Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
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and the ecological components of the farm are just moving toward a new
balance. Once an organic farm is established, the USDA should pay subsidies
to maintain it. Rather than paying billions of dollars to support commodity
production that causes environmental degradation and gluts the market to
drive prices down, the government should reward organic environmental
stewardship. A new federal program called Government Resources for Or-
ganicWork (GROW) should be established to pay farmers for their ecological
(increased wildlife, plant diversity, integrated nutrient flows, and safe water)
and social (rural development, community stability, and family farm sus-
tainability) contributions to the rural countryside. Research indicates that
an across-the-board payment per acre for organic farming contributions to
our environment is clearly justified (O'Riordan and Cobb 2001), and more
should be given for social benefits.
The main reasons why organic farmers are forced to quit are related to
the inability to find successful markets and the lack of technical assistance
for addressing in-field agricultural problems (Rigby et al. 2001). So gov-
ernment programs should be established to assist farmers in identifying
reliable marketing options, especially regional marketing of organic food
(e.g., assistance for farmers' markets, CSAs, farmers' cooperatives). Finally,
farmers and the public deserve accurate, up-to-date information on organic
farming.
One example of successful private efforts to increase both supply and
demand of organic commodities was undertaken in the Upper Mid-
west Organic Marketing Project, with farmers from North Dakota, South
Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin and consumers primarily from
Minneapolis-St. Paul. Funded by a $1.25million grant from the PewCharita-
ble Trusts, specific steps were taken to increase consumer knowledge about
organic products (which was quite successful, even at large mainstream
grocery stores) and to encourage farmers to adopt organic methods (which
was somewhat less successful). Perhaps the most notable finding from this
project is that “organic grain and soybean farming is best-suited to full-time
farmers with moderate-sized operations” (Dobbs et al. 2000, 126) - like the
family farms we've seen in previous chapters. And these family organic farm-
ers “should seek to operate through effective marketing cooperatives” (128);
farmers' cooperatives help keep more of the profits on-farm rather than
lining the pockets of agribusinesses. Well-funded government-sponsored
efforts could be based on this successful regional project and could stimu-
late nationwide increases in organic production and consumption - if the
political will could be found to fund such efforts.
Recently, the USDA Agricultural Research Service started moving incre-
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