Wolf & Associates, Inc.

🌱 Practical organic resources, all in one place. The Organic Trade Association has launched OrganicHandlers.org, a new resource hub created to support organic handling operations and help strengthen the organic sector. The site brings together practical education and real-world guidance directly from certified handling operations, including: 📋 Checklists 📄 Fact sheets 🎥 Videos 📝 Articles …and more Whether you’re looking to better understand organic handling requirements, strengthen your operation, or find practical tools for your team, OrganicHandlers.org is designed to help fill a critical education and resource gap across the organic industry. Explore the site and tell us: What’s your favorite resource so far? 👇 Learn more: https://lnkd.in/eTY3QnGx #Organic #OrganicIndustry #OrganicHandling #OrganicBusiness OATS Organic Agronomy Training Service, Strengthening Organic Systems, LLC, Wolf & Associates, Inc., Accredited Certifiers Association, CCOF, OCIA International, Oregon Tilth, MIDWEST ORGANIC AND SUSTAINABLE EDUCATION SERVICE, Pennsylvania Certified Organic, Florida Organic Growers, Rodale Institute, USDA National Organic Program (Agricultural Marketing Service)

Throughout the month of September, our Sustainability Team at Horizon Family Brands is hosting Living Impact Month; designed to foster inspiration, connection, and empowerment through events, learning series, and volunteer opportunities that tie back to Horizon Family Brands' mission… to inspire healthier living through purposeful wellness brands.🐮 Healthier, in the context of Horizon’s mission, refers to the health of the entire food system, including enriching the lives of farmers, food chain workers, consumers, and community members, while striving to keep the soil, cows, and farm ecosystems as holistically healthy as possible. One of our initiatives this month is focused on bringing attention to Rural Minds' Farmer Mental Health Resilience Program.👩🌾✨ This program "offers practical mental health resources, conversation tools, and real-world support tailored to the unique pressures of farming and rural life. Created for farmers, ranchers, and agricultural communities, this free program is designed to strengthen resilience, reduce stigma, and help save lives." We believe wholeheartedly in this program because we know that when farmers flourish, the whole food system does, too. Please join me in supporting Rural Minds through the link below. https://lnkd.in/gbP2siKZ

One thing stayed with me after #Organic Week in Washington, D.C.: the prevailing mood was positive and optimistic, even as nearly every conversation acknowledged the difficulty of the moment. There is an abundance of headwinds. Political uncertainty complicates long-term policy, to say the least. Economic pressures reward short-term decisions and established systems. Social fragmentation makes it harder to sustain a shared understanding of what organic means and why it matters. Tariff and trade shenanigans make many supply chains prohibitively unpredictable. Gaps in domestic production, processing, financing, research, and regional infrastructure continue to limit the sector’s ability to meet its potential. The temptations and motivations for fraud are everywhere, as recent compliance and enforcement reporting from the USDA National Organic Program (Agricultural Marketing Service) demonstrates. The event's agenda reflected those realities. Some spoke candidly about the demands of a resilient domestic supply. Others examined new financing models, stronger supply chains, consumer understanding, research, certification, sustainability outcomes, and the future of organic farmland & leadership. Conversations with policymakers and USDA underscored how much progress depends on constructive public-private engagement. Taken together, these discussions raise a larger question: How do we turn growing demand for organic into a stronger and more durable organic system? The organic sector has always sought change at several levels at once. It asks farmers to change practices, businesses to build different supply chains, consumers to make informed choices, and government to enforce standards worthy of public trust. That is difficult work, particularly when many surrounding systems resist change or lack the infrastructure to support it. Still, the spirit of the event was unmistakably forward-looking. It felt less like easy optimism than confidence born from experience. Organic has never advanced because conditions were perfect. It has advanced because committed people built standards, institutions, businesses, markets, and relationships that did not exist before. This year’s theme, “Organic Starts With You,” captured the essence. Progress begins with individual commitment but becomes durable through collective action. Organic’s next chapter will require both: people willing to take responsibility for their part, and a sector willing to work together across the divides that too often slow meaningful change. To my mind, this necessitates developing the collective maturity to call out our own albeit few wrongdoers when they stray, for the betterment of the whole in the long term. Despite the late nights and poor decisions at the bar, I left Washington clear-eyed about the obstacles while being inspired and encouraged by the people prepared to meet them. #OrganicWeekDC #OrganicAgriculture #OrganicIndustry Organic Trade Association Wolf & Associates, Inc.