News | Organic Council of Ontario

Organic: More than just "humanely raised"

Increasingly, consumers are looking to buy meat and animal products that have been raised humanely. While the National Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC) has developed codes of practice for animal production in Canada, other standards —...

OCO issues pre-budget submission to the Ontario government

As the provincial government drafts its next budget for 2018-2019, the Organic Council of Ontario submitted a number of recommendations to support the organic sector. Two key proposals included passing Bill 153 and implementing a...

OCO responds to Ontario's Draft Soil Health and Conservation Strategy

The government of Ontario recently released its draft strategy for agricultural soil conservation. New Horizons outlines a framework for managing soil health from 2018 to 2030, and includes specific research and action plans. The...

Call for Directors 2018

Organic Council of Ontario Call for Directors 2018 Position: Director, Organic Council of Ontario Board of Directors Type: Volunteer Start: April 2018 Term: 2 years, renewable Commitment: 10-15 hours/month Meetings: Once a month,...

Better Farming Magazine's Organic Feature

The December 2017 issue of Better Farming highlighted organic with the Organic Feature 2017 spread that mentions OCO in various pages. Read through this online copy and find our ads about the Ontario Organic Directory and Ontario’s...

Ontario could take notes from other provinces’ organic regulations

Better Farming mentions Bill 153, the Organic Products Act in an online article to discuss how Ontario can learn from other provinces when it comes to organic certification. Learn how British Columbia, Nova Scotia, Quebec, Manitoba, and...

Organics are no longer a niche market

Farms.com has featured OCO this month to discuss our upcoming report which assesses the state of organic agriculture in Ontario. The online article quotes Executive Director, Carolyn Young who mentions when the report will be launched,...

The small-farm perspective

[caption id=”attachment_10401” align=”alignright” width=”150”] By Kelly Carmichael (volunteer contributor)[/caption] Arranging to interview Heather Johnson at Severn Sunset farm took a bit of...

2017 In Review

As 2017 comes to a close, we at the Organic Council of Ontario are proud of what we have accomplished this year: We developed a private member’s bill to regulate the word “organic” within the province of Ontario to ensure a fair...

Giving certification some teeth

[caption id=”attachment_10401” align=”alignright” width=”150”] By Kelly Carmichael (volunteer contributor)[/caption] When the Organic Council of Ontario asked me to interview farmers and other organic...

Organic Products Act Passes Second Reading

Bill 153, the Organic Products Act passed second reading on November 23, 2017. The bill will now go to the committee on Justice and Policy for further debate. We would like to thank MPP Sylvia Jones and MPP Peter Tabuns for their...

Inside Ontario’s Struggle to Protect Organic Food

By Mary Wales In September of this year, MPP Peter Tabuns (Toronto—Danforth) and MPP Sylvia Jones (Dufferin-Caledon) tabled a bill (The Organic Products Act, 2017; Bill 153) to have organic products regulated in Ontario. A second...