The USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) is now publishing a regular report that compares national prices for a range of organic foods with their conventional counterparts. The report dated April 25, 2017, compares advertised prices at major retail supermarkets across the country drawing on over 300,000 different ads for produce alone. Premiums for organic ‘Gala’ […]
Soil health is a hot topic in agriculture right now. But it is a lot more than hot air, as two new WSU Extension publications show. Several on-farm studies in recent years have looked at the effect of soil improvement practices in the Columbia Basin, such as green manure (and cover crops), organic amendments (e.g. […]
A Snapshot of Organic Agriculture in Washington State for 2016 was recently published in the Tilth Journal. Global retail organic sales exceeded $80 billion in 2015, with North America accounting for 51% of that. The U.S. had an estimated 4.3 million certified organic acres in that year as well. Washington State had an estimated 94,000 […]