A private be aware as I step away from OFRF
By Gordon Merrick, OFRF Coverage Program Director
This would be the final version of Gordon’s Coverage Nook that I’ll write. As I sort that I actually really feel a mixture of gratitude, pleasure, and a good quantity of mud in my eye. After practically 4 years on the Natural Farming Analysis Basis, I’ll quickly be stepping away from a corporation that has formed how I take into consideration meals, farming, and what it means to do coverage work that serves the people who find themselves integral to our meals system: farmers, farm staff, researchers, and those who translate the scientific analysis into sensible instruments.
Once I joined OFRF, I used to be given a possibility to rethink how we, a analysis group, have interaction with coverage analysis and advocacy that’s rooted within the individuals we serve. During the last 4 years, I’ve had the privilege of serving to develop that work in ways in which really feel tangible and lasting: launching our Speaking with Legislators course which goals to demystify the coverage course of for researchers and farmers; serving to craft and introduce the Natural Science and Analysis Funding Act within the Home and the Senate; working to construct stronger connections between researchers, producers, and the policymakers that serve them; growing sensible, farmer-facing toolkits on USDA applications via our TOPP-W/SW work; and partnering with NRCS to strengthen research-backed instruments and experience related to natural throughout the company.
Fellowship of the Rings picture credit score: New Line Cinema
However, these are all issues you’ll be able to put in a report or typically really feel in your hand. What doesn’t present up as simply on paper is the neighborhood. I’m particularly pleased with the position I used to be capable of play within the TOPP community, a constellation of farmers, certifiers, researchers, nonprofits, and company workers who’re doing the unglamorous, important work of serving to natural methods, from the small city farm to the complicated distributors, exist and thrive. Forgive my nerdiness, however that bigger community appears like a Tolkien-esque fellowship: a bunch up towards the percentages however deeply dedicated to carrying one thing vital ahead, collectively.
Trying forward, I’m assured that OFRF is ready as much as hold having an outsized affect on the adoption of natural agriculture methods. That’s due to the people who make up this group, the relationships these individuals maintain and nurture, and the best way this group operates: always grounding priorities and our work in farmer’s lived experiences. OFRF will proceed to work to make sure that analysis is action-oriented, and refuse to just accept that natural needs to be handled as a aspect quest as a substitute of a core a part of U.S. agriculture. The work we’ve constructed is greater than anybody individual, and that’s precisely the way it needs to be.
One of many largest classes I’m carrying ahead with me is each the necessity, and the effectiveness, of shifting our collective mindset from shortage to abundance. From both/or to sure/and. From us-versus-them to complete systemic views. Natural agriculture has all the time pointed in that path: natural, at its core, is about working alongside pure methods to foster a naturally ample system that already exists. Soil well being doesn’t compete with profitability, farmer wellbeing isn’t matched towards stewardship; they reinforce one another.
That being stated, it feels vital to call the second we’re in. We live in a time when science is being questioned, experience is being flattened to opinion, and concern is less complicated to promote than nuance. I maintain actual compassion for individuals who have been misled or who’re reacting from a spot of uncertainty or loss. On the similar time, I imagine strongly that compassion can’t imply silence within the face of actual hurt. We have to constantly present each: endurance to fulfill individuals the place they’re, and agency, principled opposition to actions that undermine farmers, analysis, and the methods that maintain us all.
I’m deeply grateful for the farmers, researchers, companions, and colleagues who trusted me, argued with me, taught me, and constructed issues alongside me. OFRF will hold doing work that issues. However beginning later this month, I’ll be cheering it on loudly from the sidelines.
I’m not disappearing, and I genuinely hope to remain in contact. If you wish to hold speaking about natural agriculture, the connection between analysis and coverage, how you can construct one thing higher than what we’ve inherited, or to share your favourite bread recipe, please attain out. I’d love that.
Eat properly and breathe deeply,
Gordon
