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Organic farmers need more resources
A south-central Wisconsin operator of a Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) system says organic farmers need access to more resources.
Dela Ends and her husband Tony have owned a small CSA near Brodhead for more than 20 years.
She tells Brownfield there was a lot of trial-and-error early on with few opportunities to learn from other growers.
“The MOSES Conference, back in the day, was much smaller: hundreds instead of thousands of people. And that was a learning resource that was very helpful.”
Ends currently serves on the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES) board of directors.
She says while access to key elements of organic farming like educational and financial tools has improved, it’s not sufficient for an industry showing tremendous growth potential.
“There’s always more that can be done because we need a lot more organic farms to take care of the planet. And trying to convince conventional farmers that maybe if they had some new, more earth-friendly practices that they could still succeed and maybe even do better.”
She points to America’s continued reliance on organic grain imports as an obvious reason for further investment in U.S. organic agriculture.
Brownfield interviewed Ends at the MOSES Organic Farming Conference in La Crosse, Wisconsin on Friday.
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