Organic Research

Presentation at the Organic Field Day At Lamberton, Minnesota titled “Organic Research Then And Now” | July 8, 2010

I am here today representing The Ceres Trust, a national foundation that makes organic farming a priority. It is not appropriate for me, as a foundation representative, to talk about mobilizing political support for organic research. But I can talk about the impact political action has had on organic research in the past and the persistent efforts of organic farmers and others to build support for organic research. I want to do that by telling the story of organic research in this country, a 40- year saga with lots of ups and downs. The program for this University of Minnesota field day shows how far organic research has come over the last few years. Land grant universities were slow to accept organic farming as a serious or suitable research topic. And they were dismissive, even disrespectful, of organic farmers in the early years. It is hard to imagine now how anybody could have been against organic research. But many did oppose it. Two critical reports, the first in 1978 focusing on land grant universities and the second in 1997 targeting USDA, illustrate how bad the organic research situation was in the beginning. The first was a survey of more than…

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