Money in Organics

I had a chance to talk with Will Fantle of The Cornucopia Institute which claims to promote economic justice for family scale farming. “We have seen organic agriculture as providing a living wage for a lot of family farmers around America so we have attempted to focus on that economic opportunity and preserve that for farmers. Do you see organic farming as real and viable or just a play toy for a lot of hippies out of the 60s? This has been a growth area for the food market, it's a $35 billion sector right now. This year it will continue to grow, it has been growing at double digit rates for most of the last 15 years so it has created an opportunity for family farmers to sell into this market. Anybody who goes into the grocery store now knows that they are purchasing foods that in some cases are more expensive than conventional food and in some cases similar. But, that opportunity for farmers has paid them dividends that they have been unable to get from the conventional sector where people are getting squeezed and squeezed and have been getting squeezed for 50 years with the get big or get out mentality in much of conventional agriculture.