March 30, 2000 / The Associated Press/Reuters
WASHINGTON -- A study by the U.S. Agriculture Department's Economic Research Service was cited as finding that farmers growing organic crops doubled their acreage in the 1990s, although it still only accounts for only a small fraction of U.S. farmland, with the amount of certified organic cropland growing from 403,000 acres in 1992 to 850,000 in 1997. The amount of organic pasture and rangeland actually declined during the period, from 532,000 acres to 496,000 acres.
About 0.2 percent of U.S. cropland was certified organic in 1997, compared with 1.5 percent in Europe, where, the story says, farmers are offered government aid to convert to organic agriculture.
A summary of the USDA study was released Thursday.
The study was further cited as saying it remains difficult for farmers to switch to organic practices for a number of reasons: the cost and risk involved in shifting to the new methods, insufficient numbers of processors and distributors, and limited access to capital.
While organic products can fetch significantly higher prices than conventional ones, farmers cannot sell their crops as organic during the three-year conversion period required to be certified.
Nationally, 2 percent of apple, grape, lettuce and carrot acreage was organic in 1997, along with 1 percent of oats, dry peas and tomatoes.
Meat and poultry production has lagged because they could not be labeled as organic until February 1999, but production of eggs and milk, which could carry an organic label, jumped sharply during the 1990s, the study said.
The nation had 537,826 organic laying hens in 1997, up from 43,981 in 1992.
The number of organic milk cows grew from 2,265 to 12,897.:
