OCA

We have been partnering with the Organic Consumers Association, or OCA, to spread the good news about why we choose organic! Molly Frey recently met with Alexis Baden-Mayor from the OCA to discuss the history, present, and future of the organization. This episode of the Frey Vines podcast is available on your favorite podcast listening platforms. You can also listen and watch the episode on the Frey Wine YouTube Channel.

MOLLY FREY: Welcome to the 7th episode of Frey Vines, the podcast dedicated to telling the story of organic wine. In this episode, we'll be shining a spotlight on one of our affiliates, the Organic Consumers Association. 

ALEXIS BADEN-MAYOR:   I'm Alexis Baden-Mayor, and I've worked since 2005 for the Organic Consumers Association here in Washington, DC, as their political director. Organic Consumers Association started in the late 1990s, which makes us newcomers compared to the Freys. Ronnie Cummins and Rose Welch had worked together at the “Pure Food Campaign” with Andy Kimbrel, who ended up starting the Center for Food Safety.

 So they had been longtime food campaigners and the big thing going down in the late 1990s was how the new (semi-new, it was a 1990 law) Organic Foods Production Act — how that would get implemented at the federal level. And the Clinton administration had a guy in there called, his name was Islam Siddiqui, and he ended up working for Crop Life, for the pesticide companies, for Monsanto, and all of the worst.

And he was the agricultural marketing services director for Clinton. And he was throwing out all kinds of crazy things like, “Hmm, maybe we should allow sewage sludge,”  “maybe we should allow genetically modified organisms,” and it was a huge crisis at the time. And so, Ronnie and Rose, since they had been food campaigners working on the GMO issue, they really felt like organic needed a consumer campaign. There were certainly obviously certifiers and farmers in the mix, people who have been working like the Freys on the organic standard since the eighties and earlier. But Ronnie and Rose wanted to bring that activist lens to it. And so that's how OCA got started in the campaign to save organic standards. And that has continued to be a core part of our work. We're always watching and working against new and old pesticides, new and old, now, genetically modified organisms, factory farms. So we're going out against the worst forms of industrial agriculture, but we're always elevating the best forms of organic.

MOLLY: Since 1980 Frey Vineyards has been committed to creating and educating about the organic wine category. We have been friends of the Organic Consumers Association because our ethics as a business align completely with their vision to uphold the organic standard in the USA. 

ALEXIS: And, you know, the, the organic standards fight has been some wins and some losses. And so in recent years we've started to promote Biodynamic and now real organic as an add-on organic certification. And also American “Grass-fed” for the pasture standard, “Pasture-raised” for poultry. So we've just tried to uphold organic as a really good baseline and then show the producers and farmers and brands that are going above and beyond and exceeding the standard.

MOLLY: How does the Organic Consumers Association accomplish your advocacy and also your education? What are the forums that you use to spread your message?

ALEXIS: Yeah, well we're, we're a small group with a wide reach. We use social media pretty successfully. Our “Organic Consumers Association” and “Millions against Monsanto” pages are on Facebook; I think one is over a million and one is nearly a million. So we're using online tools, and that's mostly how. I guess in the beginning, Ronnie and Rose were using the networks of co-ops and independent grocery stores to collect petitions to submit to the federal government around the organic standards. But it, you know. I guess it was like “Move On” and other organizations really pioneered online grassroots advocacy. So we've been able to have a pretty big reach with a pretty small staff and few resources using these online tools. So that continues to be the base of our work. Although I do really love going out to farm conferences and, you know, doing the grassroots work to meet people in person.

But yeah, on a weekly basis, we’re looking at both state level campaigns and federal campaigns, and we've seen a little bit more progress in some areas at the state level. And our tools allow us to send out a national alert where everybody can interact with their state officials. So those are our main tools.

Certainly, one of our largest campaigns has been against glyphosate. Now that's primarily used on the, the big row crops like corn and soy, but glyphosate is certainly used instead of grazing, which, which I hear you were in charge of on the farm: grazing goats and sheep. 

MOLLY: Yeah, I walked the goats through the vineyards for over a dozen years. 

ALEXIS: Dang. Wow. Yeah. Wow. So that's, that's true weed control. That's a fertilizing machine as well. I mean, that's just, and you have the goats. I mean, they're just wonderful. It's such a great way to do it. Obviously, above and beyond the organic standard. Truly, what we would call regenerative, because by getting animals onto the land, which biodynamic also encourages and facilitates, you’re really adding so much soil life, that’s just an amazing way. But then other wineries are instead, like, instead of doing that beautiful thing, they're just killing all the soil life by using glyphosate and also poisoning the people who work there, poisoning their customers.

MOLLY: We’re so lucky to be in Mendocino County, which is the greenest AVA in the USA, in no small part because of the work of organic grape producers and wineries like Frey Vineyards. We recently were tested for glyphosate by Mamavation, who is a mom blogger and natural consumer advocate who uses a third party to test different products to see if they are as natural as they claim to be. We sent her a sampling of our wine line, and we are proud to report that her lab found no detectable glyphosate in our wines. 

ALEXIS: Yeah. That's really amazing because it’s not like not every California (oh, and you’re GMO-free). Not every California county is like that. And you: you all are like that because of the work that the Frey family has done for 45 years now. So you all can take the credit for it, but everybody else who lives there with you is lucky. And everyone else who has come to farm after that is lucky because in other areas of California, the glyphosate use and the use of other pesticides contaminates the water, contaminates the air, contaminates the, you know, the schools. It just gets into everything. I do want to learn more about that, about what would end up in a conventional wine. 

MOLLY: I don’t think that most people really understand just how sprayed grapes are, even wine grapes. And there isn’t any label requirements with regard to ingredients on a wine bottle. So, I think that is where the Organic Consumers Association and Frey Vineyards are really meeting right now is in that question: “Do you know what's in your wine?” “Do you know what's in organic wine?” “Do you know what's in our wine and what's not in organic wine that you don't wanna have in your wine?” You know? And so having this relationship with your organization is so beautiful because we’re really having the same aim in so many ways.

ALEXIS: I don’t drink much. Although I did open up a bottle of Frey’s finest white, for this conversation, the Agriculturalist. But I don’t drink much, I don’t usually go to the liquor store and buy, or even when I’m grocery shopping, I don’t buy alcohol. I usually don’t have it in the house. So primarily you go out to dinner with friends, everybody is having a drink, and you don’t think as that as being the most poisonous thing on the table. But it certainly could be. 

MOLLY: I really enjoy the aspect of being able to cook with the wine as well. Because I feel like there are so many different ways that you can enjoy things . Or if you are going to drink, and a lot of people do really enjoy wine, I think it’s really important for them to know what’s actually in their wine. Because I don’t think most people know what’s in their wine. They don’t understand all the things that are actually in their non-organic wine. 

ALEXIS: You just don’t know what’s in it. 

MOLLY: Yes. There's so many things like that that we're really trying to educate, so I feel like that's part of why we really enjoy you and the Organic Consumers Association because we have a really similar aim. We also really do have a lot of advocacy that we try to do because so much of establishing the category of organic wine was educating people.  And so having this relationship with your organization is so beautiful because they're really, we're have the same aim in so many ways, we’re conveying the same information. And we're a little more niche than you guys. You really have a broader scope of really trying to get information out there about all the different organic things, and we're really mainly focused on the wine, although personally, our family is really invested in organics.

ALEXIS: Oh, yeah. That's so clear from what I've learned in the podcast, and I guess what I assumed about you all considering what y’all the things we've worked on together in the past, but yeah, no, I, I was reading, listening to all the podcasts, thinking, oh, perfect, like what a great explainer for biodynamic. I think that these podcasts are useful beyond the wine category. And yeah. All the beautiful images of the farm and the way you all do things, it's really great. I think that there's going to be a broad interest in this. Well, all I can think is things that I want to learn more about. 

MOLLY: Yeah. There's so much out there, right? It's just the tip of the iceberg. And, and that's the thing, is that in a, you know, soundbite, we're always trying to convey like why organic wine to people, and it's really this world that, you know, you can go down the rabbit hole of why organics? And it's like, well, it's because you're creating a sustainable habitat that is, you know a potential for really sustainable growth. Also living in that farm area, you’re creating, a habitat that actually is healthy for everybody in all of the ecosystem. And then you're also having a product that a lot of the times is if it's composted in place, which we do compost our stems and our grape skins and seeds and things, and then get to reapply that compost back to the land: it’s organic because we haven't done anything horrible to it.

So I think that those kinds of things are so cyclical in nature and really feeding the earth, and that that's more and more of what we'd like to see in the world: is a practice that actually gives back and, you know, thanks the earth for all the contributions that the earth is making to us so that we can have things like wine and delicious organic meals and a beautiful world to live in. 

ALEXIS: here, here.

MOLLY: For questions or comments about the content shared here, Frey Vineyards or Frey wines, you can email info@freywine.com or call 1 800 760 3739. Our retail staff is happy to help you Monday through Friday, 9 am to 5 pm PST. Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Frey Vines Podcast, telling the story of organic grapes. We hope you'll tune in for our next episodes when we'll pluck more storied fruits off the Frey Vines.

For more information about the Organic Consumers Association, you can visit the OCA website.