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IowaPolitics.com: Harkin looks to boost organics in new farm bill
6/18/2007

By Nicole Duran
For IowaPolitics.com

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin wants to use this year’s reauthorization of the farm bill to promote organic farming.

Harkin, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said there are numerous issues that he will address in the farm bill, which is updated every five years, but he has a special interest in organic farming.

“It’s the fastest growing segment of the food industry; it’s growing about 20 percent a year,” Harkin said in a recent interview with IowaPolitics.com. “The demand is there; the problem is supply is not there, so we have stores like Whole Foods and others importing organics from other countries. Well we could grow organics here and provide for good local income and everything.

“So that’s what I want to do — really spur the growth of organic agriculture in America; and quite frankly, you can make pretty darn good money,” Harkin said.

Besides the food safety aspect of lessening organic imports, Harkin thinks organic farming is the future for young and beginning farmers.

“I also see organics as a way to get young farmers footholds,” Harkin said.

Most younger farmers rent land and both spouses have jobs in town, he said. They usually raise livestock because it provides good cash flow but “that’s gone by the wayside,” he said.

“I see organics as the way for a lot of beginning farmers to get a foothold. You don’t have to do 1,000 acres but if you did 50 acres of organics, or even 20, that’d be a great cash flow for you.”

As with any young industry, Harkin said transitioning farmers to raising organic fruit and vegetables would initially require a little government help.

In order for food to be certified organic by the Agriculture Department, the land in which it is grown has to be pesticide free for three years.

Harkin called those three years the “valley of death” because those acres in transition cannot produce “regular” crops or organic crops, leaving the farmer with nothing to sell for three years.

Harkin proposed helping farmers through that period by writing incentives into the farm bill. He also wants to address the distribution issue.

Currently many small organic farmers take their food to local farmers’ markets. “Someone like Whole Foods can’t go to every farmer like that, they need a central place” from which to buy “so I’m thinking of setting up some kind of guaranteed loan [program] something like that” which can be used to create local marketing centers.

If farmers can combine their goods with other small farmers, the likelihood of them getting a contract with a big grocer, such as Whole Foods, is far more realistic, he said.

The incentives would extend to providing farmers’ with help in marketing their goods and in forming co-ops, he said.

Harkin is no stranger to promoting the growth of more fruits and vegetables or organic goods.

“When I was chairman last time I started putting fruits and vegetable programs in the bill,” he said. “I expect to have a full title. I think this time we might have a specialty foods title” as well, he surmised.

Harkin said that if all goes to plan, Congress could deliver a farm bill for President Bush to sign by the end of September.


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