Managing for Profit
Making the move to organic
More and more Midwestern farmers are shifting some of their conventional acres to organic production to improve their bottom line.
Mark McHargue, who farms near Central City, Nebraska, is one of them. On today’s program, McHargue–who has converted about 25 percent of his acres to organic–talks about making that decision and what he has learned so far.
AUDIO: Mark McHargue
Tags: Crops, Nebraska, niche markets, organic
I am curious what kind of testing goes on to make sure there is no pollen drift from conventional corn into “organic” corn crops. I live in north central Iowa, and there is quite a bit of organic production around conventional production. Seed corn requires 660 ft segregation but organic only fencerow to fencerow?
One other issue with organic production, is the number of trips across the field. Some farmers are making as many as 20-24 trips across the field in a given growing season. I am no scientist, but I am pretty sure the carbon footprint of 22 trips is a lot more than 5 or 6 for conventional production. How do we educate the consumer how their organic products are produced?? Majority of organic customers have no clue.