Whitaker Station Presents USDA Chair

Richardson spoke as the first public event of Ursinus’s Whitaker Environmental Research Station. The talk was co-sponsored by the Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture and the Environmental Studies Department.

Jean Richardson is chair of the the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Organic Standards Board, the federal agency that oversees the regulation of all organic food sold in the United States under the “USDA Organic” label. She is also professor emerita at the University of Vermont, where she taught environmental studies and environmental law, and was an adjunct professor at the Vermont Law School’s Environmental Law Center.

She currently works with her family to produce certified organic maple syrup, and for 14 years has been an independent inspector of organic farms and processors, as well as a consultant on rural land use planning and a Vermont Justice of the Peace. In 2011, she was appointed to the National Organic Standards Board, and was elected Board Chair in April 2014.

The program was co-sponsored by Ursinus College’s Whittaker Environmental Research Station, the Ursinus Department of Environmental Studies and The Pennsylvania Association for Sustainable Agriculture.