I would say organic farming is looking at the agricultural system based on the soil and based on the health of the soil.

The art of being a good organic farmer is how do I build this relationship with the soil so that it continues to thrive and become even more filled with life and produce healthier crops.

And welcome back to The Beat Podcast.

I'm your host, Logan Haley, and today I have a guest that I have been excited to talk to for a very long time.

This is Dave Chapman from the Real Organic Project.

And we are here to talk about everything you want to know about organic regulations,

organic food, how organic products and gardening materials have been regulated. And what has changed in this world that has

made a lot of people start to question what organics is, what is real organics versus the

organics that may have been co-opted by industrial interests. So there's so much we can dig

into here. Dave, welcome to the show.

Hey, Logan. Thanks for having me. Could you start by just explaining who you are and what you do

over there at the ROP? That's right. I'm Dave. I'm Dave, I'm Dave Chapman. I am a farmer, still farming, although I'm in the process of passing the farm on to a younger couple, so that's very exciting change in life. And I don't know, about 13 years ago, something like that.

I've been farming for whatever, 45 years, but about 13 years ago, I got involved in an effort to bring reform to the National Organic Program, which is the USDA program that runs organic certification in America and it tries to follow

the law, the Organic Food Production Act, which is a great law. They did an amazing job of coming

up with a very good legal definition of organic. And, you know, it's been a challenge, which is not a shocker since

they started. But honestly, at first, when the law passed, I thought, oh, this is going to be a

disaster. And then it went much better than I thought. And I looked around, I live in Vermont.

I looked around. I saw organic farming growing. I saw

organic products in the stores growing. The market was growing. And I thought, this is actually

working out the way you would hope it would work out. And it looked to me like there was a lot

of integrity in the program, but that's in Vermont. And I didn't

get that. I was unaware of what was going on in the rest of the country. And as I encountered the

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