- Organic Systems Deserve
More Research Dollars
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- By Jane Sooby
Organic Farming Research Foundation
- Organic agriculture is serious business for everyone involved in the $7 billion organic industry. Business success is based on consistent production of high quality organic food, feed, and fiber crops, as well as meat and other animal products. The quality and quantity of organic crops have never been better and organic product sales continue to grow. This incredible success is due to the accumulated experience of organic growers.
Organic farming practices have been developed and refined by the grassroots efforts of growers across the country. Usually on their own, sometimes in groups, organic farmers have developed effective weed, insect and disease control techniques; come up with productive crop fertility strategies; and learned optimal harvest and post-harvest handling methods. Most often, this knowledge has been shared at growers meetings and farm tours. The body of organic production knowledge in the United States is taken as a whole, the farmer contribution nears 100%.
This contrasts dramatically with the canon of conventional production practices, many of which are industry generated. Modern conventional farming practice, such as no-till (direct weeding) remote imaging and use of genetically engineered crops originated with industry that sells the inputs necessary to implement these practices. Technology release has stimulated flurries of land grant research activity to assist with widespread farmer adoption of these practices.
For decades, the land grant system has been criticized for its close alliance with the ag-input industry and its resistance to exploring alternative production approaches such as organic farming. The most famous critique came in Jim Hightower’s 1972 report, “Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times: The Failure Of The Land Grant College Complex.” Hightower’s criticisms are just as valid today in the age of genetically engineered crops as they were when he wrote about the land grant system’s accommodation of ag machinery and chemical input manufacturers.
Admittedly, federal research dollars are beginning to trickle in for organic research projects. For instance, USDA’s National Research Initiative in 1999 funded two organic transition research efforts in North Carolina and West Virginia and a study of biodynamics in Wisconsin. The USDA Initiative for Future Agriculture and Food Systems in 2000 awarded $1.8 million to an Organic Agriculture Consortium. Even so, land grant system support for researching organic farming practices lags behind.
The Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF) last year released the State of the States: Organic Farming Systems Research at Land Grant Institutions 2000-2001, a report documenting organic research and Extension activity in the land grant system. The land grant system analyzed in the OFRF report includes three elements: 1862 and 1890 land grant colleges, the national system of agriculture experiment stations, and cooperative Extension.
The good news? Land grants in 39 states have research and or resources relevant to organic producers. Land grant institutions in 19 states have research acres being managed organically, and 12 of these states have research land that is certified organic or in transition to organic certification.
The bad news? Of the 885,863 acres of available research acres in the land grant system, only .02% (151 acres) is being used for certified organic research. This is less than the .2% of all U.S. farmland identified by USDA as certified organic in 1997.
How can the level of organic farming research more represent the importance of the organic industry? Such strategies as grassroots organizing and applying pressure for increased funding at the local, state, and federal levels are important. OFRF, for one, hopes that its State of the States report will be an effective tool for people to use in making the case to their local land grant deans and other administrators that they need to devote more research land and resources studying organic farming systems.
There are other strategies as well. Conventional ag input manufacturers have maintained their hold on the land grant system by funding research into their proprietary technologies. In some cases, they have actually leveraged entire academic departments. Organic industry leaders can model a new kind of relationship with ag research stations and land grant colleges, by funding research into organic farming systems and stipulating that the results remain in the public domain.
Great responsibility lies with the land grant system to conduct research into organic farming systems. However, research funds generally have been drying up, and industry can provide vital support for organic farming research at land grants.
