[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 200 (Wednesday, December 19, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7911-S7912]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       TRIBUTE TO ENID WONNACOTT

   Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, a remarkable Vermonter has reached a 
remarkable milestone. Enid Wonnacott of Huntington, VT, deserves our 
thanks for and recognition of her more than 30 years of agricultural 
leadership in Vermont and the Nation.
  Enid has led the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, 
NOFA-VT, since 1987. Her early leadership of NOFA coincided with my 
chairmanship of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, 
and Forestry. Enid was a constant source of counsel to me about the 
importance and unlimited potential of organic agriculture for Vermont 
and the Nation, and she was a strong advocate and adviser as I worked 
to make the National Organic Standards Act a part of the 1990 farm 
bill. This is the law that authorized the national organic standards 
and labeling program, ushering in the remarkable and still-burgeoning 
growth of America's thriving organic sector.
  Since that time, Vermont continues to be a leader in our country's 
now $60 billion annual organic industry. To this day, I continue to 
look to Enid for advice on organic agriculture and nutrition issues. 
Enid Wonnacott's many accomplishments are presented in a profile 
published in ``Seven Days'' in Vermont on October 30, 2018. I ask 
unanimous consent for the profile to be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                 [Seven Days Vermont, October 30, 2018]

          Longtime OrganicAg Leader Enid Wonnacott Steps Down

                          (By Melissa Pasanen)

        Enid Wonnacott has tallied many accomplishments over 30-
     plus years as executive director of the Northeast Organic 
     Farming Association of Vermont. In 1987, her 10-hour-per-week 
     job came with one filing cabinet and a milk crate filled with 
     paperwork. Since then, Wonnacott has built the nonprofit into 
     a 20-person team supported by a $2.8 million budget. NOFA-VT 
     has had an impact not only on Vermont agriculture but 
     nationwide.
        Wonnacott started at the association the same year that 
     Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) became chair of the Senate 
     agriculture committee. The two worked closely on developing 
     the National Organic Program, which eventually led to the 
     creation of the U.S. Department of Agriculture organic seal 
     in 2002.
        ``Enid has been one of the most effective advocates for 
     organic agriculture in the entire country,'' Leahy told Seven 
     Days via email, acknowledging that the road was long and that 
     challenges continue. ``Through all of this, as a leader, Enid 
     has been patient but persistent and always a clear-eyed 
     problem solver. I have often looked for Enid's help on 
     difficult policy challenges,'' Leahy added, ``and she has 
     never been reluctant to let me know exactly what needs doing 
     to support and strengthen organic agriculture.''
        ``This is recognition of her role as guardian and voice of 
     the organic movement,'' Ross said. ``It also recognizes the 
     evolution of organic as a significant and meaningful part of 
     our economy in Vermont and the economy nationally.''
        Under Wonnacott's guidance, NOFA-VT has become the go-to 
     resource for organic farmers and gardeners, agricultural 
     advocates, and locavores for everything from technical 
     production assistance to comprehensive lists of farmers 
     markets and CSAs. There were fewer than 50 organic producers 
     in 1987; now NOFA-VT certifies more than 700. Its robust 
     farm-to-school partnership, subsidized farm shares and other 
     efforts work to broaden access to local and organic food.
        The nonprofit's mobile pizza oven, though, is probably the 
     most vivid symbol of Wonnacott's unique contributions: She 
     embodies the warm heart of Vermont's organic agriculture 
     movement, pulling community together around organic food and 
     the farmers who produce it.
        ``I love that whole program and initiative as much as 
     anything we do,'' Wonnacott said, after smoothly maneuvering 
     the oven into Burlington's Intervale on a September 
     afternoon. Later that day, she headed up a team of volunteers 
     and Intervale Center employees to bake pizzas for an event, 
     hands in the dough, laughing and hugging longtime friends who 
     stopped by.
        Launched in 2006, the portable pizza oven fulfilled a 
     vision Wonnacott had for gathering people around food in a 
     way that fostered connection and conversation. ``I'm 
     passionate about community building,'' she explained. ``I 
     think people need and seek community.''
        Particularly in the early days, freshly baked pizza helped 
     raise NOFA-VT's profile with consumers and farmers. The 
     copper-domed, wood-fired oven on a trailer has logged 
     thousands of miles and produced thousands of pizzas at events 
     such as farmers markets and young-farmer socials.
        Since Wonnacott's cancer diagnosis in 2014, working the 
     oven has also provided a personal benefit. ``It's such a 
     physical, present thing to do, especially when you have chemo 
     brain,'' she said. ``To get out and see people is a really 
     healthy thing for me.''
        People who have worked with Wonnacott say her positive 
     energy and balanced approach have been both anchor and beacon 
     through the hard work of building a movement.
        Mara Hearst, now a sheep farmer in Dorset, was 19 when she 
     first met Wonnacott, who invited her to become a student 
     representative on the NOFA-VT board. Hearst said Wonnacott's 
     consistent message as a leader and mentor has been: ``We need 
     to make change, and there's a shitload to do, but let's take 
     time to be a community together.''
        ``After hours, she's the first one to turn on the music 
     and get everyone dancing,'' said NOFA-NY board member 
     Elizabeth Henderson. When she was founding president of NOFA-
     Mass., Henderson was on the committee that originally hired 
     Wonnacott for the Vermont chapter. ``It's one of the things 
     I'm proudest of,'' she said.
        The agricultural landscape has changed dramatically since 
     Wonnacott became the nonprofit's third executive director at 
     age 26, fresh out of graduate school.
        According to the Organic Trade Association, organic food 
     sales in the U.S. hit $45.2 billion in 2017 and accounted for 
     5.5 percent of all food sold. Twenty years ago, OTA's first 
     published sales figure was $3.4 billion.
        The USDA National Organic Program helped propel growth. 
     However, its integrity has been questioned over the past 
     couple of years based on media coverage of probable standards 
     noncompliance by large organic dairy and egg operations. 
     Investigation also revealed that some organic imports were 
     receiving fraudulent certifications. Then the USDA withdrew 
     approved, strengthened organic animal-welfare standards, 
     though they had not yet been enforced.
        After her initial diagnosis but before her cancer spread, 
     Wonnacott had planned to retire in 2021, when NOFA-VT will 
     turn 50. ``But it's also a good time now,'' she said. ``I 
     recognize there are a lot of changes to the organic industry, 
     challenges to organic integrity. I think there's a need for 
     really strong leadership, someone who has the energy I had 
     when I started.'' After a pause she added, ``I don't have the 
     fight anymore, just my love and appreciation for this 
     movement. I want it to be shepherded by somebody with a lot 
     of health and energy right now.''
        Wonnacott's deep passion for agriculture was seeded while 
     growing up on her family's Weybridge homestead. Her mother 
     was dean of students at Middlebury College. Her father died 
     of cancer when Wonnacott, the youngest of three sisters, was 
     16. She spent a lot of time on a neighboring dairy farm, 
     showed livestock at the fair and worked with a large animal 
     veterinarian.
        At St. Lawrence University in New York State, Wonnacott 
     studied biology and chemistry and first learned about organic 
     agriculture. She relief-milked for a nearby organic dairy and 
     read Wendell Berry's 1977 classic, The Unsettling of America: 
     Culture & Agriculture. ``You know when you read a book and 
     you're like, Oh, my God. This is what's in my head,'' she 
     recalled.
        During a semester in Kenya, Wonnacott learned how to treat 
     cobra bites and hand-milk a 70-cow herd. Kenyan agriculture 
     was organic ``by default,'' she said. ``There was money to 
     supply inputs, but no one knew what to do with them. I saw 
     huge piles of imported chemical fertilizer next to broken-
     down tractors.'' As graduation neared, Wonnacott applied to 
     veterinary school and, at her mother's suggestion, for a 
     yearlong Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to study alternative 
     agriculture. ``My mom was a really strong role model as far 
     as `women can do anything,' '' Wonnacott said. ``She 
     supported what was in my heart.''
        She won the fellowship and worked on organic farms in New 
     Zealand, Nepal, Norway and England; the experience was 
     pivotal. ``It was an agricultural system that made common 
     sense to me, a culture of preventative management and health 
     for the soil, the plants and the animals,'' Wonnacott said. 
     ``I wanted to know, Why does the world not farm this way?''
        Back in the U.S., she taught biology and environmental 
     education and became an organic certification inspector 
     before pursuing graduate studies at UVM.'' I had to figure 
     out why the world works the way it does,'' she said. ``How 
     does our agriculture policy influence other countries? How do 
     supply, demand and financial systems work?'' For her thesis, 
     Wonnacott interviewed organic farmers about the role of 
     policy in effecting

[[Page S7912]]

     change. ``In the end, I felt like it's all about grassroots--
     that was where change was going to come from,'' she said.
        When Wonnacott landed the job at NOFA-VT shortly after 
     finishing school, she built on her thesis contacts to launch 
     that grassroots effort. In the mid-'80s, Wonnacott recalled, 
     ``organic was really the underground.'' Farmers told her they 
     didn't label produce organic because customers would assume 
     it had worms. ``People thought it was just hippies playing 
     around,'' she said. ``It wasn't respected.''
        Her goal, Wonnacott said, was to raise the status of the 
     movement and provide support to farmers in the pre-internet 
     age. She also prioritized developing a farmer-driven organic 
     certification program with lengthy discussions to hash out 
     standards. ``For me, fascinated by movement building, by how 
     groups make decisions, these were really amazing meetings,'' 
     Wonnacott said.
        Jack Lazor of Butterworks Farm in Westfield met Wonnacott 
     when she was a graduate student and worked helping to deliver 
     the farm's yogurt to stores. He was part of the first 
     community forum she later led in her new NOFA-VT role. ``She 
     did it all at the beginning,'' Lazor said. ``She built this 
     thing up through goodwill and positive forces. She's a force, 
     but a gentle force.'' At the time, organic standards were not 
     consistent state to state, and Wonnacott soon found herself 
     at the center of a sea change.
        Organic was growing rapidly, she recalled: ``Sen. Leahy 
     came to me. There was a lot of interest from California to 
     create a level playing field for interstate trade. He wanted 
     to know, `What does Vermont think of this?' '' Wonnacott and 
     other organic pioneers were both nervous and hopeful about 
     federal involvement. ``It's hard when you've been an underdog 
     not to be totally wowed by the attention and money for 
     research and organic support,'' she said. It soon became 
     clear, she said, that a national organic program ``was going 
     to move forward with or without us and we had to put our 
     energy into making it the best it could be.''
        Pragmatism is a Wonnacott hallmark, according to Megan 
     Camp, vice president and program director at Shelburne Farms. 
     The two women served together on a statewide council 
     alongside diverse agriculture community representatives. 
     Tension would occasionally arise, Camp acknowledged: ``Some 
     people would pound the table, point fingers. Enid would make 
     the same argument firmly, but always listening, able to hear 
     multiple perspectives.''
        Wonnacott believes strongly that it doesn't help to label 
     types of farming as ``good'' or ``bad.'' But she recognizes 
     that her approach has disappointed some. ``We're a really 
     inclusive organization, and that's been really important to 
     me,'' she said. ``We want to move all farmers along the 
     sustainability spectrum, never be organic elitist, never say 
     this is the only way you can farm. ``It's been a conflict for 
     some staff and some board members over the years, 
     absolutely,'' Wonnacott continued.
        This was particularly evident when the local food movement 
     gathered momentum, sometimes at the expense of organic. ``Our 
     tagline has been, `Certified organic, locally grown'--you 
     don't have to choose,'' she said. But in practice, consumers 
     and farmers set their own priorities. For example, Wonnacott 
     explained, if one local farmer sells eggs from free-range 
     hens but also feeds them GMO grain and customers think that's 
     good enough, how can the local organic farmer charge the 
     premium price that's needed to cover expensive, non-GMO 
     grain?
        Wonnacott is playing the long game. She believes that 
     collaboration and mutual support are critical to sustaining 
     agriculture in Vermont and nudging more farmers toward 
     organic practices. ``I believe we can be both a movement 
     builder and a bridge builder,'' she said. ``It's allowed us 
     to be at the table for a lot of really important 
     conversations, and I think it was pivotal in my hall of fame 
     award.''
        Andy Jones, manager of Burlington's Intervale Community 
     Farm and former NOFA-VT board president, believes ``the big 
     tent'' has served the agricultural community well. Early on, 
     he noted, Wonnacott saw the benefit of offering technical 
     assistance to conventional dairies that were exploring a 
     transition to organic. She recognized that farm-to-school 
     programs could provide markets for local and organic farmers 
     and also teach new generations to appreciate the food. ``She 
     always wanted to build the answer ``to any problem, said 
     Jones. She sought ``ways to build the ag community, the rural 
     community. She knows Vermont is stronger when everyone is 
     successful.''
        Wonnacott understands that her successor will face 
     challenges. NOFA-VT membership is stagnant at about 1,200 
     members, and this year's winter conference attendance was 
     down across NOFA state chapters. The USDA organic integrity 
     issues have provoked fractures within the organic community, 
     along with public confusion and distrust.'' I fear for the 
     future of organic, the splintering that's taking place,'' she 
     admitted.
        Wonnacott is also concerned that new farmers don't see a 
     need to be certified, noting that Vermont is about to see a 
     huge land shift and transition between generations. ``I 
     really want beginning farmers to feel there's value in this 
     movement,'' she said. ``We need a really strong beginning-
     farmer wave to replace the pioneering farmers.''
        It's fitting in some ways that Wonnacott is navigating a 
     transition while also helping many of the farmers with whom 
     she started her career navigate their own. She has co-
     facilitated two meetings with the old guard. ``It's like deep 
     therapy for all of us,'' she said with a chuckle. ``These are 
     the farmers who really inspired me. I wanted to do everything 
     I could to make their farms and their lives successful. That 
     drive has carried me through, and I could have done it for 
     another 30 years.''
        After she steps down in the spring, Wonnacott will stay 
     involved in other ways. She's training to become an organic 
     inspector and will do that part time. She will also help out 
     during the pizza-oven season. But mostly, Wonnacott will 
     focus on her health, her family--husband Harry Frank and 
     their two grown children--and their Huntington homestead.
        It's no surprise, though, that Wonnacott has not stopped 
     dreaming up new, creative ways to support her passions. ``One 
     of my favorite things to do is long-distance walking,'' she 
     said, explaining that she has solo-walked trails around the 
     world, most recently Ireland's Dingle Way. Wonnacott 
     envisions a statewide farm-to-farm walk to raise awareness of 
     organic agriculture and community. The Vermont walk would not 
     be a solo endeavor, however. With her signature warm smile 
     Wonnacott said, ``I have a great vision of hundreds of people 
     joining me to walk for the cause.''

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