Due to the broad extent of Roger Blobaum's involvement in the organic and sustainable agriculture movement and his contacts with other key figures that go back to the current movement's earliest days, the Blobaum papers must be considered the seminal collection in the Organic and Sustainable Agriculture Collection. His wide-ranging professional activities involve legislative staff work on agricultural and environmental issues in both houses of Congress, and research and policy work on urban waste disposal issues, solar and other energy alternatives, environmental regulation, farmland preservation, and organic and sustainable agriculture. Blobaum has acted as an effective administrator, policy consultant, organizer of large-scale events, program developer, grant proposal strategist, and a collegial, well-respected board and committee member for numerous organizations. As field representative for the Organic and Sustainable Agriculture Collection, he serves as a consultant to the Wisconsin Historical Society on soliciting donations and has helped to shape its collecting focus. The collection consists solely of professional papers; there is no documentation of Blobaum's personal life, apart from occasional brief references in the correspondence files.
The Blobaum papers are being donated to the Archives in two major accessions. The first accession represents materials donated in 2013-2015. The second accession is scheduled to be donated to the Archives in 2015-2017.
The papers are arranged in four series: CORRESPONDENCE, WORKING FILES, SUBJECT FILES, and VISUAL MATERIALS.
The CORRESPONDENCE series from Blobaum's office from the early 1970s to 1980 includes incoming and copies of outgoing correspondence, filed alphabetically by last name or organization, concerning speaking engagements at conferences regarding alternative energy, rural development, and trips with agricultural delegations to China; research and writing; and work for various committees. A smaller quantity of general correspondence dating from 1992-1999 and 2011-2013 is included. Correspondence from the 1970s to the present can also be found within the working files series for individual organizations or projects.
The WORKING FILES series includes files from the numerous organizations with which Blobaum has been involved over the course of forty-plus years involvement in organic and sustainable agriculture, and are particularly strong for the Center for Respect of Life and Environment (CRLE), International Organic Accreditation Services (IOAS), Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES), National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture (NCSA), Organic Farmers Associations Council (OFAC), Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF), and the World Sustainable Agriculture Association (WSAA).
There are extensive files for Blobaum's work (1995-1998) as project coordinator for the Soul of Agriculture, a project of the Center for Respect of Life and Environment (CRLE), an affiliate of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). Included are files on the development of an agricultural production ethic document, a national conference in Minneapolis (November 1997) to raise public awareness about agriculture's impact on the environment and to mobilize public support for the document (the revised version was entitled, “Creating a New Vision of Farming,” and the executive summary, “Charter for a Shared Farming Ethic”), and related follow-up events. Also documented is the involvement of a number of faith-based organizations, including the National Catholic Rural Life Conference and the Churches' Center for Land and People, related to agricultural issues.
The Center for Rural Affairs (CRA) files include correspondence with Center Co-Director Don Ralston and other staff, annual reports and other materials, and files relating to the Small Farms Energy Project (1976-1979), for which Blobaum served as Principal Investigator, and the Small Farms Advocacy Project (1978-1979), another Center project which advocated for the interests of small farms in government programs.
The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) files contain documents related to two projects Blobaum worked on as project director of Americans for Safe Food: 1) draft reports and working papers for the Keystone Center National Policy Dialogue on Food Safety and Pesticides, and 2) a project mobilizing support for organic and sustainable agriculture programs in individual states.
Papers relating to the International Organic Accreditation Services (IOAS) include organizational documents, committee and board meeting materials, correspondence, and policy manuals that document issues related to accreditation of organic certifiers. Included are materials concerning its relationship with the International Federation of Organic Agricultural Movements (IFOAM).
The Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES) files include materials on the organization's origins as Wisconsin Chapter #1 of the Organic Crop Improvement Association (OCIA), which beginning in 1990 had organized the Upper Midwest Organic Farming Conference (UMOFC) and provided education services to farmers. In 1999, Wisconsin Chapter #1 Educational Fund became an independent 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization and was renamed Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES). The organization continued to sponsor the Organic Farming Conference, the nation's largest organic farming event with more than seventy workshops and an exhibitors hall every year. In 2001, MOSES expanded its educational mission with the formation of Organic University, a series of full-day short courses on specific topics, held the day before the conference. MOSES also publishes an annual resource directory, holds farm field days, and responds to individual questions on organics. Blobaum & Associates provided consulting services at all stages of the organization's formation, including program development and grant proposal writing, as well as progress and final reports. In 2005, Blobaum became a board member and served until March 2014. Records in this series include correspondence, board meeting and UMOFC materials, grant files, and materials related to the Organic University, a program Blobaum helped develop to foster opportunities for farmer-led training for organic production methods. Given Blobaum's long involvement with MOSES, these records are particularly strong.
The Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (MSAWG) files include work on appropriations, meeting materials, and Washington, D.C. reports from the original sustainable agriculture working group (four other regional groups would follow). There may be some duplication in the Blobaum papers (particularly meeting materials) with what is found in the Loni Kemp papers (Mss 1084), another manuscript collection in the Organic and Sustainable Agriculture Collection. Meeting materials in the Kemp papers are extensively annotated.
The National Campaign for Sustainable Agriculture (NCSA) papers include correspondence, board and committee meeting materials, newsletters, and other materials relating to the debate over the rule implementing the 1990 Organic Foods Production Act, objections of the organic community to provisions of the first proposed and revised versions of the rule, and issues surrounding its implementation, as well as Campaign involvement in the 1995, 2002, and 2007 farm bills.
Also included in this series are the organizational records of the Organic Farmers Associations Council (OFAC), an organization formed in December 1989 and intended to provide a unified voice for small organic farmers and certifiers across the country in light of pending national organic standard legislation. The organization subsequently influenced the development of national organic standards and policies. OFAC dissolved in the mid-1990s. Records include board meeting minutes and materials; annual meeting and steering committee files; correspondence; member mailings; drafts and working files on organic standards for processing, livestock, and materials evaluation; and documents relating to a definition of “organic” and interstate certification (reciprocity between states with varying organic standards). Included are files on agricultural consultant Lynn Coody's conceptual model for materials evaluation which was incorporated into the Oregon organic production standards and the Organic Foods Production Act; and extensive meeting texts for an organizing conference in Fayetteville, Arkansas (1990) and a board meeting in Mountain View, Arkansas (1991). Also of note are OFAC recommendations for criteria for selection of National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) members and a file of nominees (with supporting materials) to the NOSB.
The Organic Foods Production Act (OFPA) papers document the process that began with 1990 legislation to establish national organic standards to implementation of a final organic rule in 2002. A considerable portion of these files consists of correspondence, meeting materials, and other documents relating to the USDA's first proposed rule, issued in December 1997, and the revised proposed rule (March 13, 2000) that was issued in response to over 275,000 public comments opposing the original version of the rule. Files relating to the OFPA process are also included under other organizations in the Working Files series.
The Organic Watch files primarily consist of correspondence, calls for public comment, alerts, press releases, and statements relating to the first proposed organic rule (issued in 1997) and the rulemaking process. Also included are files from the Codex Alimentarius Committee on Food Labeling from 1999 to 2002 (see also Codex files for 1991-1998 under WSAA).
The World Sustainable Agriculture Association (WSAA) files document Blobaum's roles with the organization as a founding member, chair of its Policy Directorate, member of the Executive Committee, director of the Washington, D.C. office, and Associate Director. He was also WSAA accredited representative to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED, also known as the Earth Summit) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and the subsequent Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), which the UN General Assembly established to oversee implementation of Agenda 21, a plan for international sustainable development. Included are documents relating to sessions of the Commission in 1993-1995, and the Special Session of the General Assembly held in 1997 (Earth Summit 2). Papers relating to the International Conference on Nutrition, sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization, are also included. Blobaum's service as the WSAA representative to the Committee on Food Labeling for the international food standards agency, Codex Alimentarius, is documented by files from 1991 to 1998. Although some of Blobaum's work on international projects was performed as an independent contractor or as a volunteer for Volunteers for Overseas Cooperative Assistance (VOCA), Blobaum was also working for the WSAA during this period, and files related to this work are under Project Files for that organization. Blobaum's own summary of these files is included in Box 12, Folder 30. The World Bank files, 1992-1996, include various documents relating to agricultural development: an Agricultural Action Plan, integrated pest management (IPM) policy, and an Agricultural Sector Review paper.
Blobaum gave many speeches and presentations over the course of his forty-year career, and the papers include the texts of hundreds of speeches given as keynote addresses at national organic and sustainable agriculture conferences in Taiwan, Australia, and Hungary and major presentations at national conferences in China, Japan, Mexico, and Moldova.
The SUBJECT FILES series contains files on the National Organic Program (NOP), the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), the Arthur Harvey case, conferences and workshop participation and presentations, the green labels movement, livestock standards, mailing lists, and other files relating to organizations for which there was a relatively small amount of material.
The VISUAL MATERIALS series includes black and white prints, negatives, and contact sheets from a Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) conference, 1990; and one black and white print from the 1970s.
Researchers looking for a specific period of Mr. Blobaum's career should be aware that he held many of his appointments and board and committee responsibilities concurrently. The file for the WSAA, for example, may also contain files from his time as Director of Americans for Safe Food and as President of Blobaum & Associates, his consulting firm.
