Organic Farming Steadily Growing in Iowa & Mid-West

Organic gains ground

As consumer demand for organic food products rises sharply in the U.S., more
Iowa farmers turn to organic crop and livestock production

By ANNE FITZGERALD
Des Moines Register (Iowa) Agribusiness Writer
11/02/2003

Odebolt, Iowa. - Farm jacket buttoned to ward off wind, Roger Lansink
climbed into the cab of his tractor, baler in tow, and began baling corn
stalks for a fellow farmer.

With his own oats, barley, corn and soybeans - all organic crops - already
stored in bins or hauled to market, he was free to help others bank bales of
corn stover for livestock bedding or feed in the winter.

For Lansink, as for other Iowa farmers, finishing harvest early this year
has been a mixed blessing. While nearly ideal weather has hastened the
harvest, the soybean crop generally has been a bust. That is particularly
painful for organic growers, because organic soybeans bring the biggest
premiums - at times, $10 or more per bushel above cash market prices.

"Just like all crops, August hurt us," Lansink said. "The hot, dry weather
dried up the beans, while corn yields were average or a little better than
average."

Lansink and his wife, Amy, farm 480 acres in northwestern Iowa, with help
from the oldest of their four home- schooled children, 15-year-old Derek.

By today's standards, that is not a lot of land, but the Lansinks run a
diversified operation. To trim costs and to increase that diversity, they
converted the farm to organic crop production eight years ago. They sell
their soybeans and corn to specialty markets, sell much of their oats as
organic seed, and feed the rest of the crops to cattle, sheep and chickens.

The Lansinks are part of a small but growing number of U.S. farmers who
raise crops and livestock organically.

Between 1997 and 2001, Iowa farmers more than doubled their organic farmland
to 80,357 certified acres, growing soybeans on about a third of it, corn on
another third and hay on 17 percent. In 2001, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin
alone accounted for 45 percent of U.S. organic soybean acreage and more than
half of organic corn acreage.

Organic livestock production has grown rapidly, too. Between 1992 and 2001,
U.S. organic dairy production increased 20-fold, while organic broiler
production increased by 188 times.

At the same time, consumer demand for organic food products has risen
sharply in the United States, and food manufacturers and retailers are
offering more organic products. Governed by federal standards implemented a
year ago, the farms use biological pest controls, cultivation to curtail
weeds, and compost and manure to fertilize soils. Private and governmental
agencies certify acreage for organic production only after it has been free
of synthetic chemical use for three years.

Yields sometimes suffer because of soil infertility and weeds or pests,
especially during the transition period, but organic crops also can yield
better than conventional crops, said Kathleen Delate, an organic crops
specialist and assistant professor of agronomy and horticulture at Iowa
State University in Ames.

Returns vary farm to farm, depending on such factors as production practices
and how crops are marketed. Growers save money by not having to buy farm
chemicals; on the other hand, organic production requires more
time-consuming practices and intensive management than conventional farming.

The new federal standards pose additional hurdles. Growers, for instance,
are required to plant only organic seed. This year, Lansink planted 15
different corn hybrids in an effort to find those that will work best on his
farm.

In addition to organic crop production, on-farm organic storage requires
certification.

Audubon farmers Cindy and Vic Madsen raise chickens and hogs out of
confinement, and they grow organic corn and soybeans, which they sell. "It's
a lot of extra steps," she said.

The payoff, particularly for soybeans, can be significant. Premiums range
from a few dollars per bushel above cash market prices for feed-grade
soybeans to $10 or more per bushel for food-grade soybeans. Organic corn
prices can range up to $4 per bushel, about double current cash market
prices.

This year, with a short crop, soybean growers expect higher prices.

"We haven't had a run-up in conventional soybean prices in several years,"
said Dennis Abbas, a Hampton farmer who raises both organic and conventional
crops. "This might be new territory."

Lansink learned about organic crop production from The New Farm, a magazine
formerly published by the Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania.

"I thought, if people in Pennsylvania can do this, why can't we?" he said.

Already, the Lansinks grew oats and alfalfa as part of their crop rotations
- crops commonly used by organic producers.

They began converting to organic crop production in 1995 and completed the
conversion in 1997. They raise organic rye, oats, barley, corn, soybeans and
alfalfa on farmland in Sac, Ida and Crawford counties.

The Lansinks feed their barley and alfalfa to livestock. They clean oats on
their farm, selling some as seed and planting some as a cover crop on
soybean ground. The rye, planted in the fall, is a cover crop on corn
acreage. The farmers sell their soybeans to SunRich Inc., a Hope, Minn.,
company that uses them to make soy milk. SunRich also buys the corn, which
the Lansinks haul to Arthur, where it is loaded into rail cars and shipped
to eastern states for use in organic livestock feed.

They run a 50-head cow herd and have about 50 ewes, selling the calves and
lambs. Two years ago, they began raising chickens, selling them directly to
consumers who responded to a newspaper advertisement.

This year, they raised 700 broilers, selling the last 400 without having to
advertise. A Sac City caterer bought more than 100 of the chickens, but the
rest went to individual buyers.

The Lansinks feed organic grain to the chickens, although the poultry is not
certified organic. But buyers keep coming back for more, telling the farmers
how good the chicken tastes.

"You're not going to make a lot of money on 700 chickens, but it's really
rewarding when people comment on how good they taste, how clean they are,"
Roger Lansink said.

Weather hit conventional, organic crops

Last summer's hot, dry weather hit both conventional and organic crops.
Here's some perspective from people around Iowa.

Paul Lang,

general manager of Natural Products Inc. in Grinnell, which produces
specialty soy flours for use in food products.

"It's really unnerving right now. Even for the non-GMO grain, it's tough,
but for the organics, it's tougher. I've heard of yields from three bushels
to the acre to fewer than 20 per acre - very weak yields."

Maury Wills,

head of the organics program at the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land
Stewardship in Des Moines.

"The thing with organic is you can't change anything on a dime. Soil
building takes time. Pest management takes time. It's harder to find those
quick fixes. When you're farming organically, you're really looking two
years, five years, down the road."

Kathleen Delate,

an organic crops specialist with Iowa State University Extension in Ames.

"The crop is definitely short this year, so the demand is going to be even
stronger, because of the short supply. Yields were down from 20 to 30
percent in our research plots for corn and soybeans. The oats did OK. I
think there was enough rain early in the season."

Fred Kirschenmann,

an organic farmer and director of Iowa State's Leopold Center for
Sustainable Agriculture.

"The big problem here is that all farmers are operating on such tight
margins. . . . All of their income gets eaten by their expenses. Whenever we
have a glitch, then immediately farmers have difficulty paying the bills.
Organic farmers are not exempt from that. . . . They simply have a little
more latitude because they get the premium. But a glitch, and then they are
in trouble like everybody else."

Dennis Abbas,

a Hampton grower of both organic and conventional crops.

"It was about the same for organics as for conventional beans. They were
down about the same percentage of potential yield, probably about half to
two-thirds of what they should have yielded. The markets for the organics
usually are very good vs. the conventional markets, which have been in the
doldrums. It can be quite testing at times, though, trying to stay ahead of
the weed problems and soil fertility."