By Matthew Wilde, WCF Courier, December 16
It appears the federal government will finally deliver something to producers: Help. Congress has proposed hundreds of millions of dollars for organic farmers and consumers in the farm bill currently being debated.
To boost organic production, the House and the Senate have each proposed the industry receive a bigger piece of the farm budget.
The House passed a $286 billion, five-year bill in July. It includes $365 million for grants and research into such things as pest and disease management — crucial for an industry that doesn’t allow man-made chemicals — and marketing and education. The House wants to spend $22 million in new funding to help farmers transition to organic agriculture and $3 million for organic marketing data collection and publication.
Senators, though, are still debating their version of the bill. The Senate wants to spend the same amount of money on grants and research and to help farmers get certified. Plus, $30 million for farmers market promotion and $24 million in new money for technical assistance to address export barriers for specialty crops. The Conservation Security Program would be funded and made nationwide instead of helping certain watersheds under the Senate version.
“It will reward organic farmers, who will prosper from payments for conservation practices such as long-term crop rotation … including (planting) perennial prospect forages. Those are two key issues we’re looking at,” said Kathleen Delate, organic agriculture expert at Iowa State University.
Today’s farmers raise more bushels of corn, pecks of apples, and pounds of broccoli from a given piece of land than they did decades ago. But those crops are often less nutritious, according to a new report released from The Organic Center, “Still No Free Lunch: Nutrient levels in U.S. food supply eroded by pursuit of high yields.”
“Our crops are more abundant [i.e., per acre yields are higher], but they are also generally less nutritious,” said report author Brian Halweil, a senior researcher at the Worldwatch Institute and a member of the Organic Center’s scientific advisory board. Historical records from the U.S. Department of Agriculture show that everyday fruits and vegetables-from collard greens to tomatoes to sweet corn-often have lower levels of some vitamins and less iron, calcium, zinc, and other micronutrients than they did 50 years ago.
read more (The Organic Center)
Filed under: organic farming
The organic food movement has received endorsement from the United Nations leading agency on food and agriculture, the FAO. In a new report, it says that organic farming fights hunger, tackles climate change, and is good for farmers, consumers and the environment.
The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) has come out in favour of organic agriculture. Its report Organic Agriculture and Food Security explicitly states that organic agriculture can address local and global food security challenges.
Nadia Scialabba, an FAO official, defined organic agriculture as: “A holistic production management system that avoids the use of synthetic fertilisers and pesticides, and genetically modified organisms, minimises pollution of air, soil and water, and optimises the health and productivity of plants, animals and people.”
The strongest benefits of organic agriculture, Scialabba said, are its reliance on fossil fuel independent, locally available resources that incur minimal agro-ecological stresses and are cost effective. She described organic agriculture as a ‘neo-traditional food system’ which combines modern science and indigenous knowledge.’
The FAO report strongly suggests that a worldwide shift to organic agriculture can fight world hunger and at the same time tackle climate change. According to FAO’s previous World Food Summit report], conventional agriculture, together with deforestation and rangeland burning, are responsible for 30 per cent of the CO2 and 90 per cent of nitrous oxide emissions worldwide.
FAO Organic Agriculture Programme
read more…(peopleandplanet.net)
Montana Senator Jon Tester is trying to use his Montana farming expertise to get more Americans to switch to organic farming. On Wednesday the Big Sandy farmer outlined his newest legislation which provides assistance to producers who want to start farming *without* any fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides.
Sen. Tester says making the transition to organic farming ultimately saves producers time and money.
“Organic agriculture is the fastest growing sector of agriculture today, and if we want to increase prices at the farm gate, this is one of the ways to do it. And it will help Montana producers meet the needs of the organic sector for those who chose to use it.”
read more (Montana’s News Station)
The Current Farm Bill: Farm Bill subsidies mainly benefit a small number of the nation`s largest farms, with nearly two-thirds of all farmers receiving no subsidies at all.
Fact: A history of discrimination in farm program delivery has meant many African-American, Hispanic and Native American farmers have been prevented from benefiting from these programs, like credit and crop insurance, in part leading to the loss of 97 percent of African-American-owned farms in the past century.
The Fair Farm Bill: Would support all of Americas farmers and help build local food systems to ensure farmers get a larger portion of each dollar we spend on food.
Read More & Watch Video (FoodBattle.Org)
Filed under: organic farming
For more than ten years, scientists at U.C. Davis in California have conducted a Long-Term Research on Agricultural Systems project (LTRAS). The impacts of conventional and organic management on tomato production and tomato nutrient concentrations have been a major focus of this effort. read more (The Organic Center)
Filed under: organic farming
Promoting organic farming means mitigating climate change!
Organic agriculture achieves high plant yields by making efficient use of organic residues: To fertilize soils, it uses composted harvest residues and animal manure. This saves 50 to 150 kg, depending upon the crop, in synthetic nitrogen fertilizer per hectare which would otherwise need to be produced using non-renewable fuels.
Studies have shown that conventional arable farming operations in England consume some 17,000 litres of fossil fuels embodied in fertilizers per 100 hectare of land each year. Worldwide, 90 million tonnes of mineral oil or natural gas are processed to nitrogen fertilizer every year. This generates 250 million tonnes of CO2 emissions.
With their low-impact methods, organic farmers boost soil fertility and the humus content of soils. The result is that the greenhouse gas CO2 is returned to the biomass of the soil. Long-term field trials conducted over many years in Switzerland have shown that compared to other methods of farming (conventional, integrated production) organic farming enriches 12 to 15 percent more carbon dioxide in the soil, as FiBL soil researcher Andreas Fliessbach explains. This means that organic farms return 575 to 700 kg CO2 to the soil per hectare and year more than other farmers. Organic farming thus reduces CO2 emissions by eliminating synthetic fertilizers, and at the same time reduces atmospheric concentrations of this gas by storing it in the soil – a true win-win strategy.
Filed under: organic farming
By Samuel Fromartz, Gristmill, June 27.
Organic food has take criticism lately, because a portion is flowing from overseas. (All those food miles, all that lost support for American farmers.) Well, there’s a reason that trend is underway: Not enough American farms are growing organic crops and fewer still are converting, so demand is exceeding supply. With the Farm Bill, attempts are underway to address that problem.
The organic farming community is seeking a few tender morsels off the Congressional table, to help farmers get into the organic sector. The main points are these:
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Basic research funds. Currently organic farming research only gets about $3 million in dedicated funds out of a USDA research budget of about $2 billion. They want $15 million.
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Certification cost share. Farmers can get up to $500 annually to offset up to 75 percent of the costs of organic certification, but much of that money has run out.
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Transition support. The lobby is looking for $50 million per year to help farmers with the three-year transition to organic farming.
Environmental Working Group recently launched a site to gin up support on the issue and generate 30,000 signatures to lawmakers by July 15. The point is to win baseline funding for organic agriculture, so that it can be increased in the next farm bill. If the baseline is near zero, it isn’t going to move at all — not in the next bill, or the one after that — and farmers will continue to sit on the sidelines.
“My family has been plowing and planting every Spring for generations. I inherited this history and I just about ended the whole thing . . .”
Filed under: organic farming
Are you satisfied with having just 3% of the fruit you eat free of potentially dangerous pesticides? How about 2% of vegetables? Or less than 0.02% of corn?
Right now, those are the percentages of organic produce available in grocery stores. The EWG (Environmental Working Group) Action Fund is working with Congress to make sure organic farmers get their fair share of federal funds to improve access to healthy alternatives. You can help right now by signing our their Grow Organics petition.
Despite terrific gains in organic farming, the numbers are just too small to lessen agriculture’s impact on public health and the environment. By signing the petition, you will be urging Congress to:
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Improve your family’s access to safe food that is free of harmful pesticides and hormones.
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Help more farmers make the transition to organic farming.
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Level the playing field for the organic industry by devoting a fair share of resources to organic pest control and crop nourishment
