May 1, 2026
In concluding our annual retreat, the Northeast Organic Farming Association Interstate Council (NOFA IC) reaffirms the values that have grounded our work for 55 years.
Our vision is that every person is able to live their life with healthy food, clean water and air, community, livelihood, dignity, and purpose within the means of our life-giving planet. We seek that vision on every level, from our households and farms to our communities, states, bioregions, nation, and world. For that vision to be fulfilled, every person, no matter their origin or circumstances, must have all their basic human needs met without degrading the air, water, soil, ecosystems, and climate which we have been given and on which we depend for our lives.
We strive to realize our vision through our way of life, in rural and urban communities where everyone is welcome, where we practice regenerative organic, agroecological farming and gardening, mutual interdependence through local trade, marketing and distribution, saving and sharing locally adapted seeds and breeds, teaching others, constantly learning more ourselves, and opposing the corrosive racism that undermines the promise of this nation. We celebrate diversity not only on farms but in all ways, recognizing its essential value as a cornerstone of health and a source of joy and curiosity.
We strive to realize our vision within a system that contradicts these values, that denies racial, social, political, and economic justice as well as basic physical needs, and that is rapidly degrading the soil, polluting the air and water with toxic pesticides and herbicides, depleting biodiversity, valuing only what can be sold for a price, externalizing the true costs, and disrupting the climate.
We believe that it is urgent to defend workers across the food system, especially marginalized immigrants who are cornerstones of our food system. To reduce the vulnerability of these workers, it is time to repair the exclusions and injustices our food system has inherited from white supremacy—from weak labor laws to food apartheid and the weaponization of food to a militarized border policing complex.
We believe it is just as urgent to prevent the liquidation of yet more farms at the hands of mega-corporations and investors. We must build momentum to make a better farming possible where people can do meaningful labor, unwinding corporate control over our ability to satisfy basic human needs —and to break the cycle of off-loading harms onto the next vulnerable group or country. As Gandhi often reminded us, the world has enough for everyone’s needs, but not enough to satisfy the greed of those who push for ever more profit.
Founded in 1971, NOFA is one of the oldest organic farming organizations in the country, with seven independent non-profit chapters in Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Jersey that work together regionally, nationally, and internationally through the NOFA Interstate Council.
In these turbulent times, NOFA’s egalitarian eco-farming and healthy food vision is attracting growing numbers of families concerned with raising healthy children who wish to join with a dynamic grassroots community of landworkers and advocates to bring this vision to life.
NOFA is committed to working for a future of well-being for all, starting with the most marginalized.
NOFA commits to joining alliances that will swell into the massive coalitions necessary for a natural organic future to emerge.
If our values resonate with you, please join us! All are welcome.
Background information: NOFA’s recent value-oriented advocacy efforts include:
- Working with our national farming alliances - the National Organic Coalition, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, the HEAL Food Alliance, the National Family Farm Coalition, the Organic Farmers Association - to send staff and farmers to Washington D.C. Fly-Ins to meet with our 7-state Congressional delegations and federal officials to support grassroots organic policy initiatives for a transformative Farm Bill.
- Chapters working within their 7 states to support farmers and local food systems impacted by back-to-back years of severe flooding, followed by drought dislocations and climate shifts. • Joining federal and state lawsuits as a plaintiff with a diverse group of municipalities, labor unions, and nationwide non-profits to halt the administration’s unilateral federal agency cuts and workforce terminations.
- Working on the state and national level to alleviate the impact of federal cuts affecting racial justice, community food security, and farmer support and technical assistance in conservation.
Participating in the Nyéléni Process of La Via Campesina to lay out the essential principles for a Global Framework on Agricultural Trade Based on Food Sovereignty, grounded in international human rights law, that is an instrument of mutual benefit and shared prosperity, prioritizing human dignity, environmental justice, and democratic governance of food systems at all levels—local, regional, and global.
NOFA Endorses The Principles of Organic Agriculture established by the International Federation of Organic Farming Movements, with members in over 100 countries, that provide a transition to the solutions needed for an agriculture that is climate resilient and worth sustaining.
Ecology: Organic agriculture should be based on living ecological systems and cycles, work with them, emulate them, and help sustain them.
Health: Organic agriculture should sustain and enhance the health of soil, plant, animal, human, and planet as one and indivisible. Health is the wholeness and integrity of living systems. It is not simply the absence of illness, but the maintenance of physical, mental, social, and ecological well-being. Immunity, resilience, and regeneration are key characteristics of health.
Care: Organic agriculture should be managed in a precautionary and responsible manner to protect the health and well-being of current and future generations and the environment.
Fairness: Fairness is characterized by equity, respect, justice, and stewardship of the shared world, both among people and in their relations to other living beings.
For more information, contact:
Steve Gilman - [email protected]
Elizabeth Henderson - [email protected]
