I am still a big fan of "beyond organic," where you do better than the organic standards, but disregard getting organic certified (since the organic standards are getting watered down yearly so that more big business can profit from what are becoming pretty much misleading and confusing -- to the consumer -- labels).
I've somewhat recently become a fan of France's "Label Rouge" (Red Label) program. France's standards for everything from Label Rouge to organic are much more stringent than our rather watered-down FDA/USDA standards. France labels food for the customer's benefit, not for business's benefit (i.e. profit). And often times, American farmers get stuck in the middle when trying to convert to organic, where in France farmers are the ones who benefit from the stricter labelling; BUT, they can't be lazy and have to stick to the prescribed standards, not just let their chickens see the light through a window ten feet up and magically be switched from conventional to free range.
Apparently, in France, Label Rouge chickens cost about twice as much as conventional chickens, whereas organic chickens cost about five times as much. So Label Rouge seems to be a "happy medium" for both the consumer and the farmer.
It would be nice to see more similar (if not the same) standards applied to food in the U.S. And if the government won't do it, farmers and consumers will need to take matters into their own hands perhaps.
Here's an excellent informational bulletin (PDF version) by the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service (ATTRA) and the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) on Label Rouge:
Here's a few local (to me) farms that adhere to the Label Rouge standards:
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