Final November Newsletter – Workforce Development
Midwest
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Midwest TOPP News
Issue No. 2, November 2023
ORGANIC WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT
DELIVERABLE IDEAS FROM THE NOP HUMAN CAPITAL CAPACITY BUILDING
PROJECT
By Kathleen Delate, Iowa State University
If you are wondering what some of your Deliverables may look like for your TOPP
projects, particularly in Workforce Development (WFD), you may derive some
inspiration from the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) “Human Capital Capacity
Building Initiative,” launched as a national program in 2021 and 2022 to “support the
long-term growth of the organic industry by expanding the pool of well qualified organic
professionals who ensure consistency, fairness, and integrity. The initiative also supports
racial equity by encouraging removing barriers to access and building inclusive
programs.” Of the nine projects across the U.S. that the NOP funded, Iowa State
University’s Organic Ag Program: (https://www.extension.iastate.edu/organicag/)
worked with the certification agency, Oregon Tilth (lead), the University of Wisconsin,
Oregon State University and the International Organic Inspectors Association (IOIA) to
create materials to educate and support anyone interested in an organic certification
career in our “Bridging the Gaps: Enhancing Organic Programs in Postsecondary
Education to Expand and Diversify the Certification Workforce Pipeline” project. Some
of our public-facing Deliverables on this project included the filming of the organic
inspection of our organic research site: ISU Organic Farm Featured in NOP Video
The resulting video is available both to the public and within the Learning Center:
Become an Organic Inspector Video
You will need to Sign-In and set up an account at the USDA NOP Learning Center to view
the Deliverables described below: USDA NOP Learning Center
Some of the Deliverables I found inspirational to our TOPP work included the following:
·Growing the Organic Workforce. Purpose: Materials to secure a robust, highly skilled
workforce of qualified inspectors, reviewers, and other professionals to support the
organic sector. This landing page contains links to several other Deliverables highlighted
below. Growing the Organic Workforce
·Establishing Internships with Certifiers. Purpose: Serves as a guide to setting up and
running internships with certifiers – could be useful for TOPP internships. Internships
with Organic Certifiers
·Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Resources for the Organic Sector. Purpose:
Module on how to create a welcoming and supportive workplace for all individuals, and
in doing so, the organic sector is better poised to grow sustainably and solve complex
challenges. DEI in the Organic Sector
A really cool project highlighted in this program was the “Deploying a Systems
Framework for Classroom and Field-based Organic Agriculture Education” at Tuskegee
University in Alabama: On a personal note, I was so happy to see the organic program
growing at Tuskegee, reflecting back on my visit there in 2003 with Dr. Kokoasse
Kpomblekou-A (an ISU alumnus) to help jump-start organic programming. I encourage
anyone interested in seeing a diverse organic program, and the wonderful George
Washington Carver museum to visit there.
In the end, Workforce Development, as shown in the NOP Human Capital project,
relates to education and training, including developing curriculum, creating evaluation
and assessment tools, and job shadowing or internship programs. Targeted audiences
can include ag consultants; Extension; ag educators from high school (FFA, 4-H, other ag
programs), college (land-grants and others offering ag degrees), and NGOs (e.g., Rodale
Institute); tribal communities; government agencies like NRCS and FSA; certifiers; and
farmers with a penchant to educate others. For effective WFD, a needs assessment of
the community, describing the “lay of the land,” would be useful before initiating any
training, or developing training materials. What are the most pressing educational
needs, according to the community? Surveys and Focus Groups could help elucidate the
state of organic knowledge, and pinpoint gaps in education and support. This is an
example of a needs assessment we conducted to determine barriers to integrated
organic crop-livestock systems.
Meeting with organic and transitioning farmers through this process really helped focus
our training materials to address the stated needs of these farmers. There’s sizable
overlap in Workforce Development with Community Building, as demonstrated by this
project, where farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchange and peer support were essential
in overcoming obstacles to success in integrated systems.
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