Inspiring Woman on a Mission: Alice Rolls

Alice Rolls, executive director of Georgia Organics for the past 15 years, realizes she could be considered one of the “elder statesmen” of the local food movement - but that just tells you how young this movement is.

As consumers have become more concerned about what goes into the food that goes into their (and their families) bodies, the local food movement has picked up momentum.

 “I’m really excited because when I started my job in 2004, terms like “farm-to-school” or “farm-to-table” or “local food” just wasn’t in our vernacular,” she said. “We had nine farmers’ markets in Georgia in 2003; we now have over 150. So people are really mobilizing at the grassroots level.”

Always passionate about the environment (for a high school project, she once made a paper mache doll of conservationist Rachel Carson), Alice traces her love of nature and ecosystems to Pimmit Run, an 8-mile long tributary of the Potomac River in Virginia near where she grew up. It was along the banks of this stream that she spent hours exploring and learning about plants and animals.

After earning a degree in biology, she became the development coordinator of The Nature Conservancy’s Georgia chapter and then spent a decade as the executive director of EarthShare of Georgia.

When she joined Georgia Organics, Alice wanted to move the needle and increase the amount of certified organic food grown in the state. At that time, there was only 25 certified organic farms in all of Georgia. In 10 years, she helped triple that number to 75. Additionally, Georgia experienced a boom in “Certified Naturally Grown Farms” – a peer-to-peer “organic lite” certification - and now has more than any other state.

But many farmers weren’t choosing to go the full organic route, and Georgia’s growth in the sector was small growth compared to other states like New York and Wisconsin, whose number of organic farms exploded during that same time.

Undeterred, Georgia Organics teamed up with the Georgia Department of Agriculture to launch the “100 Organic Farms” campaign in 2014. The centerpiece of the campaign was removing the financial barrier to USDA Organic Certification by reimbursing the full cost of organic certification up to $1,000 for farmers pursuing it for the first time.

In less than two years, 36 additional farms were certified. The campaign now is looking to double the number to 200 farms by 2020 and they are well on their way with 130 farms achieving certification.

But the movement to healthy, organic and locally sourced food requires eaters as well as cultivators. To that end, Georgia Organics is developing a generation of food-conscious children through its “farm-to-school” programs. Working with school nutrition staff, educators, farmers and community members, they are engaging Georgian kids through activities such as tending school gardens, conducting taste tests and incorporating nutrition lessons into the curriculum.

The organization also founded the state’s first farm-to-school program in 2007, and they honor hard working school nutrition experts with their Golden Radish Awards.

Georgia Organics is helping communities start their own local food movements through the Georgia Food Oasis initiative. The program works to eliminate “food deserts” in cities and towns across the state by helping community stakeholders develop innovative and affordable ways to discover and learn about healthy, fresh, local food. The group also provides microgrant funding to improve access to organic food in these areas.

Georgia Organics brings together all the players of the statewide local food movement at its annual conference. Foodies, growers, chefs, educators, policy experts and more come together to determine best practices to increase organic food production – and consumption - in Georgia.

Through all these elements, the team at Georgia Organics are championing healthy organic crops, staying true to its vision that one day, all Georgians will be able to choose fresh, organic food, and thereby transform their personal health, their environment, and their local economy.

That, says Alice, is the power of providing “good food for all.”

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