About Us

NOFA Rhode Island is an organization of farmers, gardeners and consumers working to promote organic farming and land care practices.

Formed in 1990, the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Rhode Island (NOFA/RI) is an organization of farmers, consumers, gardeners and environmentalists working to promote organic farming and land care practices.

NOFA/RI fosters a healthy relationship to the natural world through farmer-to-farmer education, advocacy and technical assistance. We work to increase the acres of sustainably and organically managed land and to provide access to local, organic food for all Rhode Islanders.

NOFA/RI is affiliated with other NOFA chapters through the NOFA Interstate Council.

NOFA IC Vision Statement

Our Vision for a Future of Resilient, Plentiful, Healthy and Locally-Grounded Farming and Food

Northeast Organic Farming Association Interstate Council
Spring 2026

In concluding our annual retreat, the Northeast Organic Farming Association Interstate Council (NOFA IC) reaffirms the values that have grounded our work for 55 years.

Our vision is that every person is able to live their life with healthy food, clean water and air, community, livelihood, dignity, and purpose within the means of our life-giving planet. We seek that vision on every level, from our households and farms to our communities, states, bioregions, nation, and world. For that vision to be fulfilled, every person, no matter their origin or circumstances, must have all their basic human needs met without degrading the air, water, soil, ecosystems, and climate which we have been given and on which we depend for our lives.

We strive to realize our vision through our way of life, in rural and urban communities where everyone is welcome, where we practice regenerative organic, agroecological farming and gardening, mutual interdependence through local trade, marketing and distribution, saving and sharing locally adapted seeds and breeds, teaching others, constantly learning more ourselves and opposing the corrosive racism that undermines the promise of this nation. We celebrate diversity not only on farms but in all ways, recognizing its essential value as a cornerstone of health and a source of joy and curiosity.

We strive to realize our vision within a system that contradicts these values, that denies racial, social, political, and economic justice as well as basic physical needs, and that is rapidly degrading the soil, polluting the air and water with toxic pesticides and herbicides, depleting biodiversity, valuing only what can be sold for a price, externalizing the true costs, and disrupting the climate.

We believe that it is urgent to defend workers across the food system, especially marginalized immigrants who are cornerstones of our food system. To reduce the vulnerability of these workers, it is time to repair the exclusions and injustices our food system has inherited from white supremacy—from weak labor laws to food apartheid and the weaponization of food to a militarized border policing complex.

We believe it is just as urgent to prevent the liquidation of yet more farms at the hands of mega-corporations and investors. We must build momentum to make a better farming possible where people can do meaningful labor, unwinding corporate control over our ability to satisfy basic human needs —and to break the cycle of off-loading harms onto the next vulnerable group or country. As Gandhi often reminded us, the world has enough for everyone’s needs, but not enough to satisfy the greed of those who push for ever more profit.

Founded in 1971, NOFA is one of the oldest organic farming organizations in the country, with seven independent non-profit chapters in Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Jersey that work together regionally, nationally and internationally through the NOFA Interstate Council.

In these turbulent times, NOFA’s egalitarian eco-farming and healthy food vision is attracting growing numbers of families concerned with raising healthy children who wish to join with a dynamic grassroots community of landworkers and advocates to bring this vision to life.

NOFA is committed to working for a future of well-being for all starting with the most marginalized.

NOFA commits to join in alliances that will swell into the massive coalitions necessary for a natural organic future to emerge.

If our values resonate for you, please join us! All are welcome.

History of NOFA

The Natural Organic Farmers Association (NOFA) was formed in Vermont and New Hampshire in 1971.The Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association (MOFGA) was established in the early 1970s. Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York started NOFA chapters in 1982. Rhode Island and New Jersey NOFA chapters were created later. NOFA and MOFGA have been powerful advocates for organic agriculture and sustainable practices for over 40 years.

In 1989, NOFA changed its name to the Northeast Organic Farming Association. By then the term “Natural” was overused. Changing “Farmers” to “Farming” welcomed in the broader food and ag community.

Today, NOFA is a growing regional coalition representing farmers, farm workers, apprentices, gardeners, chefs and consumer members. The NOFA Interstate Council provides coordination between the chapters, conducts the annual NOFA Summer Conference and acts as an umbrella organization for projects of collective concern to NOFA chapters, such as the Northeast Interstate Organic Certification Committee. Each of the seven state chapters comprising the Northeast Organic Farming Association provides educational conferences, workshops, farm tours and printed materials to educate farmers, gardeners, consumers and land care professionals. The Natural Farmer, the quarterly newspaper of the NOFA Interstate Council, publishes features on organic farming techniques, certification issues, environmental developments as they impact farmers and growers, organic market conditions and other topics of interest to the Northeast organic community.

Visit the other state NOFA chapters as well as MOFGA for more great resources and events around the Northeast! 

Land Acknowledgement

(preliminary)

The Northeast Organic Farming Association of Rhode Island (NOFA-RI) recognizes that the lands on which we farm, gather, and build community have been the ancestral homelands of the Narragansett Indian Nation, the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, and the Niantic, Coweset, Nipmuc, Pokanoket, Pocasset, and Manisses peoples, since time immemorial.

For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples stewarded these lands, waterways, and ecosystems with deep ecological knowledge, intention, and care. Many of the principles that guide organic agriculture today, such as soil health, biodiversity, and reciprocal relationships with the land, have roots in Indigenous land stewardship and lifeways.

We acknowledge that, through the destructive processes of colonization, these lands were taken and Indigenous communities were displaced, while their knowledge and agricultural practices were regularly appropriated without recognition. These histories are not separate from agriculture today, but foundational to it. Today, Native farmers make up well under 1% of agricultural producers in Rhode Island, reflecting the lasting impacts of dispossession.

The Narragansett Indian Nation and the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe continue as federally recognized sovereign nations, maintaining enduring cultural, political, and environmental relationships with this land. The other Indigenous communities named here continue to maintain cultural and historical ties to their homelands, and many also recognize that the federal government should not have the final decision on who gets to claim Indigeneity.

As an organization dedicated to sustainable agriculture and healthy communities, NOFA-RI recognizes our responsibility not only to acknowledge this history, but to act in ways that support Indigenous sovereignty, land stewardship, and knowledge, in the past, present, and future. This responsibility is reflected in our Equity Commitments. We recognize that a land acknowledgment is only a first step in an ongoing process of reconciliation, accountability, and decolonization.