Ind. organic farming participation remains low

Farmers planning to grow organic this year can look to the government for start-up assistance.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service has set aside $50 million in the Environmental Quality Incentives Program to implement conservation measures and systems on organic farms.

While forms of EQIP have been around since the mid-1990s, it is only since the 2008 Farm Bill that support for the organic movement has been emphasized in the program’s contents.

“The ultimate goal of the program is to address resource concerns,” said Mary Jo Woodruff, program manager for the conservation stewardship program of
the NRCS.

Because organic farming is such a different process than regular farming, Woodruff said, this bill will help provide technical and financial assistance.

Financial assistance is limited to $20,000 per year per farm. The money can be used for things such as crop rotation, pest management, nutrient management, forage and biomass planting, cover crops, prescribed grazing, waste utilization, windbreaks and more.

For some, this financial assistance can speed up the process of making a farm organic by several years, according to an Iowa farmer’s experience on the EQIP website.

To certify a farm “organic,” owners must go through an application process and pay application fees or certifier charges, which vary based on crops or farm size.

The application is a continuous process with a March 4 deadline this year.

Though many farmers across the country have taken advantage of this program, some remain uninterested.

Indiana has had fairly low participation because farmers are often new at organic growing, state EQIP specialist Adam Heichelbech said.

However, Heichelbech said EQIP is looking for new ways to reach out to smaller organic farms so they receive assistance.

Judith Schad of Capriole Farms in Greenville, Ind., has had experience with the Harrison County members of the NRCS, the parent organization heading EQIP.

“I have not had much luck with these programs; and while the people sent from the NRCS have been wonderfully helpful, as a small farmer, the advice was geared more toward a factory farm,” Schad said.

Capriole Farms is an 80-acre farm that has approximately 450-500 goats and provides local restaurant FARMbloomington with goat cheese. 
 
“We’ve always been very environmentally conscious,” Schad said.
This program has a long-term impact that begins with farmers such as Schad and continues on through the food distribution process to restaurants such as FARMbloomington.

“This change will likely not impact us in the immediate future but might further down the line,” FARMbloomington manager Chase Potter said via e-mail. “We choose to deal with as many small local producers as possible.”

FARMbloomington is known for buying organically grown food from local farms. The chefs work closely with suppliers and often visit the farms where restaurant food comes from.

“We’ll continue to buy from responsible local sources as much as possible,” Potter said. “Hopefully this provision will encourage other farmers to see the value
in organics.”