Partner Spotlight: Certified Naturally Grown (CNG)
The demand for local, healthy food has sky-rocketed over this past year as Buyers seek additional avenues of purchasing groceries they can trust. Quality is at the foundation for any Farm, and that’s why Barn2Door supports Farmers who care about the soil and products, promoting stewardship and sustainable agriculture.
Barn2Door is thrilled to announce our Partnership with Certified Naturally Grown (CNG). Fostering a community that promotes the use of organic practices is at the heart of the organization. Farmers are committed to growing products without synthetic chemicals, inputs, or GMOs. CNG has over 750 certified Farms across the U.S and Canada. We recently sat down with Alice Varon, Executive Director of CNG, to learn more about the organization and how they strive to allow Farmers to be recognized for organic agriculture practices.
“CNG was founded by Farmers in 2002 when the National Organic Program (NOP) took effect in the Hudson Valley. They’ve been farming organically for many years there and were committed to producing their food this way for local communities. When the National Organic Program began, it was illegal to use the word organic to describe your farm or your farm practices unless you went through the new certification process overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. So, the Farmers in the Hudson Valley decided to create an alternative called Certified Naturally Grown. It grew from a small group of growers to quickly becoming a national organization of farmers around the country.
Our requirements are based on the national organic standards, and we began with certifying produce operations and livestock. In 2010, we expanded to include beekeepers, and by 2016, we expanded to mushroom growers and aquaponics producers. Maple producers and fresh-cut flower growers are a portion of our members as well.”
What’s the difference between the CNG certification and NOP certification?
CNG’s certification model relies on a more grassroots approach than the National Organic Program, and has less paperwork which Farmers enjoy. “Farmers are conducting the onsite inspections. It’s a peer-to-peer approach that is endorsed and recommended by IFOAM Organics (an international body that promotes organic agriculture to include small-scale producers). CNG is more affordable than the USDA program.”
When asked about why a Farm would choose CNG instead of NOP, Alice responded: “it’s a question of which markets the Farm is trying to serve. Sometimes the USDA program makes the most sense, especially if they want to access wholesale markets. But, for those producers who are growing for their local community and selling directly to their customers, CNG is often a good fit for them. We think it’s vital for Farmers to have a choice of the different ways they can verify their practices, and many Farmers find this attractive.”
Alice noted that it’s common for Farms to have the CNG and the NOP certification simultaneously. “Farm operations grow, and sometimes they get to a scale where they want to access wholesale markets, so they add on the NOP certification. It’s very important to Farmers to retain the connection to our organization, as a reflection of their commitment to being a part of their local community, but the organic label gives them access to new markets.”
CNG initiatives that connect Farmers with their communities
Recently, CNG has focused their efforts on providing new educational resources for their members. “This past winter, we launched Farmer Leaning Collaborative which emphasizes the exchange of knowledge between CNG producers. We bring in some of our most experienced Farmers to provide the content for these sessions where we cover a different topic each week. The experienced Farmer discusses how they faced the particular challenge and how they handled it. It offers such richness for our new Farmers to have the opportunity to learn how others have faced and overcome similar challenges.”
The emphasis on visibility and connecting Farmers to their consumers is at the core of what makes CNG a community-based organization. Before the pandemic, CNG began a new initiative that centers around their peer-to-peer aspect, connecting community stakeholders to observe on-farm inspections. “They’re not there to assess, they are there to observe… It adds another layer of transparency to the verification process. We know it’s a way for our members to have more visibility in their community. To increase awareness and understand what it takes to produce food in this way” is extremely important.
CNG through the pandemic
Over the past year, CNG has pivoted to help their members overcome the impacts of COVID-19. “Those Farms supplying restaurants and catering companies saw their markets disappear overnight. Some were able to recover, but some shut down. It’s been hard on Farmers, but for most of our members that sell locally and direct to customers, they’ve never seen such high demand. The biggest challenge was to meet that demand safely, so we’ve helped them navigate those changes… One of the silver linings of a very difficult year is that folks started looking for food that was produced closer to home. They cut the link in the food chain between the source and their table. Fortunately for our members, they were well positioned to meet those needs.”
Alice saw CNG Farmers implement certain tactics to keep up with the increased demand for local, healthy foods. “I know from folks in our community that the idea of having an online farmer’s market is appealing to allow customers to place an order. It may be that the pandemic accelerated the use of the adoption of these online tools, but it’s not easy to just pivot all of a sudden. It’s a cultural shift that’s been happening over several years. Farmers are now looking for more efficient ways to get their food in the hands of their buyers and still supply to their own local communities. An online platform seems to be a really good way to do that… obviously, Barn2Door is a great option, as it’s ready to go.”
Alice also discussed what Farmers have said about CNG membership benefits. “What comes up over and over again is the sense of being a part of a like-minded community and having relationships that bear fruit in ways that you can’t always predict. It’s such a knowledge intensive, unique, and somewhat isolating occupation so it’s important to have a sense of being a part of something. This sense of community is really what comes up over and over again for Farmers. By making your certification visible, you also set your Farm products apart from the rest. By doing this, you’re not only helping your Farms prospects but you’re also raising awareness about the existence of such standards. In the long run, this will drive the demand for better food, and a more sustainable food system.”
Barn2Door is proud to partner with Certified Naturally Grown to support Farmers across the country who implement organic practices and are creating a better food system for the future.
To learn more about how Barn2Door could support your Farm, watch this 5-min video.