RE: Organic farming cheaper?

Michael Straus (info@beyondorganic.com)
Tue, 5 Oct 1999 19:23:03 -0700

Regarding organic dairy - if it were cheaper (more profitable) more farms
would be doing it. As it is, there is industry growth, but 1) feed costs
are still 30-100% more expensive for organic over conventional feeds and 2)
the market infrastructure is not sufficiently developed to provide the
security necessary to convince more farmers and processors to undergo the
expensive transition. Dairy is a different animal (as it were) than
produce, with entirely different considerations.

- Michael Straus
Beyond Organic
info@beyondorganic.com

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu [mailto:owner-sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu]On
Behalf Of Steve Groff
Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 1999 4:58 PM
To: Ellen Rainwalker
Cc: sanet-mg@ces.ncsu.edu
Subject: Re: Organic farming cheaper?

I think Ann is right that the organic dairy farms are cheaper to operate. If
I
was a dairy farmer, I'd seriously consider going organic. But, growing
produce
(veggies) is entirely different then dairy and it would be misleading to
equate
costs of production for both systems and apply the results one for the
other.

Ellen Rainwalker wrote:

> Organic fertilizers and pest controls cost more, cover crop seeds
> have to be purchased, and there is a much higher cost for labour for
> fertilizing, making & spreading compost, weeding and other tasks that are
> usually done with chemicals on conventional farms,

Not much of this is done on an organic dairy farm.

I have several organic veggie friends who rely on the premium they get for
their produce to make up for the increased costs of production- most
notably,
labor. I do think their are some good organic produce growers who can indeed
grow crops cheaper then the conventional guys, but it's been my observation
that this is rare.

Steve Groff

"Enhancing the Environment" http://www.cedarmeadowfarm.com/
Cedar Meadow Farm
679 Hilldale Road
Holtwood, PA 17532 USA

To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg". If you receive the digest format, use the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg-digest".
To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"subscribe sanet-mg-digest".

All messages to sanet-mg are archived at:
http://www.sare.org/htdocs/hypermail

To Unsubscribe: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg". If you receive the digest format, use the command
"unsubscribe sanet-mg-digest".
To Subscribe to Digest: Email majordomo@ces.ncsu.edu with the command
"subscribe sanet-mg-digest".

All messages to sanet-mg are archived at:
http://www.sare.org/htdocs/hypermail