Organic-Farming Advocate to Fill USDA Post

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, long criticized for giving short shrift to organic foods, will install a Texas organic-farming advocate to lead the agency’s national organic program.

Keith Jones, who in 1988 founded the state organic certification program in Texas, confirmed Wednesday that he plans to assume the post in early March. He will replace Michael I. Hankin, who has been acting coordinator of the program for about the last year.

Jones will walk into a firestorm of controversy over the USDA’s proposed rules for the organic industry, which have been criticized as unacceptable by organic growers and activists. He said he hopes to keep the process on track.

“The program has tremendous potential,” he said. “I think I do bring some skills to the table and experience in building consensus.”

Jones, 44, a former wheat and cotton farmer from southwest Oklahoma, coordinated agriculture policy for former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, promoted sustainable farming systems in Texas and headed a nonprofit organization that used horticulture to teach life skills to high-risk youth in East Austin. Most recently, he has been a policy analyst with the state, studying ways to use the Internet to make the government more efficient.

The USDA said last week it has added 45 days to the public comment period for the rules, which will now close on April 30, to accommodate a flood of protest. Since the rules were proposed on Dec. 15, the agency has been overwhelmed by more than 5,000 electronic and hard-copy comments, most of them maintaining that the USDA bungled the job.

In announcing the extension of the comment period, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman attempted to mollify the irate organic community, saying, “Our goal is to develop a final rule that the organic community and all the public can embrace.”

As soon as the rules were proposed, industry advocates slammed the agency for failing to ban the irradiation of foods to kill disease-causing bacteria, the genetic engineering of crops and the use of sewage sludge as fertilizer.

Since then, activists say they have found dozens of additional problems, ranging from fees viewed as burdensome for small farms to permitting the use of antibiotics in young animals that will be slaughtered for meat.

“These rules are so bad they give us an opportunity to organize,” Michael Sligh, director of the Rural Advancement Foundation International, told participants of the Ecological Farming Conference in Monterey in January.

He said the proposed rules violate the integrity of organic farming, stray from long-accepted practices and ignore the recommendations of the National Organic Standards Board, which was established by the federal organic law of 1990 to help write the rules.

Sligh and other activists applauded the appointment of a USDA outsider with broad government and organic-industry experience.

“This is some of the first good news we’ve been given during the proposed-rules period,” Sligh said. “He knows the issues. Maybe they’re recognizing that this is a train wreck and they need help [salvaging the rules].”

U.S. Rep. Sam Farr (D-Calif.) said Wednesday he had talked up Jones to USDA at the request of the organic-farming community. He said new organic standards are critical to the future of the booming organic-foods market.

“The industry has been living in limbo for years,” Farr said. “Everything’s riding on these rules.”

Organic farming, which started as a small group of long-haired growers operating on society’s fringes, has blossomed into a full-fledged industry, with $3.5 billion in sales in 1997 and a growth rate of more than 20% a year.