Organic 101 Workshop

Interest in organic production is growing rapidly all across the northwest and states are scrambling to do as much education for new producers as possible. The Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides based in Oregon is presenting an Organic 101 workshop in Twin Falls. Johanna Phillips, Organic Program Manager for the Idaho State Department of Agriculture is partnering with NCAP. They looked at what are some needs for organic producers.

PHILLIPS: One of those needs was just giving some clarification on the standards and what to expect in the transition process so we partnered with Northwest Alternatives to Pesticides and the University of Idaho Extension to put together this presentation and training really for targeted beginner certifying operations and also transitioning crop operations.

The workshop is being held Thursday, December 03 at the Canyon Crest Event Center in Twin Falls. It's open to anyone wanting this basic organic information.

PHILLIPS: We are going to just cover some of the major pitfalls that we see with initial certification attempts, talk through some of those things. There's a grower panel that's going to talk from their perspectives about their experience getting into organic certification and some of the pitfalls and things that they can help producers catch before they do wrong.

Cost of the workshop is only $40 but you must pre-register by next Friday, Nov. 27th.

PHILLIPS: There's also a marketing piece because we get a lot of inquiries about how to market their products so that would probably interest any organic producer, not just beginning producers.

And that's Washington Ag Today. I'm Greg Martin, thanks for listening on the Ag Information Network of the West.