The Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association operates to sustain the integrity of organics and provide farmers or handlers and processors access to profitability.
As part of this effort, OEFFA promotes soil, animal and worker health. Now, the organization is training a new executive director to take over operations.
Khara Strum started as executive director in May. Since then, she has been working to gain a deeper understanding of the inner workings of the association and build relationships with staff.
Strum spoke with WYSO's Shay Frank about how she is adjusting to her new role and what she has planned for the organization going forward.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Khara Strum: My focus, aside from the onboarding, is really getting to know the organization, but also each individual staff member that works here at the organization. I really haven't explored our membership very much (but) our members are a really important part of the organization.
Obviously, certification is a huge part of the work that we do. But we also have an amazing communications program, education program, policy program, and of course, development.
So there's a lot to learn. But I am really excited about what I have learned and all of the staff that I have talked to and just their commitment and dedication to the mission of the organization.
Eventually, probably a year out I would say, or somewhere in that time range, I am sure that we will begin our new strategic planning process.
Shay Frank: What are your plans going forward? And I know you just mentioned it's going to be a while until we really leap into that strategic plan, but what are some of the other things in the meantime that you're looking forward to working on?
Strum: I see the value in our certification program, but also our larger education program, which encompasses everything on our 501(C)3 (nonprofit) side, and really tying those together as much as we can.
We have some big organizational things coming up. We have welcomed not only myself as the executive director, but we created a new position, the director of operations. That is being held by our long-time staff member, Alisha Schleining. And I'm really looking forward to working with her to create some operational efficiencies within the organization.
Frank: I know we mentioned that it's going to be a while before you kind of leap into that strategic plan, but can you give kind of some bullet points about what the strategic vision might be for OEFFA?
Strum: So OEFFA’s mission is sort of three pronged: We want to help sustainable and organic farmers thrive, we want to make sure that communities have access to local and organic foods, and we also want agricultural practices to protect and enhance our environment.
We have a really great and growing policy program that I'm really excited to get into and support. We work, of course, on the Farm Bill at the national level, amongst other initiatives.
We also work at the state level. Right now we're working on a healthy soils initiative for Ohio, which I would love to see the state have.
I also really want to see growth in our internal development program, which will be external of course. We are a membership organization, but we haven't really had a dedicated focus on development. And I'm really excited to grow that for the organization. We're in a really good time right now with a lot of interest in clean eating, organic foods and healthy soils, where we may be able to attract folks to the organization who want to support that kind of work.
I just want to invite the listeners to check out OEFFA’s website, it's www.OEFFA.org. And there are so many ways to get involved with the organization. Whether you'd like to become a member or whether you just want to subscribe to our newsletter to find out more about us.
The other thing is we host an annual conference. We actually develop and create the conference, and it's all about organic and sustainable farming. So if you're interested, that's something else to look for. That's always in February.
