Friday, October 1, 2010
For more information contact:
Bill Clary
(502) 564-1137
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Mac Stone of Georgetown, executive director of the Kentucky Department of Agriculture’s marketing office, is one of five people appointed by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to the National Organic Standards Board.
“Mac is a national leader in organic and sustainable agriculture,” Commissioner Richie Farmer said. “He uses organic production principles on his own farm. Mac’s knowledge and passion for organic farming will make him an outstanding addition to the National Organic Standards Board.”
Stone was named executive director of the Department’s Office of Agriculture Marketing and Product Promotion in March 2008. He joined the Department in October 2004 as director of the Division of Value-Added Plant Production. Before that, he served as manager of the Research and Demonstration Farm at Kentucky State University for 19 years. He also worked at the Spendthrift Farm thoroughbred operation and as a beef research specialist at the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture.
Stone and his wife, Ann Bell Stone, own and manage Elmwood Stock Farm, a certified organic farm near Georgetown, where they produce vegetables, tobacco, Angus cattle for seed stock, organic beef, lamb and organic-raised pastured poultry. Stone has been active in Partners for Family Farms, the Organic Farming Research Foundation and the American Pastured Poultry Producers Association.
Stone hold bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Kentucky.
Stone and the other four appointees will serve from 2011-2016.
The 15-member National Organic Standards Board is responsible for making recommendations about whether a substance should be allowed in organic production or handling; assisting in developing standards for substances used in organic production; and advising the agriculture secretary on other aspects of implementation of the Organic Foods Production Act of 1990.
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