WSU’s Organic Program Rates A Perfect Score

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report.

The Organic Farming Research Foundation conducts a yearly Organic Land Grant Assessment that reviews and scores organic programs and research activity at America’s agricultural universities. Washington State University was one of the six universities given a perfect score. Only five years ago, WSU was the nation’s first university to offer a major in organic agriculture.

Director of WSU’s Center for Sustaining Ag and Natural Resources Chad Kruger explains the different categories considered in the assessment scoring.

Kruger: “They looked a number of different criteria: whether there was certified organic research or student farm ground; whether there was experiment station ground or essentially non-student research ground that was certified organic; whether there was an organic farm for students as a training site; an organic major, minor or certificate program; organic course of any kind; dedicated organic staff or faculty members; organic extension program and resources; and an annual organic field day. So that was the criteria that they looked at. So essentially how they graded out the land grants is a perfect score means that you had one of the things in each of those categories and WSU covers every single one of them and has for quite some time. ”

I’m KayDee Gilkey with the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.