A long-time Washington insider, Morris served as political advisor to Bill Clinton and is known for devising the ‘triangulation’ strategy, which presents a politico’s ideology as neither traditionally left nor right wing.
As he explained, he saw an opportunity to bundle Kennedy’s “floundering in the campaign” with Trump’s need to reach more constituent groups by folding in the fight against the influence of the medical, Hollywood, academic and big pharma establishments into the campaign against government regulation.
“I really found a tremendously responsive chord in Trump, and I told him about Kennedy’s views,” he said. “I orchestrated a kind of bromance between the two of them.”
Noting that issues like political hostages, illegal immigration and police immunity will come and go, Morris told the dinner crowd—some more agape than others—that “the idea of turning the medical system right side up so that you’re really curing diseases as opposed to giving people diseases” will have more staying power.
“I think that the Trump and Kennedy administrations are really setting up a new world in dealing with those issues that’s going to last for many, many decades,” he said.
“Your field is entering a brand-new day. The American consensus is shifting irrevocably in your direction, and I think that you will have a wonderful four years of watching this happen. Now, of course, this won’t be without fights because the other side makes a lot of money getting us sick—and they’re not about to give that up, but the public opinion is so strongly with us, and the congressional opinion can be made to be with us.”
He added that he had spent the day with “very brilliant people” from the conference group and looked forward to briefing the President on some of the solutions presented.
The evolution of organic
The conference, which gathered close to 75 attendees in Fort Lauderdale under a main theme of “collaborate, innovate and regenerate”, largely focused on what might be next in the evolution of organic and natural and what is needed to get there.
The first panel discussion considered the concept of Organic 3.0, a strategic roadmap developed by the global organic movement a decade ago to bring organic out of its niche and into the mainstream. In this iteration, organic is positioned as a modern, innovative system that integrates local and regional context including its ecology, economy, society, culture and accountability.
“The overall goal of Organic 3.0 is to enable a widespread uptake of truly sustainable farming systems and markets based on organic principles and imbued with a culture of innovation, of progressive improvement towards best practice, of transparent integrity, of inclusive collaboration, of holistic systems and of true value pricing,” reads the Organic 3.0 mission statement.
Panelist Jennifer Taylor, PhD, president of organic advocacy organization IFOAM North America and owner of Lola’s Organic Farm, discussed the ripple effects of unlocking healthy foods sovereignty systems through sustainable farming. She has implemented certified organic practices on the Georgia farm she inherited from her grandmother, a former sharecropper. These practices, built on traditional agroecology knowledge, not only contribute to healthy soil and environment but support access to healthy foods in the community.
In his presentation, Greg Horn, managing director and partner at William Hood & Company, a boutique investment bank focused on healthy living, looked back at the growth of the organic movement.
“After World War II, there was this idea that we could repurpose the chemicals that were used to kill people to kill pests on the farm,” he said. “We could kill the bugs that ate the plants and the weeds that we didn’t want.”
He discussed the emergence of plant hybridization and the flood of genetically modified organisms (GMO) in the food supply that eventually led to the elevation of organic’s public profile in the 2000s with the introduction of the USDA Certified Organic seal.
“This logo exploded the consumer trust and recognition of organic,” Horn said. “It was something that everybody could use. There was one standard for that, and it created a $72 billion market. That’s got to be one of the best food market growth stories in the world.”
Despite this growth, organic adoption is happening slowly, with certified organic foods making up approximately 6% of the U.S. market and 0.8% of global markets. Less than 1 % of the farmland in the United States and 2% worldwide is under certified organic production.
The solution to leapfrog growth, Horn suggested, is to avoid consumer confusion and instead educate the public about the attributes of organic—perhaps with a greater focus on the “better-for-you” than the “better-for-the-environment”.
Speakers from iHerb, Kerry International, Sami-Sabinsa Group, AIDP and Aker BioMarine discussed strategies to reduce organic’s cost premium along the supply chain. These ranged from incorporating robotics and nutrient optimization to clear marketing messaging and a MAHA exemption to MAGA tariffs.
Both Matts Johansen of Aker BioMarine and Shaheen Majeed of Sami-Sabinsa Group stressed the role leading businesses in this niche market can play in promoting standards, targets and education for improved human and planetary health.
A brand-new day for organic?
While the organic industry continues to mount its research and legal case against genetically modified organisms as showcased in the panel focused on the unknowns of synthetic biology, could a political shift portend a brand-new day for organic as Morris suggested?
During a discussion of global politics impacting the industry moderated by Karen Howard, CEO and executive director of the Organic & Natural Health Association, she queried panelists about where the industry should be focusing its policy efforts in the context of making America healthy again.
Topics broached spanned problematic paradigms related to precautionary regulatory principles, claims of bioidentical-slash-substantial equivalence of synbio to non-engineered foods without considering the byproducts, and having too many disparate organic and natural voices rather than a collaborative alliance to interface with government.
To combat the soaring chronic disease in the United States, Robert Verkerk, executive and scientific director at the Alliance for Natural Health USA, emphasized the need to tackle this epidemic by addressing all parts of the human health ecosystem, noting that this is “an issue that is very, very crystalline in the mind of Bobby Kennedy, and he wants to deal with it.”
“The real story of our age, and we’re on the brink of some major change, is that these archaic regulatory structures are going to collapse,” Jonathan Emord of Emord & Associates and counsel to the Alliance for Natural Health added. “In the United States, they’re going to collapse first and in a powerful way, and then the effect of that, because it’s going to open up markets massively, is that that expansion is going to knock down everything in Europe.”
Based on his interpretation of the scenario, the American expansion of the marketplace and breaking down of regulatory constraints will allow common-sense alternatives to conventional medicine to prosper as consumers become more sophisticated and costs come down.
“So we are on the brink of a revolution, and the things like Codex Alimentarius, the World Health Organization, strict regulation of your choices in choosing what practitioner you wish to see, and in physicians and healthcare providers giving you information, all these things are going to be over in the next four years of hammering, and the marketplace is going to flourish,” Emord said.
“And the expansion of the markets is going to be incredible, so there’s good news here, and why is this? Because there’s this incredible force being pushed through Washington right now that is the brink of an international change, and it’s going to be amazing to watch. We have a unique opportunity. This is the greatest opportunity of our lifetimes.”
Other key topics bearing on the future of organic on the conference agenda: continuing to incorporate and support the influence of women in the supply chain, ensuring product integrity through tools like blockchain technology, scientific rigor and fit-for-purpose quality assurance testing, promoting business transparency and safeguarding consumer trust, harnessing influencer reach to properly educate the public and ultimately creating a new model that renders old models obsolete.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s first of two confirmation hearings before the Senate Finance Committee, which will determine whether he will lead the Department of Health and Human Services, is scheduled for Jan. 29 at 10 a.m. ET.