Ohio U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown — who’s in the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture — introduced a bill that would address some of the challenges Ohio’s organic farmers face.
Ohio is among the states with the highest number of certified organic farms, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Challenges for organic farmers include how to control weeds without herbicides or how to transition a conventional farm to organic, though there’s not enough research, according to Amalie Lipstreu, the policy director at the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association.
Lipstreu said some research agencies under the umbrella of the USDA allocate less than 1% of their budgets toward organic research.
“If you're doing research that's based on all of these artificial inputs [like] artificial fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, that kind of research doesn't apply to organic because they don't use those things,”Lipstreu said.
Lipstreu added the USDA is an incredibly large agency; this bill would create more coordinated initiatives among its many departments.
Source: wyso.org
Photo Credit: istock-fotosipsak
Categories: Ohio, Crops, Government & Policy