USDA study in the late 1970's, "Report and Recommendations on Organic Farming" helped lead to the formation of the National Organic Program, setting the very standards that are being ignored by corporate interests today. He lives and farms in Harborside, Maine with his wife, gardening and cookbook author Barbara Damrosch, while he transitions Four Season Farm to his daughter Clara Coleman.
https://www.fourseasonfarm.com/
To watch a video version of this podcast with access to the full transcript and links relevant to our conversation, please visit:
https://realorganicproject.org/eliot-coleman-they-rob-world-understanding-of-real-organic-practices-episode-one-hundred-sixty
The Real Organic Podcast is hosted by Dave Chapman and Linley Dixon, engineered by Brandon StCyr, and edited and produced by Jenny Prince.
The Real Organic Project is a farmer-led movement working towards certifying 1,000 farms across the United States this year. Our add-on food label distinguishes soil-grown fruits and vegetables from hydroponically-raised produce, and pasture-raised meat, milk, and eggs from products harvested from animals in horrific confinement (CAFOs - confined animal feeding operations).
To find a Real Organic farm near you, please visit:
https://www.realorganicproject.org/farms
We believe that the organic standards, with their focus on soil health, biodiversity, and animal welfare were written as they should be, but that the current lack of enforcement of those standards is jeopardizing the ability for small farms who adhere to the law to stay in business. The lack of enforcement is also jeopardizing the overall health of the customers who support the organic movement; customers who are not getting what they pay for at market but still paying a premium price. And the lack of enforcement is jeopardizing the very cycles (water, air, nutrients) that Earth relies upon to provide us all with a place to live, by pushing extractive, chemical agriculture to the forefront.
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