Long-time workers at pilot farm Featherstone Fruits and Vegetables proudly display the fruits of their labor.

AJP Pilot Hits the Ground in the Upper Midwest!

The Agricultural Justice Project and regional partner Local Fair Trade Network are proud to announce the successful launch of AJP-certified products in the Upper Midwest in July 2007.

Pilot farms are Featherstone Fruits and Vegetables in Rushford, MN; Riverbend Farm in Delano, MN; Keewaydin Farms in Viola, WI; and Avalanche Organics in Viola, WI. These certified organic family farms demonstrate sound environmental stewardship and meet AJP's high standards for workers' rights, fair wages and benefits, and workplace health and safety. Quality Certification Services is exploring a more participatory model of certification that incorporates community participation from organizations including Centro Campesino, a farmworker advocacy group based in Owatonna, MN.

Pilot farmer Rufus Hauke of Keewaydin Farms at the Seward Co-op launch.

Certified and labeled produce from the four farms is being sold at the Seward Co-op in Minneapolis, MN and the Bluff country Co-op in Winona, MN. In addition to selling certified produce, Bluff Country Co-op is the first co-op in the country to certify their internal operations to AJP standards.

Bluff Country Co-op General Manager Liz Heywood accepts their pilot certificate from AJP's Elizabeth Henderson.

Local market research in the Upper Midwest indicated a strong preference for the name "Local Fair Trade," which already had name-recognition among area farmers and consumers. Products are being marketed as "Local Fair Trade" with the tag line, "Meets the Standards of the Agricultural Justice Project."

New Local Fair Trade signs in Seward Co-op's produce section.

AJP Moving Forward with Farmer Direct

An Agricultural Justice Project team visited Canada in late summer 2007 to audit Farmer Direct, an organic farmer cooperative, and five of their member farms. The AJP and Farmer Direct are exploring ways to adapt and apply AJP standards to a farmer cooperative. The AJP team also visited organic certifier Pro-Cert Canada Inc.

Pilot Development

Carlos Díaz and José Arturo Zavala, CATA Board Members, with workers at pilot farm Avalanche Organics in Viola, Wisconsin.

The Agricultural Justice Project team has been working for several years to develop a U.S. pilot project to test its social stewardship standards on the ground. Through outreach and collaboration, the group has built relationships with farmers, retailers, non-profits, and farmworker organizations around the country who are interested in developing a model of a just food system. The AJP has also convened a national Advisory Council representing a broad array of stakeholders to advise and inform the group's progress. During this time, Quality Certification Services (QCS) developed the application and inspection forms, report language, and confidentiality documents necessary for a social justice certification.

The first step in the pilot was to do informal inspections of farms in four regions of the country. These exploratory audits confirmed that AJP standards are realistic: farmers expressed the ability and desire to meet them.

While the AJP was conducting these exploratory audits, Minneapolis-based Local Fair Trade Network (LFTN) was exploring how to develop and promote fair trading practices among its members, which include family-scale farmers, food co-ops, farmworker organizations, and consumers. It was a natural match and the two groups decided to partner together on a regional pilot launch in the Upper Midwest. The Local Fair Trade Network facilitated access to farmers, co-ops, and consumers who were already engaged in the movement, and provided networking and marketing expertise; and the Agricultural Justice Project provided internationally-vetted standards and certification capacity, and a growing national infrastructure to support the work.

Pilot farmer Greg Reynolds of Riverbend Farm in Delano, Minnesota.

A "pre-audit" of several of the region's exemplary farms and co-ops in 2006 revealed outstanding practices, but a lack of the type of documentation that would be required for verification by a certifier. Over the following winter, the AJP team developed a toolkit of information and resources to help the farms and co-ops document their good practices.

In the spring of 2007, QCS and the AJP team conducted official pilot certification audits of four farms and two co-ops in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The official rollout of the pilot label will take place in July 2007 at restaurants and food co-ops in Minneapolis and Winona, Minnesota. Certified produce will carry a label reading Local Fair Trade: Meets Agricultural Justice Project Standards.

Dennis Zenk at Bluff Country Co-op in Winona, Minnesota.

The pilot project will include a careful evaluation and analysis of consumer response, volume of sales, and lessons learned for the future of social justice labeling in the U.S. An important next step will be the revision and expansion of the AJP standards with extensive input from stakeholders in the US and around the world.

In 2008, participating farms and co-ops in the Upper Midwest will transition from pilot to full certification, and the AJP will continue dialogue with stakeholders in other regions of the United States and Canada with an interest in AJP certification.

A long-time worker at pilot farm Featherstone Fruit and Vegetables in Rushford, Minnesota.