A private word as I step away from OFRF
By Gordon Merrick, OFRF Coverage Program DirectorÂ
This would be the final version of Gordon’s Coverage Nook that I’ll write. As I kind that I actually really feel a mixture of gratitude, pleasure, and a good quantity of mud in my eye. After almost 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 employees, researchers, and people 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 folks 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 packages by our TOPP-W/SW work; and partnering with NRCS to strengthen research-backed instruments and experience related to natural inside the company.
Fellowship of the Rings photograph credit score: New Line Cinema
However, these are all issues you’ll be able to put in a report or generally really feel in your hand. What doesn’t present up as simply on paper is the neighborhood. I’m particularly pleased with the function 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 techniques, from the small city farm to the advanced distributors, exist and thrive. Forgive my nerdiness, however that bigger community looks like a Tolkien-esque fellowship: a gaggle up towards the percentages however deeply dedicated to carrying one thing necessary ahead, collectively.
Trying forward, I’m assured that OFRF is ready as much as hold having an outsized influence on the adoption of natural agriculture techniques. That’s due to the folks that make up this group, the relationships these folks maintain and nurture, and the best way this group operates: continuously 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 simply accept that natural ought to be handled as a aspect quest as an alternative 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 ought to be.
One of many greatest 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 entire systemic views. Natural agriculture has at all times pointed in that path: natural, at its core, is about working alongside pure techniques to foster a naturally considerable 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 necessary to call the second we’re in. We live in a time when science is being questioned, experience is being flattened to opinion, and worry 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 identical time, I imagine strongly that compassion can not imply silence within the face of actual hurt. We have to constantly present each: endurance to satisfy folks the place they’re, and agency, principled opposition to actions that undermine farmers, analysis, and the techniques 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 nicely and breathe deeply,
Gordon
