08/19/08 Developing Organic

Developing Organic. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Face it, organic used to be fringe food. Today, it's pretty much mainstream and becoming big business. More and more ag producers are growing organic and many new organic businesses are popping up and legislation is in place to make sure that it is certified organic. The Port of Columbia in Dayton, Washington is currently developing the world's first eco-industrial park according to Dennis Miller with Artmil a marketing firm hired to pull the project together. MILLER: Organic has a buzz and can get a little bit more interest than other things. They have been doing sustainable agriculture with their no-till farming for quite a long time. And there's natural things, obviously Walla Walla has all their wines and things that are natural products and that really is food processing in a sense. They have been working with the Port to develop the idea to recruit and market organic, artisan food processing companies in the area. MILLER: It is already kind of a tourist place and if we can get into that sort of artisan, organics, natural foods, specialty foods which is really a growing market. The hope is that we develop a small industrial area that has a focus instead of just building an industrial park, we hopefully will have something that is more focused kind of in an identity. They are hoping that by focusing on the agri-tourism industry that it will mesh well with the tourist nature of the Dayton area. Miller says they developed a name that creates an umbrella brand. MILLER: We wanted a name and we were thinking Blue Mountain Park because it's right at the foot of the Blue Mountains but Dayton actually has a pretty old train station that they've got as a museum now and the train runs right through there and we're looking at some land that's right along the tracks. It seemed to paint a better picture than just saying Blue Mountain Park or something to actually just call it Blue Mountain Station. They are currently in the basic design phase and hope to carry the train station theme throughout the architecture. Miller says that small farmers and artisan food processors that are not currently certified organic should be able to get assistance to transition to organic. They have gotten funding from the state. MILLER: In fact we are in the second phase of state funding. Our first was the marketing plan that we did initially and then now we're in phase two which is sort of more of the initial implementation which is getting the land and all that. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.