New head of USDA organic program hired from Washington

The longtime head of Washington state's organic program has been hired as deputy administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Organic Program.

Miles McEvoy's appointment comes at a time of rapid growth for a program under increasing scrutiny by consumer groups and industry interests with strong opinions about how the burgeoning organic movement should be regulated.

The stakes are high in an industry that has grown from $1 billion to $23 billion in sales since 1990 but represents just 3 percent of all food and beverage purchases, according to the Organic Trade Association.

The Washington Post reported in the summer that corporate interests have swayed key USDA employees, including Barbara Robinson, who oversaw the organics program and had other responsibilities. She told the Post that the program's main purpose is to "grow the industry" and dismissed controversies over synthetics in organic foods as "mostly ridiculous."

Organic-industry participants welcomed McEvoy's appointment.

"There's been an adversarial climate at the National Organic Program," said Mark Kastel, co-founder of The Cornucopia Institute, an organic-industry watchdog group in northern Wisconsin. "Miles has a reputation of high integrity, and the program he ran in Washington state has one of the best reputations in the country."

The National Organic Program sets the nation's organic standards, including deciding how much pasture time dairy cows should have for their milk to be deemed organic and whether wild fish can be considered organic.

A more mundane but equally important task is ensuring that farmers and other producers whose products are labeled organic — a label that often carries a big price premium — follow federal guidelines.

It's been a big job for a program with only about 25 employees, just a couple more than the organic program McEvoy has led in Washington for more than two decades.

The program's budget is expected to almost double to nearly $7 million.

And when he announced Thursday that McEvoy had been hired, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack also said the organic program will become a separate area within the Agricultural Marketing Service, which provides grading and other services for commodities such as livestock, poultry and tobacco.

"There needs to be an adequate regulatory system that includes inspection, surveillance, sampling, certification and verification," McEvoy said. "It's been in place, but there's certainly room for improvement."

The National Organic Program accredits the roughly 100 groups that certify on the ground that organic producers are following federal rules. Those certifying groups include companies, nonprofits such as Oregon Tilth and the Organic Food Program that McEvoy ran in Washington.

McEvoy, who starts his new job Oct. 1, was the first employee of Washington's Organic Food Program, working part time in 1988 to inspect 60 farms.

"He was there pretty much from ground zero," said Trudy Bialic, director of public affairs at the Seattle grocery chain PCC Natural Markets and a candidate for the National Organic Standards Board, which advises the National Organic Program.

"We're going to miss him at the state level, but how lucky we are to have him take a leadership role nationally," she said. "I'm thrilled for organic standards overall."

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312 or mallison@seattletimes.com