The Organic Center is pleased to announce that four new members have been appointed to the Board of Directors –

• Sara Snow, host of TV’s Get Fresh with Sara Snow, Discovery Networks; media, consumer advocate
• Ken Cook, President of Environmental Working Group, an environmental consumer advocacy nonprofit organization
• Margaret Wittenberg, Global VP for Quality Standards and Public Affairs, Whole Foods Market; representing retailers
• Timothy Escamilla, VP for Procurement, Ready Pac; fresh produce industry

Current board members Michelle Goolsby and Anthony Zolezzi, were re-elected to new three year terms on the Board. Michelle Goolsby, former EVP of Development, Sustainability and Corporate Affairs for Dean Foods, is the Board Chair-elect, and will take over as Chairperson in November 2008.  Alan Greene, M.D., Clinical Professor at Stanford University Children’s Hospital and Co-founder of DrGreene.com, is the current Board Chair.

Founding Board member Katherine DiMatteo, who was recently elected to serve as President of IFOAM (the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements), and Walter Robb, Co-president and COO of Whole Foods Market, will be leaving the Board in November after many years of service. Their many contributions to the work of the Center will be sorely missed, but fortunately they have agreed to serve along with Dr. Andrew Weil, M.D., as “Advisory Directors” of the Center.

New board members Snow, Cook, Escamilla and Wittenberg will be working together with existing board members including Alan Greene, M.D.; Kathleen Merrigan, Ph.D., Director of the Agriculture, Food and Environment Program, Tufts University; David Pimentel, Ph.D., Professor, Cornell University; George Siemon, CEO of Organic Valley; Mark Retzloff, President, Aurora Organic Dairy; Sheryl Lamb, organic advocate; James White, Senior VP, Consumer Brands, Safeway; Anthony Zolezzi, Co-founder of Pet’s Promise and President of Zolezzi Consulting; David Gagnon, Interim Executive Director, Organic Trade Association; and Chair Elect Michelle Goolsby.

The Organic Center welcomes its new board members and officers and very much appreciates their contributions in furthering the mission of the Center to advance the scientific research behind the human health and environmental benefits of organic food and farming–and to communicate those findings to consumers, media, businesses, policy makers, academia and other thought leaders.

For more info, visit www.organic-center.org.

The Organic Center’s Chief Scientist Dr. Chuck Benbrook, Ph.D., will be a featured speaker at the upcoming annual convention of the American Dietetic Association on Oct. 25-28 in Chicago. According to Dr. Benbrook, it is an excellent opportunity to educate nutrition professionals who are becoming increasingly interested in the health and nutritional benefits of organic food, and who have an influence on a greater part of the population.

Dr. Benbrook also has accepted an invitation to give the Rachel Carson Memorial Lecture sponsored by the Pesticide Action Network-U.K.  The event occurs Dec. 4, 2008, in London at the School of Oriental and African Studies. Chuck is working on scheduling other events during his trip to the U.K.  He has been invited by scientists at the University of Newcastle to do two seminars, one on the Center’s organic food quality research, and a second on the impacts and future direction of biotechnology in U.S. agriculture.

Additionally, The Organic Center’s Development Director, Seleyn DeYarus, will speak on organic and sustainability at the University of Minnesota as part of a conference produced by the university’s Austrian Studies program. The event, Global Climate Change, Sustainable Agriculture, and Bioresources: Challenges, Opportunities, and Choices, will take place on the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota on Sept. 26, 2008. Seleyn will speak on a panel with Horst Rechelbacher, founder of Intelligent Nutrients and Aveda. Horst has lived for many years in the U.S. and is a native of Austria.

The well-respected Consumer Reports magazine, in its upcoming September 2008 edition, features information on the fruits and vegetables that carry the highest risk of dietary exposure to pesticide residues. The information in the article is derived from The Organic Center’s recent analysis of USDA and EPA pesticide data and published in a March 2008 report entitled “Simplifying the Pesticide Risk Equation: The Organic Option.” The report, as well as all publications from the Center are available for free download at www.organic-center.org. The report was also excerpted in a new Organic Essentials Pocket Guide (also available for free download on our website), geared toward educating consumers about which fruits and vegetables are the most important to purchase as organically produced.

The Consumer Reports article also notes that imported, conventionally grown fruits and vegetables, particularly cucumbers, grapes, lettuce, nectarines, peaches and sweet bell peppers, might harbor far higher levels of pesticide residues than domestically produced counterparts.

The top domestically grown fruits to buy organic include cranberries, nectarines, peaches, strawberries, pears, apples, cherries and cantaloupe. The top domestically grown vegetables to buy organic include green beans, sweet bell peppers, celery, cucumbers, potatoes, tomatoes, peas and lettuce. For more information, visit www.organic-center.org

On a recent visit to the Monterey Bay area on California’s Central Coast, Steve Hoffman, Managing Director, and Seleyn DeYarus, Development Director of The Organic Center, visited Serendipity Farms, an organic flower, vegetable and strawberry farm, as part of a tour hosted by Driscoll Strawberry Associates (www.driscolls.com/organic.php). Serendipity Farms owner Jamie Collins recently established a CSA or Community Supported Agriculture, where members receive a box of fresh flowers, veggies and fruits each week. Visit www.serendipity-organic-farm.com.

Brian McElroy of Driscoll Strawberry Associates holds a CSA box for Serendipity Organic Farms owner Jamie Collins. Photo: Seleyn DeYarus.

The tour also featured a visit to Carmel Middle School’s Hilton Bialek Habitat, a unique, 10-acre outdoor education center where students learn about organic gardening, sustainability, green building and the environment. Visit www.carmelhabitat.org for more information.

Hoffman and DeYarus also visited with Myra Goodman, co-founder of Earthbound Farm, the nation’s leader in organic leafy greens. Julie Morris, Executive Communications Director, and Samanth Cabaluna, Director of Communications for Earthbound Farm, joined the group for an organic lunch prepared by Executive Chef Sarah La Casse. The group met at Earthbound Farm’s original farm stand in Carmel Valley, on land owned by actor and director Clint Eastwood. For info, visit www.ebfarm.com.

The Organic Center recently visited Earthbound Farm in Carmel, CA. Top left to right: Sarah La Casse, Myra Goodman, Steve Hoffman; bottom left to right: Julie Morris, Samantha Cabaluna. Photo: Seleyn DeYarus.

Katherine DiMatteo was elected President of the World Board of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) at the IFOAM General Assembly held June 22-24, 2008 in Vignola, Italy.

In addition to her IFOAM activities, Katherine is a senior associate at Wolf, DiMatteo + Associates, former executive director of the Organic Trade Association (OTA) and a board member of The Organic Center.

“I am pleased and honored to have been elected to the IFOAM Board and to serve as President,” says Katherine DiMatteo.  “I will do my best to promote our mission of leading, uniting and assisting the organic movement in its full diversity…  My top priorities are for IFOAM to become a strong advocate for organic agriculture at all levels, to foster harmonization, equivalence and equitable trade and to help solve critical global environmental problems and deliver better, healthier food and fiber systems.”

DiMatteo will head the ten-member IFOAM World Board for the next three years.  Other members are from Australia, India, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Peru, the Philippines, Switzerland, and Uganda, spanning five continents. Roberto Ugas of Peru and Urs Niggli of Switzerland were named Vice-Presidents and with DiMatteo will comprise the IFOAM executive committee.

Photo by Liz Sarno, University of Nebraska Cooperative Extension Service..

July 15, 2008–While agriculture may not be able to supply enough fuel production for the cities, organic farmers can certainly consider incorporating biofuel crops into their rotations to produce sufficient fuel for use on the farm, says Bob Quinn. Quinn dryland farms primarily organic Kamut wheat, an ancient grain, for the domestic and export markets, but also vegetables for local markets on 3,000 acres in Big Sandy, MT. He says that organic growers are just beginning to examine the potential of which biofuel cover crops would work best in organic production systems, and that there is a blend of trade where organic farmers can support local as well as larger markets.

Quinn and Steve Hoffman, Managing Director of The Organic Center, were the featured speakers in July at the Grain Place’s annual Farm Tour and open house in Marquette, NE, where 80 area organic growers learned from seminars and a tour of innovative growing methods used on the farm. The Center’s presentation focused on market drivers and key scientific findings behind the benefits of organic food and farming.

 The Grain Place is owned and operated by long-time organic grower Dave Vetter and his family. They farm premium quality organic popcorn, soybeans, hull-less barley and other crops in a rotation with alfalfa and other leguminous cover crops on 270 acres in eastern Nebraska. The family is also expanding a cleaning and milling facility on the farm.

By supporting and purchasing grain from area growers, the Vetters have been influential in converting a significant number of farmers in the region to organic. In a sign of the growing importance of organic to Nebraska’s agricultural economy, Liz Sarno was recently named as the state’s first agricultural extension agent dedicated to organic production. For more info, contact esarno2@unl.edu or dvetter@grainplacefoods.com.