Today I'm off to the quarterly meeting of the ND Organics Advisory Board.
One of the topics for today: How to recruit farmers to organic production. Demand for organic products continues to increase every year, and that requires more growers to provide organic grains.
Any ideas on how to make that happen? I'd love to hear your thoughts!!
Distribution...make it easy to sell the stuff. Entice them with the higher price that organic commands? Are there issues related to GMO in this that need to be alleviated? Crop police - that sort of thing?
ReplyDeleteAs I understand it - distribution is the problem. Even the organic commodity crops (such as grains) take a hit because not every elevator can take them, they lose a whole bunch for quality - not that organic quality is bad, it's this way with every commodity only with conventional, there are many other markets for the lower quality such as animal food). Figure out the distribution and quality grading. Then market the hell out of it - most don't do it becuase no one has asked and no one has explained to them the option. Think about it - almost every county has an 'Ag Day' held by NDSU extension in the late winter - when was the last time you saw sessions about organic grains or farming at these sessions?
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