Real Organic Project signs Groundbreaking Partnership with Germany’s Naturland

When the Real Organic Project (ROP) launched in 2018, small organic farmers across the country saw it as their best — and only — hope to save the movement that they created.

After years of fruitless appeals to the National Organic Standards Board to have the rules enforced, no longer could these pioneers sit by and witness both their own financial demise and the weakening of industry standards, with the USDA turning a blind eye to organic factory animal farms and continuing to allow hydroponics in organic, a growing method that clearly violates section 6513 of the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990.

Just the other day, ROP took a gigantic step forward to accomplishing its goal by signing a groundbreaking partnership with Germany’s Naturland, an entity that certifies over 140,000 organic farms around the world.

“Without question, this joint venture will help mainstream ROP,” said Dave Chapman, co-director of the Real Organic Project. “Naturland, which is 40 years old and also a farmer-led organization, has the best reputation of any add-on label that I have ever come across, and working together only makes both organizations stronger.”

“There are more than three million organic farmers outside of the U.S., and what happens there impacts us. Surely, what happens here impacts them. Ultimately, this partnership was driven by the USDA’s unwillingness and inability to protect organic integrity, something that affects organic farmers everywhere.”