Certified Naturally Grown: An Alternative to USDA Organic

By Margaret Badore for DietsInReview.com

For those of us who want to eat in a manner that’s both sustainable and healthy, the USDA Organic label is a kind of gold standard. It ensures that our produce hasn’t been grown with artificial substances and that it hasn’t been genetically modified. However, not all farms that use organic practices have USDA Organic certification, which prevents them from using the term “organic” at all. Farmers may choose to not apply for organic certification from the USDA for a number of reasons: they may not wish to pay the $1,000 fee or do the paperwork, small farms may feel that the USDA’s certification is a bad fit for the size of their operation, while other farmers simply choose to opt out.

Certified Naturally Grown (CNG) is a non-profit organization that offers farmers an alternative way to assure customers about their growing practices. Although the term “natural” has all too often been co-opted by marketing campaigns, the Naturally Grown certification restores credibility to the term.

“To the consumer, it means the food was grown without synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, synthetic herbicides or fungicides,” explains Alice Varon, executive director of Certified Naturally Grown. The CNG standards are based on internationally recognized organic standards, and are quite similar to USDA’s. “We’re not trying to define anything radically different,” says Varon. In some cases, CNG’s standards may be more rigorous than the USDA’s. “Rotenone is a product that’s used on farms that’s allowed under organic production, and we’ve disallowed it,” says Varon. “There’s been a lot of discussion in the organic community about wither this is something that should be allowed or not. Reasonable people can disagree.”

There are 800 farms and apiaries across 47 states that are Naturally Grown certified, and most of them sell their products at farmers markets. Certified Naturally Grown is a Participatory Guarantee System, which means that the farms are peer-reviewed annually to make sure they are compliant. Varon explains that customers shouldn’t be worried about back-scratching. “Actually, the fellow farmers tend to be too hard on each other,” she says. “They are committed to protecting the program, especially if they’re in the CNG program, they want the standards to be upheld. So, they tend to call people out on stuff that’s not really an issue.”

In fact, the peer-review system may even be insurance against violation of the standards, because it helps to build a stronger farming community. When the inspectors are also farmers from the area, they have the opportunity to share advice and get to know one another. “By strengthening farmers networks and having farmers talking with each other more, a lot of information comes out and is shared that helps people anticipate problems before they become very big,” says Varon.

Certified Naturally Grown is committed to helping farmers grow produce that’s both healthy for people and the earth’s ecology. To find farms and apiaries that are Certified Naturally Grown, visit naturallygrown.org.

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