Fracking on Organic Farms

Thanks to advocacy by PCC and others in the National Organic Coalition (NOC), the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) is asking the U.S. Department of Agriculture to add concerns about fracking impacts on farms to its work agenda.

A growing number of farmers are raising concerns about acreage destroyed by oil and gas companies laying pipelines in rights of way. They say bulldozers scrape off the topsoil and push it aside, but once pipes are laid, companies don’t restore the land as promised. Uneven land with compacted clay has rendered many acres unfit for growing crops and there are concerns about using so-called “produced” water from hydraulic fracking to irrigate food crops, including organic food crops.

PCC Community Markets, the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association, and NOC will continue working to protect farmland and farmers being threatened and to preserve the integrity of organic.

Read our collective letter to Undersecretary Ibach and National Organic Program Deputy Administrator Jenny Tucker asking them to put our concerns on the NOSB agenda.