OFARM members Steve Boyda, Will Ortman, Ed Reznicek and Carmen Fernholz featured in The Land Connection Winter Webinar Series “Cooperative Organic Grain Marketing: How Does Organic Grain Marketing Really Work. Listen here.

MAHA roundtable news release, July, 2025

MAHA roundtable news release, July, 2025

ORGANIC LEADERS PARTICIPATE IN A HISTORIC ROUNDTABLE CENTERED AROUND THE ADMINISTRATION MANTRA ‘MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN’ (MAHA)

Fully on Board with this Trump Administration, initiative Senator Roger Marshall (R) Kansas convened this historic roundtable with invitations to various Ag industry leaders from fields of production, business, research, education, innovation, and investment.  The central theme of the event was Healthy Soil – Healthy Crops – Healthy People.

Senator Marshall issued this press release:

“Today, on Capitol Hill, I was privileged to welcome Secretary Kennedy, Secretary Rollins, farmers, and agriculture experts from across the country for a roundtable targeted at the importance of soil health. Our farmers and ranchers are the backbone of the Make America Healthy Again movement; without their support and voices in our ears, this will not succeed. 

As a fifth-generation Kansas farm kid and an OBGYN, I understand how important agriculture is and also how important nutritious foods are for a mother and her baby.

Soil health is where MAHA meets agriculture, and where we can foster healthy people and a healthier America.

Today, we were educated by our agriculture experts on the ways we can encourage better practices to improve the health of our soil.

It is my belief that we must work as one team to encourage public-private partnerships between farmers and the federal government and between the Trump Administration and Capitol Hill.

MAHA will not succeed without the cooperation and partnership of the people who are in this room.”

In addition to Senator Marshall’s comments, Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins indicated support for a healthy soil initiative, and Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stayed true to form in his support for the healthy soil element as a primary underlying factor in addressing our current health crisis. 

 The ‘experts’ included two bonified organic producers with a combined seventy years of organic production experience. 

Bob Quinn, Big Sandy MT, a leading green businessman, offering leadership in the Real Organic Project, an acclaimed organic industry leader, and past National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) member, and Oren Holle, Bremen KS, a three decade organic producer, past President of Organic Farmers Agency for Relationship Marketing (OFARM) and Board Member of Central Plains Organic Farmers Association (CPOFA) were invited with the opportunity to champion the underlying Healthy Soil Principle of the organic industry.

In the participants’ opinion it was a great opportunity to include the perspective that organic farming is a viable part of the equation to address a growing concern for the continuing increase in chronic health issues.

Finally, this mantra has moved into the mainstream conversation; “Healthy soil produces healthy crops and results in healthy people.”

They reinforced the point that the organic production movement was born and grown based on the basic principle, healthy soil to produce healthy food.

In this landmark roundtable this was frequently repeated and reinforced.

Additional participating panelists included:

Dr. Chuck Rice, distinguished professor of microbiology at K-State, laid the ground work for the healthy soil element of the equation.  In my opinion he made a fantastic case for the returning to the basics of organic farming as realistic solution to our depleting soil health epidemic.

Dr. Duriusch Mozaffarin, Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Medford MA, very pointedly verified the connection of nutrition in our food to our long-term health.

Dr. Stanley Culpepper, Professor and Extension Agronomist in the Crop and Soil Science Department, University of Georgia, reiterated the need for more responsible use of pest control practices.

Blaine Gunther, founder of SureFire Ag, Atwood KS, and Lucas Koch, Kelly Hills Unmanned Systems/Heinen Bros Agra Services, Seneca KS, along with Ray Flickner, Innovation Farm, Moundridge KS, added the element of new and innovative technologies that have huge potential in reduction of the amount of chemicals needed for pest control.

Earl Roemer, Nu Life Markets championed his work in Grain Sorghum, as an alternative non-GMO and more drought tolerant crop alternative, while developing market alternatives as a gluten free food source.

 Carter Williams, iSelect Fund, encouraged investments in accessible, scalable nutrition solutions, to improve public health.

Mr. Holle and Mr. Quinn presented some historical, commonsense perspective that crop production is possible without the high cost, and often proven, detrimental application of the host of new technologies that have been brought into the mainstream industrial model agriculture.  Oren submitted the observation that, had our Ag Universities and Extension programs continued to pursue best practices to maintain healthy soils to produce healthy crops we could be better positioned with solutions to the ensuing health issue at hand.  He also pointed out that the organic movement was born out of the need to address this agriculture production paradigm shift.

They, at least, used this opportunity to present the organic alternative as a viable piece of the solution to rebuild the emphasis on soil health as a basic premise to improving human health. They made the point that healthy, abundant food production is proven to be possible with a departure from the, often proven, detrimental applications of the current host of chemical products and often questionable and long-range failures of GMOs that accompany the process.

The panelists reminded the Ag Secretary that current Farm Bill and Government subsidized Crop Insurance policies continue to promote the maximizing of yield, in fence row to fence production, with an unbearable high cost of newly innovative technologies.  These continue to become departures from addressing the need for a return to real-time soil health basics.  Along with the phenomenal input cost, the continued overproduction of crops that the market cannot bear, or production of modified crops that our trading partners don’t even want, have caused the current dilemma of lost profitability opportunities and another round of loss of family farms.

In private conversation with Senator Marshall, they had the opportunity to thank the Senator for the current support for effective conservation practices in NRCS and pointed to the need for program support for organic farming practices.  We still fall far short of a fair share of farm program funding compared to our share of the farm economy.

The organic community, needs to appreciate Sen. Marshall’s efforts to build the communication bridge between the HHS Secretary Kennedy and Ag Secretary Rollins in the Make America Great Again mantra.

On the other hand, it was disappointing that while gathering this Round Table discussion group, time was very limited when a day long symposium could have served to further explore ideas that could become part of a practical steps toward real change.  If our participation was truly perceived as important then further dialog would appear to have been a positive step.

Oren added this observation. It was a personal disappointment, that while we had already cleared security, as soon as the meeting ended, we were promptly shooed out of ‘our’ capitol building.  To me it would have seemed logical that we, at least, could have spent some time to experience and admire the grandiose architecture of this amazing pillar of our democracy, which the Senator’s aids would have been willing to accommodate.  In order to have this opportunity to fully experience a capitol visit, we had to go to the visitor’s center and await our turn to join a tour group. 

Given the Administration emphasis for the Make America Healthy Again initiative, and the attention of several cabinet positions, we can at least hold some hope that we may see, at least, some meaningful moves in a positive direction to address soil health issues.  It is long overdue.

Oren Holle