| Dear Rebecca,
By now, like us, you may feel more like a pinball than a person. Are we reopening? Are we shutting back down? Are restaurants ordering? How long will schools be remote? We get a daily dose of yo-yo rules as the normal life we crave bumps up against the realities of this virus, which has proven difficult to manage in this fractured environment. From our perspective, the principles around biosecurity are nothing new; farmers manage infectious disease all the time. Perhaps it would be better to have farmers in charge😊
With the help and support of those in my own farming community, I do my best to plan for an unknowable future. We all continue to experience short-term repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic on our businesses, our families and our communities in a variety of ways.
My last update addressed preparations and how to plan for a variety of scenarios that can present themselves real-time and in the short-term future (many points covered here). Where do we see COVID-19 going? What are the long-term impacts and possible outcomes? When we look back on this time a year from now, five years from now, a decade from now, what will stand out? What will this mean for the future of sustainable agriculture? We know our farmers are truly the future of food: producers with integrity serving as custodians of the countryside. We have an opportunity to envision the farming system we want and design a path to achieving it—if we are brave enough, strong enough, and make a compelling enough case for others to join us on the journey.
I’m pleased that this update gives me another opportunity to thank you for your work and all you do for your communities. More resources and updates from the AGW program are below.
Resources for AGW-certified Producers
New Merchandise: Brochures
Looking for an easy way to help your customers learn more about your AGW certification? Our newly redesigned consumer-facing brochures are perfect for point of sale and great to include with products that you are shipping, in deliveries, or at your market stand. Sold in packs of 50, these brochures along with a variety of other AGW-branded merchandise are available for order online.
USDA’s New GMO Labeling Guidance: Untested, Undisclosed
The USDA recently released a notice which explains how companies decide if consumers need to be told when a food or ingredient is bioengineered. The testing of individual food products is not a requirement and the decision to label is based solely on the manufacturer’s own records—meaning, nobody’s testing and nobody’s looking. Read our full blog post to learn more about this woefully inadequate guidance, and why testing for the absence of GMOs and third-party certifications like Certified Non-GMO by AGW are important tools for building consumer trust.
REMINDER: Certified Non-GMO by AGW Summer Sale
For a limited time, A Greener World is offering promotional pricing on auditing for the info or 1-800-373-8806 with any questions. A Greener World is also seeking recommendations for farms, businesses or products that would be a good fit for AGW’s Non-GMO certification. To submit a suggestion, contact the AGW team.
News from the AGW Family
Well and Good covered the Certified Animal Welfare Approved by AGW certification as a label that consumers can trust, in the midst of a labeling landscape filled with meaningless claims and labels. Looking Glass Creamery in North Carolina was featured for their newly AGW-certified cheese and Le Biscornu and Prairie Fruits Farm and Creamery, celebrated their 10-year certification anniversaries. We have also been invited to being certifying in India and are thrilled to grow the AGW family even more. Blue Pepper Farm is now supplying Certified Animal Welfare Approved by A Greener World (AGW) sheep’s milk yogurt to Regional Access, a multi-faceted distribution and logistics company servicing nearly all of NY State and points beyond. If you have news from your farm, ranch or food business, send it along so we can share it with the AGW community.
Take care as we prepare for Summer’s end in this ever-changing environment, and as always, let us know if we can be a resource in any way.
All the best, |
North Carolina Small Farm Association 