The Organic Way
High demand means more organic crop production is needed to keep pace.
Author: Corinna Kaufman | Published: March 23, 2018
In a study by the Organic Produce Network and Nielsen, it was shown that sales of organic fresh produce items reached almost $5 billion in 2017, an 8% increase from the previous year (1). In fact, a bill was recently passed to increase the funding of organic farming research to meet this growing demand.
By the year 2023 the annual funding is supposed to increase to $50 million. Yet as organic remains the fastest growing sector in grocery, particularly fresh foods, it will require creativity and more private partnerships to meet demand with reliability.
General Mills just announced it is creating South Dakota’s largest organic crop farm and will convert 34,000 growing acres to organic production by 2020. The company will grow organic wheat for its popular Annie’s Macaroni & Cheese line, reports the StarTribune (2). But it will take more than that.