Author: Bob Whitney

If you grow organic cotton you know about GOTS and you are not happy about it! 

GOTS is a certification standard that is beyond certified organic and is an international or Global standard designed to ensure that organic cotton growers are “following the rules.”  This standard has mainly been about preventing any GMOs in cotton and doing the testing to make sure there wasn’t a problem.  Over time they have expanded their reach to include social issues, ecological issues and now pesticide residue testing.  As I write this, we are having to hold up all organic cotton processing waiting to find out about the particular pesticide residue tests GOTS may want.  It is an interesting problem – being certified organic but unfortunately certified organic just isn’t enough!

Needless to say, growers are not happy about the change, the problem or the delay in getting paid. When someone is not happy it is usually because something is not happening, and we are trying to make something happen.

So, we have scheduled an Organic Cotton Webinar to be held next Tuesday, December 5th at 1 pm CST and lasting to 1:45 pm. We will have Elizabeth Tigen, the Fiber and Textile Specialist with Oregon Tilth. Elizabeth works with most if not all the cotton gins who process organic cotton and she is working through this issue with GOTS. Almost all organic cotton buyers want GOTS certification, or they won’t buy the cotton. So, Elizabeth walks a fine line between GOTS, Buyers, Gins and even Growers.

If you would like to be a part of the Organic Cotton Webinar, we would love to have you join us. Just click on this link: Organic Cotton Webinar December 5th and you will go to a registration page to enter your name and email address. After signing up you will get an email that will let you join the webinar. Let me know if you have any problems.

Certified organic agriculture is a system of farming that follows certain principles and standards that aim to protect the environment, animal welfare, and human health¹. Organic has resisted and fought against any genetically modified organism (GMO) being approved or used in any organic system. Gene editing (GE) and new genomic techniques (NGTs) are methods that can alter the genetic material of an organism, either by inserting, deleting, or modifying specific genes². This type of alteration is essentially impossible to identify in the newly produced plant and so once the lab experiments are over and the plants are in the field, a GE or NGT produced carrot is not noticeably different or genetically different from an organic carrot. This “dilemma” could mean more rules for organic, or more rules for breeders to be honest or a combination of both. It is definitely causing concern for certified organic agriculture.

Below are some different opinions and perspectives on how organic agriculture should relate to gene editing and NGTs that I downloaded using Bing Chat to explore this topic. Some of the main points are:

• Some organic farmers and advocates are opposed to gene editing and NGTs, as they consider them as forms of genetic modification (GM) that are incompatible with the organic principles and values. They argue that gene editing and NGTs pose potential risks to the environment, biodiversity, food safety, and consumer choice, and that they undermine the integrity and trust of the organic label^{3 4}.
• Some organic breeders and researchers are open to exploring the possibilities of gene editing and NGTs, as they believe they can offer benefits for organic agriculture, such as improving crop traits, enhancing resilience, and reducing inputs. They claim that gene editing and NGTs are different from GMO, as they can produce changes that are similar to those that occur naturally or by conventional breeding, and that they can be used in a responsible and transparent way that respects the organic standards and regulations^{4 5}.
• Some organic stakeholders and policymakers are calling for a dialogue and a consensus on how to address the challenges and opportunities of gene editing and NGTs for organic agriculture. They suggest that there is a need for more research, education, and communication on the scientific, ethical, and social aspects of gene editing and NGTs, and that there should be a participatory and inclusive process that involves all the actors in the organic sector and beyond^{4 5}.

As you can see, the response of organic agriculture to gene editing and NGTs is not uniform or simple, but rather complex and diverse. There are tensions and debates at the boundary of organic and biotechnology, and some claim that there may be opportunities and collaborations for innovation and sustainability. Right now, organic organizations in the US are united against NGT’s and are pushing hard to keep them out of organic. What most breeders point to is the ability to quickly make changes to plants versus the time-consuming techniques in conventional breeding. Of course, they forget that in the process of pursuing certain traits the longer process of conventional breeding has produced many traits that were not anticipated, most to the better. Also, this slow process can help us avoid unwanted traits or never even get those traits expressed. Lastly, there has been problems with NGT produced varieties that when introduced into our current varieties would be hard to erase.

If you haven’t heard or just didn’t know, we have a new podcast rolled out and ready to enjoy. My coworker, Timber has worked very hard to first learn how to create a podcast, how to get them uploaded somewhere (I don’t have a clue where or how) and to line up interviews of great organic farmers, industry people and more. I really like it because she just tells me when we are creating a podcast, who we are interviewing, and where to sit!!!

The first podcast we did was mostly for us to learn how, but she interviewed me about my organic journey, and I will have to say it was fun just getting to talk. Timber takes the interviews and “cleans” them up so that all the pauses and “ah” or “and” or “like” is taken out and it sounds really smooth. Our second interview was with Rob Warren from Seminole. Rob is a wealth of information, and he loves organic farming making him a lot of fun to talk to. He told us about his grapes and how he is moving all his production to organic – something that is not common in grapes.

I won’t tell you about the upcoming podcasts just yet, but I will encourage you to subscribe so you get all the new ones as they come out. Here is the link below or you can subscribe through Apple or Google or the many other ways you listen to podcasts. Just click here: On TOPP of Organic Or click the picture below.

Collaboration is not really defined as a willingness to give, or is it? Here is the definition of collaboration that I asked Bing Chat to generate…..

Collaboration is the act or process of working together or cooperating with others to achieve a common goal or create something new.

Bing Chat

John Kemp with Advancing Eco Agriculture was interviewing a farmer, Austin Allred on his podcast and at the end John asked Austin what he believed most limits farmers from being able to take the next steps forward. Almost instantly Austin said, “COLLABORATION.” The conversation then talked about collaboration really being a way to share with each other, give to each other, to better both.

This comes at a time when I am rereading, “Give and Take – Why Helping Others Drives Our Success” written by Adam Grant years ago but selling millions of copies and being translated into 30 languages. Dr. Grant makes a point to tell many stories of people who are extremely successful while spending lots of time giving away both talent and treasure.

Why am I writing this blog post at this time? First it is Thanksgiving, and I am very thankful for my family, my friends, my coworkers, my colleagues and the many farmers who let me have the privilege of working with them. I am blessed by my God and the huge number of people I interact with on a daily basis. Second, it is the time of year when you think about the past many months and plan for the next many months! This means I am thinking about organic agriculture and the many organic farm families in Texas. I want to see us all do more collaboration to make us all better together. And I want to do more to “give” myself away in this collaboration so that we will all together be able to “cooperate with others to achieve a common goal or create something new.”

I pray you will have a very Happy Thanksgiving and enjoy all you have with all those who love you very much.

I got my email magazine from the Organic Farmers Association and right in the middle is good article by Harriet Behar entitled “Organic Seed: Protect Organic Integrity from GMO’s.”

“With more genetic engineering in nonorganic seed occurring, organic growers in the United States and Canada will need to aggressively increase their use of organic seed over the next few years.”

I have heard this issue raised many times over the last few months and it is because most in the organic industry don’t know any way to make sure the nonorganic seed you may be buying has not been genetically engineered. GE or genetically engineered seed is a process whereby no new DNA is introduced to the plant but is simply a modification of the original plant. According to Harriet Behar, “the only gene-edited seed available in the US is mustard greens.” I didn’t know about this one, but I do know that there have been articles in American Fruit Grower about companies exploring GE for several fruit crops including blackberries.

Harriet makes the point, “gene-editing technologies like CRISPR are not traceable or trackable since there is no marker to test if gene-editing occurred.” GMO’s have a marker which is why they can get you for saving THEIR seed! Currently the problem (GE Plants or Seed) is so new and so controversial that the National Organic Program has not addressed the issue even though the NOSB has asked them to classify GE just like a GMO.

What may be pushing this issue to the forefront is the European Union and its organic program. In the EU they list specific crops by country that must be grown with organic seed because they have determined there is enough organic seed available. If the EU moves to put more organic varieties on these country lists because of the potential for GE in seed varieties, then the US is sure to follow suit. This is because of the organic equivalency agreements between the US and EU which make organic trade possible.

It is a good article and so I pulled it out and have it here to download. If you haven’t had a chance to sign up for the free email magazine from OFA then try it now….

Sometimes you read a research paper at just the right time – basically because someone asked you a question that the research paper talks about! This is exactly what happened when I got notice that this paper was being published. I had a question about how to do weed control in organic wheat and the question is one that is hard to answer. My answer, basically you wait as late as you can to plant, make sure to have a clean seedbed, plant a little deeper than normal and use a rotary hoe set very shallow to take out “white thread” weeds till the wheat is established.

Notice the wheat seed singulated on the vacuum planter plate.

But what if there was a better way? This research paper explores the idea of a uniform planting pattern for wheat across the field versus a typical drill which plants in drill rows that are about 7-8 inches apart. This is not necessarily new technology. We do have precision planters for small grains that do a great job placing seeds together in a uniform pattern. There are many studies using precision planters in wheat that show a minimum increase in yield of 10% with a maximum of 60%.

What is unique about this research is the fact that they were looking at organic wheat production and the ability of precision planting to increase yields but maybe as important also control weeds. In the two years they conducted this study, the weed biomass production was 73-82% less with the precision planting (Uniform seed spacing) versus the typical drill row spacing pattern. So, what do you do? It could be worth it to try and lease a precision drill for your next organic wheat crop and see if it helps – I bet it does.

More Resources (just click to see)

• Allelopathy – What is it, what has it, and how do we use it?
• Organic Control of Field Bindweed?
• Organic Weed Control
• What varieties are organic farmers planting?