For related articles and more information, please visit OCA’s All About Organics page.

The Trailblazers for Good Q&A Series sits down with the most world shaking individuals leading the movement to align impact, profit and purpose.  Here we pick the brains of top social entrepreneurs to learn first hand from their stunning accomplishments, utter failures, and stiff challenges in leading the revolution of doing well by doing good.  Join us as we explore the collective consciousness that drives and inspires these individuals.

Maria Rodale is CEO and Chairman of Rodale Inc., the world’s leading multimedia company focused on health, wellness, and the environment and the largest independent book publisher in the USA. Rodale reaches 70 million people worldwide through brands such as Prevention, Men’s Healthand Organic Gardening; through books including The South Beach Diet and Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth; and through numerous digital properties. She is founding editor of Rodale.com, which features her blog, Maria’s Farm Country Kitchen.

Rodale is the author of Organic Manifesto: How Organic Farming Can Heal Our Planet, Feed the World, and Keep Us Safe, which cuts through the confusion and misinformation to provide an indispensable look at why chemical-free farming unquestionably holds the key to better health for our families and the planet.

She has won numerous awards, including the 2004 National Audubon Society’s “Rachel Carson Award” and the 2007 United Nations Population Fund’s “Award for the Health and Dignity of Women.” She is a board member of Bette Midler’s New York Restoration Project and co-chair of the Rodale Institute, a nonprofit that has been dedicated to pioneering organic farming through research and outreach to farmers, scientists, and consumers for over sixty years.

You are quoted saying, “If you do one thing to change the world go organic.”  Why do you believe that’s the case?

Organic food is healthier and safer for you and your children and our environment. We now know that toxic chemicals used in the production of our food are contaminating our air, soil, and water and are ultimately poisoning our families.  You do not need chemicals to grow food. We have been misled into thinking that adding chemicals is normal, necessary and that farming without them is somehow strange or impossible. Virtually every food in the world has been successfully and profitably grown organically in modern productive and regenerative ways.