Organic Surevey

Organic Survey. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

Recently the Census of Agriculture released the results of their survey of farms and ranches across the U.S. According to Chris Mertz, Oregon Field Office director for USDA’s NASS another group of farmers should be watching their mail.

MERTZ: The Organic Production Survey is actually a supplement to the 2007 Census of Ag. It’s our first wide-scale survey of organic farming in the United States. For those individuals that reported organic production on the Census of Agriculture we asked a few limited questions there and in broad categories, those folks will be selected to be in our sample to ask them more detailed questions.

Mertz says they use other means of finding organic producers.

MERTZ: Plus whatever other means we’ve had to make sure to make sure we didn’t miss anybody else, any new people that might be in transition into organics or any new people that are certified, we want to make sure we don’t miss anybody else.

As mentioned the original Census had some broad organic questions but Mertz says they are really going to narrow that down.

MERTZ: In this case we’re going to have more breakdown in the production and sales of fruits and vegetables, tree nuts, berries, field crops, livestock and poultry but are also going to be asking about different production practices for organic farming. Different pest management plans, cover crops, do they utilize crop rotation or tillage and water management, too.

Those surveys will be in the mail soon. We’ll talk more tomorrow with Chris Mertz.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.